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The Master’s Thesis: Overcoming Its Challenges - The Writing Workshop PDF-NOTE: Internet Explorer Users, right click the PDF Icon and choose [save target as] if you are experiencing problems with clicking. Print

While it is too soon to say definitively, feedback from students indicates that they are finding all of the changes noted above very beneficial, both practically and psychologically. For example, requiring students to include in the prospectus a schedule for completing chapter drafts illuminates the realities of accomplishing a major project in a timely manner, provides a structure for accomplishing it, and elicits a sense of commitment to that structure. This has proven to be helpful, yet students still often end up not meeting that schedule. Thus, this past academic year I initiated the writing workshop, with the goal of creating a supportive intellectual environment in which participants committed to and met writing deadlines. At the beginning of each semester the group developed a biweekly schedule: each member agreed to produce a thesis prospectus or chapter draft by a particular date, and another member volunteered to serve as respondent. The author distributed his or her prospectus or chapter draft to the group a few days before the scheduled workshop, everyone read it, and the respondent prepared a written response. The author opened the meeting with a few introductory remarks to set up the context for the chapter or prospectus and highlight where he or she felt it needed participants’ ideas and input, the respondent read the response, and then everyone discussed the piece.

The workshop was successful beyond my expectations, although there were also some challenges. Having made commitments to the group, all participants met their writing deadlines and received crucial feedback from the other members; other minds thinking about one’s work allowed for new perspectives and insights at a point when often the author was so immersed in the project that it was hard to "see the forest for the trees." Sometimes the feedback was as simple (but profound) as suggesting that a chapter open with a vignette drawn from an informant introduced in the previous chapter to provide a transition between the two chapters. Other times the recommendations were as complex as challenging the methods and theories an author was using to interpret the materials. I was surprised and impressed by the thoughtfulness and insights that emerged from the students’ careful attention to one another’s work and their sense of professionalism. At the end of the spring semester I asked each of them to write a paragraph or two describing their experiences in the workshop: what worked well, what did not, and how it might be more effective.

Students unanimously found the workshop to be "incredibly helpful" and "invaluable." Noting especially the psychological angst evoked by the "daunting task" of producing a thesis and the "desperate isolation" and "painful and lonely process" of writing, they found that being part of the group, "seeing the successes and struggles of others," created a "sense of solidarity" with those encountering the same psychic challenges. The group "established writing as a collective process rather than an isolated pursuit, [and] it fostered both empathy and critical evaluation." In practical terms, the feedback participants gave and received provided "guidance and direction" and "offered solutions that ultimately led to the conclusion that my efforts had not been wasted, but rather simply needed refinement." For one student, “the most important aspect of the reading group is having an ability to talk about your work and flesh out your ideas more thoroughly.” Another emphasized the aspect of professional development: "These collaborative exercises contribute to honing students’ writing as well as equally important techniques of evaluation, critique, and commentary." And for another, "the greatest benefit of participating in the thesis workshop has been that it has instilled a sense that I am becoming an authority on my subject. My colleagues come to our sessions armed with thoughtful questions that force me to clarify my thinking and my arguments. I usually leave our meetings with a greater sense of what I am trying to do with my research than when I arrive."

The primary practical goal of the workshop was met: participants completed work that otherwise they would not have accomplished in such a timely manner and it was better work. Psychologically speaking, engaging with a cohort of colleagues, all struggling with the same sense of isolation that the research and writing process tends to engender, provided a supportive environment that helped to mitigate the unsettling periods of lack of perspective on and confidence in one’s work, the "vacillation between inspiration and crisis," as one participant put it. 



 

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