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[tee_bee]

tee_bee, I have nothing to add on the actual topic, I just wanted to say that I think your efforts to help the grad student that no one else has taken the time to help are incredible and amazing.  You are exactly the type of adviser I hope to be--the one that makes a solid effort to get the student through.  I hope things settle out well for everyone involved without taking too much away from your work.

Thanks! I appreciate it. My colleagues can't believe I am still working with this student.For some reason I seem to get the lost causes--I am thinking of getting a St. Jude figurine in my office. But I do think this student can redeem himself.

And thanks to everyone for all your comments and suggestions. Where we stand now: my student has hired a local editor--whose duties will be strictly editorial, not substantive. And he's sent me some of his data so I can help him solve some of his data problems--he may just need to use the same data but more appropriate techniques. And, frankly, I don't think he was well mentored earlier on diss writing--combine this with my student's sometimes subborn approach and he's in a big hole. What's been a good sign is that after his committee suggested that there are major problems, he took a day,dusted himself off, and got right back on the horse. So I am more hopeful than I used to be.

[hobbit]

[The other members of the committee feel that s/he should just hire an English MA student with a good writing record to help him see how to write better. Does this make any sense?

This is not a particularly good idea. A crack dissertation editor identifies holes in logic and forces the writer to create a  document that is acceptable in the relevant scientific discipline. The editor will address scientific thinking as much as scientific writing. There are some excellent dissertation editors out there who see their primary role as teaching grad students and junior faculty (for articles, obviously) how to write in the appropriate style. Other editors merely edit copy for grammar, punctuation, etc. The excellent dissertation editors may ask your student for verification that use of their services is acceptable, and may even consult with the dissertation advisor.  Most of them are discipline-specific dissertation editors, or consult in only a few areas.  Beware of the editor who claims to be able to work with any dissertation, unless the writing problems are trivial.

The writing center at our university has skilled dissertation editors such as I just described, and they provide the services online, usually in 45 minute increments. If this is not available to your student, s/he will have to shell out some serious change, but it will be worth it if s/he intends to publish in the future. It's probably a good idea to first work with the editor on a small sample of writing to ensure that s/he will get the kind of help s/he needs. If not, try another until the editor meets his needs and your expectations.

I echo reesespeanutbutter's comments, too!

On preview, I just saw that the student already found an editor. I'll post this in case anyone else has the same question.

[hobbit]

<post deleted>
Sorry - somehow I managed to post twice.

[dellaroux]

I've posted elsewhere that there are academic editors who do this kind of coaching and who know and respect the lines between editing/coaching and writing/thinking for the student.

Glad the student has found someone; it would be interesting to hear how this progresses.

[tee_bee]

Thanks, Hobbit, for your comment. I am just a bit concerned by the idea of hiring a "crack dissertation editor." I think your suggestion may conflict with the advice offered by others--that the editor must not cross the line between being an editor and doing the heavy lifting in the research. Of course, the writing is itself heavy lifting, which is why this whole thing leaves me conflicted and with a bad case of heartburn. I decided to urge my student to just get the editing done first--I will coach him to the extent I can the rest of the way.

Sometimes I wonder who the primary clients of these hard-core diss editors are. I strongly suspect--but have no information--that their client pool is stocked with Ed.D.s, which would make sense because so many of these "coaches" have that "degree" themselves, or have backgrounds in academic administration, not in anything that remotely resembles a science--even by the loose standards of my social science discipline. All the "how to write your dissertation in a week" books I read as a grad student seem aimed at Ed.D's who want to write the "dissertation" but who don't want to put much effort into it. Kind of like my current student, although he's getting religion now.

All this would have been easier had my student (1) stayed in town rather than wandering the nation as an adjunct and (2) taken advice offered him earlier. Sigh.

[Sorry for any typos--been writing all day on a small laptop. I am just about blind now.]

[dellaroux]

While in between degrees, I worked as an editor/writing coach, helping to bring one dissertation and one book that began life as a dissertation to birth. My manifest (speaking of those, elsewhere) became:

   The good editor/writing coach functions as a consultant, making suggestions, then backing off for the writer to decide which  (if any) of them to implement.

   The good editor/writing coach functions as the ticking clock, reminding the writer who might be inclined to get lost in minutiae of the need to maintain a wider focus on their work.

   The good editor/writing coach provides a marked-text file and an "as if" read-only file with all suggestions accepted, but the writer is the one who decides what, when, and if to use of that work.

   The good editor/writing coach does not engage in arguments or sales-pitches for or against certain changes, but simply offers their opinion and steps aside.

   The good editor/writing coach remains informed and aware of changes in required editorial/press styles as needed for a given project, and has a good command of language, diacriticals, and formal usage.

   The good editor/writing coach is paid fairly and according to schedule for the work as agreed upon, and has a contract and set of written agreements for the writer to refer to.

   The good editor/writing coach offers motivational assistance (short- and long-term goal-planning; time management suggestions; accountability structures) but is not invested in the writer's final success.

I know of several others in quite a few editors' groups who offer similar support and make similar efforts to maintain ethical and artistic standards in their work. There may of course be others, but it would not be fair to paint all editor/coaches with the same brush.

