Academic Discipline: Humanities

What motivated you to complete the doctoral degree?

As I completed my master degree, I decided to go on to the doctoral degree because I wanted to teach at the college level and I thought my chances were better with a doctorate than with an M.A. It certainly was an option to go to work first and come back to graduate school, but I had just gotten married, my husband and I were already used to being poor, and he was willing to support me until I finished my degree. I was 21 years old when I started graduate school; 23 when I started my doctorate. In addition, I watched a number of women who had come back to graduate school after raising their families and that looked like a terribly difficult way to do it, so I decided to continue until I finished.

How did you select your dissertation topic?

Even though my degree is in English, my primary field is composition and rhetoric, not the traditional literatures. I wanted to do a dissertation that would be useful to writers and teachers of writing. I was volunteering for an AIDS service agency and was very aware of the misinformation and misunderstandings about HIV/AIDS that were so prevalent at the time (circa 1988). My interests came together around the topic of how writers can best convey complex scientific and medical information to general readers and enable the readers to make informed choices about their lives. Of course, like everyone else, I did consider a number of topics before settling on this one.

How did you select your dissertation committee?

I had a wonderful dissertation director, a teacher of writing and rhetoric who had been my advisor throughout graduate school. She was a natural choice because I had already done so much work with her. I also chose a linguist because I had planned to do a linguistic analysis of the texts I was examining, a professor of Philosophy who was writing on the ethics of HIV/AIDS, and a medical doctor who treated HIV/AIDS patients (and for whom I had edited several articles and part of a book). I don't remember the exact process for selecting these committee members, but I'm sure my director helped me identify the types of expertise I needed on my committee.

Tell me about the design of your dissertation study?

I chose 20 texts, half from popular sources (such as Time magazine) and half from more scientific sources that contained information about HIV/AIDS for the purpose of educating the reader. I had medical experts evaluate the texts for scientific accuracy, HIV/AIDS workers and volunteers evaluate them for accuracy, and good readers evaluate them for rhetorical effectiveness. In addition, I calculated reading level, average sentence length, and other markers of reading difficulty. I compared the evaluations and the features of the texts to determine which writing techniques seemed to best convey accurate information that readers could use for decision making.

What was the significance of your dissertation study and how is this information useful in the world of education?

You mean dissertations are supposed to be significant and useful? (Sorry, I couldn't resist.) I don't know that anyone else has gotten anything out of it, but I certainly learned some things that I use in my own writing and teaching: readers do want numbers – they aren't necessarily turned off by them -- but they also want to be told what the numbers mean; shorter sentences do not necessarily make the material easier to understand if the connections between ideas are omitted; etc.

What challenges did you encounter in completing your dissertation?

(1) Finding volunteers who were willing and who had the time to serve as evaluators. Being a poor graduate student, I couldn't pay them, but I did feed a few of them while they did the work. (2) Getting the last bit done while working a full-time job. I started working full-time as a technical writer while I finished the dissertation. To finish, I wrote computer manuals 8 hours a day at work and wrote another 8 hours a day at home on the dissertation, plus at least 16 hours on the weekend. It was grueling, but worth it.

What tips can you offer to students for completing a dissertation?

(1) Your dissertation is not your life's work; find a topic you can manage for the dissertation so you can then get on with your life's work. (2) Pick a topic you love – you're going to be living very closely with it for quite a while. (3) Set aside time that is devoted to working on your dissertation as if writing it is your job. Don't wait to be in the mood, and don't get distracted by the laundry that needs washing or the house that needs straightening. It will still be there when writing time is done. (4) Allow yourself time to do something mindless so your subconscious can work if you're stuck; I've resolved many writing problems in the...