As I perused the stacks of books in the exhibition area of a recent conference, I started eavesdropping on a nearby conversation between two young men who were discussing their dissertations. I chuckled when I heard their exchange of dissertation-ese that was loaded with jargon and used overly complicated sentence structures.
Several past threads in the Chronicle forums have noted the importance of understanding that job candidates must learn to use care in discussing their dissertations in job interviews. The reality is that while their dissertations are the most important things in their lives at the moment, once defended, those dissertations will pass into a kind of academic purgatory. For most faculty members, especially those at teaching institutions, new projects will come along, new course preps, and even new theories in the discipline. One of my doctoral mentors frequently urged students to avoid selecting dissertation topics that were overly dear to their hearts; he said that by the time you are through writing it and then turning it into publishable material for the first few years of your career, you would hate the topic. Your life, in short, would move on.
How much do you actually use your dissertation in whatever career stage you find yourself?
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8 Responses to The Future of the Dissertation
lizgibbons - November 23, 2009 at 7:24 am
Yes, your life will move (one would hope!), but if you were fortunate enough to have a mentor who supported your choice of a topic dear to your heart, then perhaps, like me, you’ll feel moved to return to it years later, realize the juicy potential still pulsing beneath all the dry dissertation-ese, and re-”discover” it as new-yet-familiar material. I look back over the research I did for my dissertation and think, “Damn! It (I) was good!” and am now starting to deconstruct and rework it.
ksledge - November 23, 2009 at 8:52 am
I’m so glad that our school subscribes to the “three manuscript” option for dissertations. All we need to do is publish journal articles just like any faculty member would. When it’s time to graduate, select three of them that fit together thematically, put together a short intro, and then you’ve got a dissertation! Meanwhile, your journal articles are most certainly not in academic purgatory.
cwinton - November 23, 2009 at 12:23 pm
I agree with the prior posters and for similar reasons. Perhaps schools where this kind of culture is not the norm need to revisit how dissertation work is approached in their programs.
d_f_b - November 23, 2009 at 2:43 pm
In my subfield, theses and dissertations are pretty frequently cited, actually–not an “academic purgatory” of any sort at all.
shammond9 - November 23, 2009 at 6:08 pm
Memo to self: do not read “Chronicle” as a break from writing dissertation.
drj50 - November 24, 2009 at 1:35 pm
I completed a mid-life dissertation four years ago and managed to get it published recently in a distinguished monograph series. I am in the process of expanding the (predictably narrow) topic into a more popular book.Perhaps because my dissertation came later in life, I had already been working within a larger area of study. For the disseration, I chose a narrow topic within that larger area of interest. The dissertation contributed to my study of that larger area. It informs related work, even as I turn my attention elsewhere. I am grateful that I don’t have to abandon it even as I focus on other (but still related) questions.
rweinel - November 26, 2009 at 2:30 am
I am still in the process of writing, but I am actually really annoyed about it. Not that I don’t like my project. But I actually want to pursue a career outside academia, but nevertheless a lot of jobs I am interested in request a Ph.D. (at least here in Germany/ Western Europe) even though it is not necessarily a useful qualification for the particular job. Instead of the 5 years I need to complete my thesis while working and acquiring the skills really necessary for my desired career I’d prefer to have the time to acquire additional qualifications like foreign language or special software skills.
samojiaka - December 4, 2009 at 1:48 pm
The topic of dissertation can always come handy and can be revised and published as far as one has same thought process and same ideas as in the original dissertation.The only thing is if it took many years to publish,new ideas can be added to make it more interesting for currrent readers to see and appreciate.