[arty_]

Your description of your inherited graduate student is that of a person who is not currently in an intellectual, financial or time-management position to complete a dissertation, well, if at all. Is it not possible that this person can not or should not be pursuing this degree at this time? Not everybody who starts finishes their Ph.D. And some people do take time off and then complete.

The heroics you describe seem like an immense time and psychological drain for you. I suggest that they may be taking you from your own research, and taking away from your energy in  nurturing the students who are present, ready and able to complete their graduate careers. This person needs much more than a nudge and a cheery word of encouragement.

You can not save them all, nor can you save them from themselves.

[msparticularity]

Thanks, Hobbit, for your comment. I am just a bit concerned by the idea of hiring a "crack dissertation editor." I think your suggestion may conflict with the advice offered by others--that the editor must not cross the line between being an editor and doing the heavy lifting in the research. Of course, the writing is itself heavy lifting, which is why this whole thing leaves me conflicted and with a bad case of heartburn. I decided to urge my student to just get the editing done first--I will coach him to the extent I can the rest of the way.

Sometimes I wonder who the primary clients of these hard-core diss editors are. I strongly suspect--but have no information--that their client pool is stocked with Ed.D.s, which would make sense because so many of these "coaches" have that "degree" themselves, or have backgrounds in academic administration, not in anything that remotely resembles a science--even by the loose standards of my social science discipline. All the "how to write your dissertation in a week" books I read as a grad student seem aimed at Ed.D's who want to write the "dissertation" but who don't want to put much effort into it. Kind of like my current student, although he's getting religion now.

All this would have been easier had my student (1) stayed in town rather than wandering the nation as an adjunct and (2) taken advice offered him earlier. Sigh.

[Sorry for any typos--been writing all day on a small laptop. I am just about blind now.]

Tee_bee, I think what you are pointing to here is the difference between a practitioner's degree and a researcher's degree. The purpose of the EdD is to demonstrate that the individual has basic competence in/understanding of the standard research practices in his/her own specialty. This is, indeed, sufficient for a practitioner. The PhD, however, is a researcher's degree, and requires competence beyond a very basic level.

It sounds to me as if your student is, at best, in the practitioner category. This used to be enough for a teaching-focused position, either at a CC or at a basic four-year institution, and PhDs used to be awarded for it if the awarding institution was comfortable with sending the student out to embark upon a teaching career. Now, however, the PhD often encompasses an expectation for research competence that your student does not appear to have. Depending upon your institution's historic record and its aspirations, awarding this student a PhD might be justified, or it might be a serious problem. Do you have a sense from a senior mentor of whether this could be a risk for you in either direction?

[tee_bee]

Good comments, Msp'ity. My current program's PhD program is a bit over 10 years old. It's intended to be a research degree, although we get a lot of practitioners in our field. I agree that this student is more suited to practice than research in the sense that this student could probably train MPA students reasonably well (we're a Pub Admin program).  I'm not sure our program's current aspirations are lofty. But I was brought in as a senior hire (hired as a full prof) so I guess I am supposed to (ha!) know what I am doing here. But you're absolutely right about local culture and norms, and it's important to note that it was one of my "senior" colleagues (in terms of longevity here, and whose judgement I fully trust) who raised the idea of an editor. But one of the reasons I was hired was to help improve departmental visibility and, with the recent hiring of amazing junior faculty, help all of us and our students step up our game. This is not necessarily compatible with my students' goals--but he was admitted >7 years go, when department aspirations were different and entrance requirements were not so stringent.

There's so many moving parts to all this that it would take years to explain (next book?).

[hobbit]

Thanks, Hobbit, for your comment. I am just a bit concerned by the idea of hiring a "crack dissertation editor." I think your suggestion may conflict with the advice offered by others--that the editor must not cross the line between being an editor and doing the heavy lifting in the research. Of course, the writing is itself heavy lifting, which is why this whole thing leaves me conflicted and with a bad case of heartburn. I decided to urge my student to just get the editing done first--I will coach him to the extent I can the rest of the way.

Your student is lucky that you are coaching him. In my case, my adviser experienced some personal downturns and became completely disengaged from his students. He has not made a single comment on anything we have done since his own personal misfortunes occurred. In my case, he has not commented on any of my research or the dissertation, despite multiple requests. Our department chair said that s/he was helpless to change the situation.

Faced with the situation of losing a chance at the degree, I found an editor who functioned as an adviser and was very tough. Of course I did all the research and all the analysis.   The editor never overstepped any ethical boundaries, but questioned and critiqued me every step of the way, providing me with challenging, informative help.

Unfortunately, hearing from many other students who have had similar situations, or worse, I think that more advisers are assuming that students will find their own editors, taking them off the hook for guiding the dissertation process.  Your student is fortunate that you have not gone down that path.

[tee_bee]

Thanks, Hobbit. I am not letting my student off the hook, as far as communicating in standard English goes. But I really have to get out of the habit of editing my students' work. I am moving more toward the "this isn't in English--you figure it out" model. I will mark things here and there. But no more pro bono editing.

It is indeed possible that this student cannot or should not get a PhD. But I am not going to give him much of a chance to blame it on bad advising.