Summer 2012 Dissertation Boot Camp - DAY 1

This summer’s dissertation boot camp is a 7-day camp, and held at the wonderfully-conducive-to-writing Grove House at Pitzer College. As one dissertator said after breakfast and orientation under the natural canopy of the outdoor classroom, “It’s like a vacation…”. Of course, this was BEFORE he had begun confronting his writing! But really, the broad porch, the outdoor classroom, and the old, comfortable-lived-in rooms in the house are great spaces for focusing on writing. It’s totally like a retreat from the whirlwind we call life, into a calm haven that supports writing and the building of good writing habits. 

If you’re curious about this amazing community house, check out this online project about it that was done as a senior thesis by Pitzer student, Leah Wellman Quayle.

DAY ONE: Dissertating at the Grove House

Early arrivals. Not too many got lost. So we got started early and ended up with time for a 2 hour first block of writing in the morning instead of one. YAY!!!

Everyone has a table, covered in the white butcher paper that has become almost iconically connected with dissertation boot camps. Some are in the three little rooms at the back of the house, and the rest upstairs in the poetry room overlooking the front, and the gallery space. But this is early summer in Southern California and we anticipate most people taking their laptops down to the living room and outdoor areas to write. 
...which they totally did! 

First order of business was breakfast and getting to know each other in the outdoor classroom … “just like going to summer camp!” And then to the accompaniment of the sound of planes from the flying school at nearby Cable Airport, we went over introductions, boot camp best practices and rules, and the week’s schedule.

Writing goals for Day 1

We spent some time on group work to share and discover niggling challenges that get in the way of dissertating, and ideas we have for over-coming these challenges, best practices to keep dissertation writing moving smoothly forward.

Overheard: "Wow! We have great strategies ... pity we're not so good at using them ..."

And that's the foundational goal at our week long boot camp - learning to put strategies into practice. This is the week to discover how we work best, and find ways to sustain writing when we're not at boot camp.

I found a nice image in the aeroplane interruptions that I will remember. At first I was a little bothered about having to constantly pause in discussion to wait for the sound to ebb as the plane passed. But then I realized it reminded me of when I write – without pause – and get so lost in detail and thinking with the writing that I run out of steam or ideas or both. Periodically waiting to pause … and breathe ...  creates moments of stillness that refocus the mind. (The extra burst of oxygen doesn’t hurt either).

How to Focus on Your Writing: Making Yourself and Your Writing Process More Visible

For the artist in all of us

 A fun and thought provoking talk by Austin Kleon

My husband sent me this while I was in the middle of the mad dash to dissertation proposal. It's a wonderful blog post by an artist Austin Kleon. He has 10 things about the process of making art. In my eyes these are also 10 things about writing a dissertation. Here is the list - but check out his post here because he says it much better ... and he has pictures!

1. Don't worry about originality ... it's all really a mash-up
2. Just do it ready or not
3. Write what you have a connection to
4. Don't forget your body - it's part of the process
5. Don't lose side projects and hobbies 
6. The secret of good work - sharing it
7. Geography is not our master - you do not have to be in this alone
8. Be nice ... 
9. Be boring ... routine, routine, routine
10. Creativity is subtraction - know your limits, less is more

Something Fishy....Academic Publishing Scams

Hello Dissertators, from the Other Side! (Also known as CGU alumni!)

I apologize for not posting much since graduation...as I’m sure many of our recent graduates have also surmised, finishing is exhausting, the job search is all-consuming, moving out of Claremont and starting over somewhere new is a full-time job, and you just can’t look at your dissertation in any kind of meaningful way for a good 6 months (at the earliest) after graduation.

You’ve got enough to think about, but if at some point people would like to hear about Plan Bs for after graduation, I’d be happy to talk about some of the things I have been doing since graduation (In addition to adjuncting, I’ve been a Standardized Patient, a Dean, a handywoman, an editor, and an actor over the past year!) I’m also currently in the process of sending my book manuscript (dissertation!) for publication. Which brings me to today....a spam e-mail I received on my CGU account ostensibly from a publisher wanting to publish my dissertation (which the e-mail manages to call my “paper” – first red flag!)

Along the lines of “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”.....

There are many, many publishing scams out there. Because I teach Creative Writing, I often warn my students about Poetry and Fiction scams, as they are the most prevalent and tend to prey on the most hopeful. However, this week I received the following e-mail to my CGU e-mail account and I suspect that everyone who recently filed a dissertation with CGU (mine was spring 2010) probably got the exact same e-mail.

Here is the spam e-mail I received:

Dear (my name),

I came to know about your academic paper entitled "(my title here) submitted in 2010, while I was performing research at the The Claremont Graduate University's repository.
We are currently planning publications in this subject field and therefore we would be glad to know whether you would be interested in publishing the above mentioned work with us.

LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing is a member of an international group having nearly 10 years of experience in the publication of high-quality research works from well-known institutions worldwide.
In addition to producing printed scientific books, we also market them worldwide through more than 80,000 booksellers.

Kindly let know if you would be interested in receiving more detailed information in this regard.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
--
Yedisen Ramasamy
Acquisition Editor

I googled the name of the company and found several other people who also write about this particular scam. It’s kind of fun to see the different variations on the “acquisition editor’s” name:

http://chrisnf.blogspot.com/2009/06/academic-spam.html

http://crankycon.politicalbear.com/2009/07/10/now-this-is-a-brilliant-scam/

http://hjhop.blogspot.com/2008/12/shady-academic-publishing.html

Right now, all you are focused on is finishing. But after you finish, and after you celebrate, and probably about 8 months afterward when you can finally breathe and be normal again, it will be time to think about publishing. And that’s when an e-mail like this could really get you.

When you eventually get to the publishing stage, it is important to remember that you want to publish your dissertation with a reputable academic press. You will have to work on a query letter and proposal and choose the presses you contact very carefully, looking at the books they have published recently and whether or not your manuscript fits with what they publish.

Alas, the reputable press won’t just come knocking on its own. You will probably have to send out a lot of letters before you get any possibilities. But you’ll be an accomplished dissertator by then...if you can finish a dissertation, you can do anything!