Tag Archives: writing

Dissertation, prospectus, Ravynn, Ravynn: Act 4, Ravynn: Act 4, Scene 1, Research, The Journey, Uncategorized, writing

Writing (and Defending) A Prospectus

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In my Ph.D. program, after successfully completing your comprehensive exams, you then produce a prospectus. The prospectus is, in many ways, a speculative document. Think of it as a proposal for the dissertation: you are creating something that outlines the main research questions, the methodology, the existing literature, and your proposed intervention, while also giving your committee a sense of your timeline to completion. A prospectus is multi-faceted and multi-functional, thereby making it one of the most difficult genres of writing.

To start writing my prospectus, the first thing I did was check my handbook to see what the parameters and expectations were. These were the instructions given:

“The prospectus will give a full description of the inquiry to be undertaken. It will identify an issue or problem, explain how this bears upon or intervenes in a particular field of scholarship, relate the topic to previous and on-going works, detail the several parts of the project and show their interrelations, name the key primary sources, outline the principle methods, and suggest a timetable for completion. Such a prospectus should run between 3500 and 5000 words (approximately 14-20 pages) and should include as a supplement a bibliography of the principal primary and secondary sources.”

 

Next, I broke this up into sections that I knew I needed to answer:

  • Description of the inquiry
  • Identify an issue or problem
  • Explain how this intervenes in a field of scholarship
  • Relate the topic to previous or on-going works
  • Detail the parts of the project
  • Name the sources
  • Methodology
  • Timetable to completion

After I had the barebones structure, I reached out to a few trusted colleagues who were ahead of me in the same program, hoping to see their prospecti. I asked for and received about three prospecti to examine. Looking at their documents gave me a sense of how to structure my own.

Admittedly, I did something a little unconventional in terms of writing my first draft. The week after my oral comprehensive exam, I did a week long writing retreat sponsored by William & Mary Libraries, and spent five entire days just writing. I simply worked on drafting responses to each of the sections, and took advantage of being in the library to help build my bibliography and source material. By that Friday, I had a 20 page outline for what would eventually become my prospectus.

Following the retreat, with the exception of adding a section about the creative component I wanted to produce, I left it alone for almost the entire summer, coming back to it just before the start of the fall semester. Being able to leave it was a Godsend because I was able to reapproach my questions and methodology with fresh eyes and new ideas. I spent about two weeks stitching together my blocks of text, smoothing them out, connecting them more seamlessly until the document flowed as a cohesive unit.

Once I was happy with the way it read, I started to send it out to my chairs. Both offered substantive content and structural edits, which I took to heart and used to make my prospectus stronger.

After making the appropriate edits, I emailed the professors who would serve as my committee for my Prospectus Colloquium. In many programs, the defense of the prospectus is a much bigger deal than it is in mine. For some, one is not considered a candidate or “All But Dissertation” (ABD) until successful completion of the prospectus defense. In my program, we don’t even consider the colloquium “a defense;” it’s much more of a conversation about the project, a low key way to offer feedback that should propel you forward and help mold your path further.

Indeed, my colloquium was just that. Everyone was pleased with my proposed project, my methodology, my conversation with theorists, my proposed research and the creative component. They offered a few suggestions of note which would help me structure my chapters and overall narrative. Despite the project being “innovative” and “trail-blazing,” one of my chairs had very valid concerns about my work being legible in a way that would secure me a job.

I’m not sure I allayed her fears when I informed her that I’m not worried about being legible to older, white folks on search committees. My work is for Black girls that were and are like me. As long as I’m writing for them, I’m walking in my purpose and that is all I can ask for. Like I told my mother after the colloquium, I’m at a point where I’m no longer super concerned about landing a job in the Academy after I finish the Ph.D. I have so many skills and passions that something will turn up for me. That said, I have never been one who believed in simply waiting for things to fall in my lap. You must stay sharp and prepared so when opportunity comes knocking, you are ready. For me, that means getting my work out there in a variety of ways so that when the right opportunity comes, I can take it.

For the time being, I need to consider my next steps, which includes making an obnoxious, color-coded outline for my dissertation; pasting a timeline (also color-coded) to my bathroom mirror; creating a dissertation hashtag; and opening a new file in Scrivener. So that’s what I’m doing this weekend.

I’m ready to begin in earnest.

If you are a graduate student in American Studies or a related field, and need help formulating your prospectus, I am happy to send mine along. Just reach out via email or DM and say a little about who you are, what your project is and how you think seeing my prospectus could help you along.

Ravynn, Ravynn: Act 4, Ravynn: Act 4, Scene 1, Readings, Teaching, Uncategorized, writing

Teaching Writing

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The most gratifying part of being a Teaching Assistant (TA) this semester has been the work I’ve been able to do with students on their writing. I didn’t even realize how important teaching writing was to me until I had to do it. But I love when students email me, knock on my door or catch me after class to ask to work on their papers. I love when I have a question about a sentence or a phrase, then they tell me what they were trying to say, and I’m able to reply, “Yes. You need to write exactly what you just said.” And I love handing back A papers to students who think they’re weak writers because someone told them once upon a time that they weren’t.

I had a chat with my students recently about writing. I encouraged them to shift the way they think about it, with the understanding that in some ways, they can’t. Taking approximately 15-18 credits requires likely dozens of papers a semester and it’s very difficult to give the proper amount of time and attention to each and every paper. You often don’t have the time to write drafts well in advance to get feedback from your professor or TA. You’re simply trying to crank those babies out to make sure you have something to turn in.

When that’s your reality, it’s difficult to think of papers as anything but a means to an end, a hoop you have to jump through. In all honesty, I can count on one hand the number of papers I actually remember writing in undergrad. Remember, as a French and Comparative Literature double major, and an International Relations minor, I probably wrote hundreds of papers. And yet.

Still, with all of that in mind, I still proposed a perspective shift. Instead of thinking of writing as another thing you have to do, think of it as an opportunity to share the thoughts and opinions you have about our films, backed up with evidence and careful analysis.

Yet another problem I’m up against as a TA is the way we present writing as an individualistic enterprise. Because folks have so many papers to write during the semester, it feels like you have to lock yourself up in a study room in the library until you have no more words. I reminded my students that that’s absolutely not how writing works professionally. Every writer that we read in class, every book that you get in the bookstore…all published writers have editors. They have friends and family and mentors that read their words with a red pen of love at the ready. They workshop their words. That’s why the “Acknowledgements” section of books exist. Writing is a communal process, but we present it as something you do alone. So I try to make it as clear as possible that I am willing and able to work with them on their words, because they shouldn’t have to be in this alone.

I try to be as sincere as possible when I tell them I look forward to reading their words. Yes, it is my job to read and comment, but I’m curious as to what they think and how they think, especially if they’re quieter in class and discussion. Papers are a chance for you to flex a little, but it gives you the time and space to think through your response if you’re not as willing to jump in to a conversation with only a half formed thought. I try not to think of their papers as more work for me, but a chance to get to know my students a little better. I think of my comments as engagement with their thoughts.

I perhaps do all of these because I want them to love writing as much as I do. I know my efforts won’t matter to many of them, no perspective shift will occur. And that’s fine. But as long as I’m clear that for at least this semester, they have someone who cares deeply about writing and their words, I will have done my job.

So many articles exist on best writing practices and how the greatest writers write, but so much of that is crap. No, you don’t have to write every day to be an effective writer. You should practice as regularly as you can, but every body is different, every life is different, every circumstance is different. As much as I would love to write fiction all day every day, I mostly write during the summer and winter break when I have extended periods of time to devote to that manuscript. Do I write every day? Mostly every day, yes. But I consider many different things to be a part of the writing process. Tweeting is writing, blogging is writing, journaling is writing, reading is writing, note taking is writing, outlining is writing, drafting is writing, revising and editing is writing. I do at least one or more of those things every single day, but not because I’m practicing every day writing. Writing is part of my self-care, my self-expression, how I feel whole.

What I didn’t know also makes me feel whole is helping someone else craft clear and substantive prose, helping someone find their voice and run with it, and encouraging them at every step of the process. I love being a sounding board, an editor, a cheerleader– all important parts of writing. I love it all. Teaching writing is difficult, as is writing, but I still manage to find joy in it every day.

Intermission 3, The Journey, Uncategorized, writing

Notes from a Writers’ Retreat

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In a previous BGDGS post (“Daydreaming: An Ode to Life Post Comps”), I wrote about how I would care for myself after comps. One of my suggestions was to do a writing retreat, but when I imagined this, I figured I would have to pay for it out of my own pocket. Never in my wildest dreams did I think a writing retreat would literally fall out of the sky and into my lap.

And yet it did. William & Mary Libraries hosts a week long writing retreat for faculty in the spring after graduation (and I believe in the winter, too). This was the first time they decided to open it up to a limited number of graduate students and I jumped at the chance. I applied for a spot before I went under my exams rock, and by the next Monday, I was in.

I have been riding a high since I finished and passed comps last Thursday, so this retreat came at a perfect time. I was still so jazzed and energized that I wrote a solid draft of my prospectus* in four days of work, wrote a draft of a 200 word abstract for a journal submission and worked on a strategic plan for a new project I am developing.

In addition to all the good work I’ve been getting done, being a participant of the Writers’ Retreat earned me a swag bag filled with a nice W&M notebook and pen, as well as a travel cup. Not to mention, breakfast and lunch each day were provided. Did I mention I didn’t have to pay for any of this? They literally set up ideal conditions in which you have your own private space to work, nourishment, meetings with research librarians if you need them and a pretty steady supply of caffeinated beverages.

Despite being alone in my writing room for hours at a time, I found that I have met a bunch of really amazing people here. Breakfast and lunch are communal, and we share space with a bunch of other faculty retreats happening, including May Seminars, the Film & Media Studies Retreat, and the Coll 100 workshops. So I got to see a lot of faculty that I love, as well as meet new folks, including many of the librarians and a particularly cool Classical Studies professor.

The Provost Fellowship Writing Retreat is also happening this week. A few of my American Studies pals got Provost Fellowships and so they’re here in a different part of the library working away, though I do get to see them upon occasion during lunch.

It’s been a really nice week. I got a lot of writing done and had a lot of good fun with my buds while doing so. I hope to do this again in the future when I’m in the throes of actual dissertating.

William & Mary Libraries was right on time with the Writers’ Retreat– this was the perfect way to jumpstart my summer.

*The prospectus is the next milestone I have to conquer. This is essentially the proposal for your dissertation project. Different programs have different ways of dealing with the prospectus, but at W&M in American Studies, our handbook requires that the prospectus be 3,500-5,000 words (14-20 pages) and it should include: the problem, your intervention, a brief investigation of the fields and studies this work will build upon, an outline of your chapters and the work you seek to do in each section, primary sources you will be drawing from, methodologies, and a timeline for completion. After getting this document approved by my advisor(s) I will then have a colloquium where I will present my prospectus for feedback as I move into the formal dissertation.