Complete Your Dissertation or Thesis in Two Semesters or Less [Paperback]

It was obvious to me that some people who wrote reviews only read the title and sample pages, or just didn't comprehend the message of the book.

The author does NOT say a dissertation is the same as a thesis. What the author DOES say, is that a dissertation or thesis CAN be completed in two semesters of less. The author does NOT say your dissertation should only be 100 pages. What the author DOES say, is that 100 pages is an INITIAL GOAL, and that your thesis or dissertation will probably have more pages than that.

Many dissertation guides out there (and I feel like I have read them all) talk about things like topic selection, emotions of being a grad student, statistics, and choosing/working with committee members. This book also touches on all those topics. What this book does better than all the others, is to help you lay out an actual plan to writing the dissertation. (i.e. how long will you need for the lit review, how long will you need for data collection, etc.) The book helps you map it all out whether you are in the sciences, humanities, or somewhere in between.

If you are already pretty far along with your dissertation, you probably won't get much from this book. If you are in the first half, or you are coming back to the dissertation after time away from it, this book will help you get into gear. If I had to recommend one dissertation guide, this one would be it.

Although there are examples drawn from the humanities and social sciences, the book is primarily intended for those in the sciences and engineering and will be of little help for ones in the humanities. Much of what it contains actually sounds very different from how things are really done in the humanities. Certainly, some of what it says is right on the money to humanists too, but even so, it is really more about the tried and true way of doing doctoral research in any field than about giving some 'innovative' ways of finishing the dissertation real quick. But then there wouldn't be such a thing as a quick fix for a stuck doctoral disseratation. To sum up, since there's nothing new and little helpful in this book for humanists, if you're one of them, look elsewhere. Joan Bolker's Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day does look much better than this one.

Dissertation timelines are typically very long, often taking years to complete. This dissertation guide presents constructive advice on how to move through all phases of a dissertation project as quickly and headache-free as possible. While the time frame suggested by the title -two semesters or less--is unrealistic, following Ogden's advice will certainly lead to an earlier completion date.

Although every chapter in the book is helpful, I found chapters covering committee choice and topic selection of particular interest. Ogden presents a variety of different professor-profiles as potential advisor (mentor) candidates. She succinctly elaborates on the factors that a PhD candidate should consider when choosing an advisor, including his or her availability, career position, commitments, interests, capability, and personality type. As I read this chapter, I began to reevaluate my own assumptions about what a good advisor is in terms of the bottom line--completing the dissertation.

The chapter on choosing a dissertation topic was full of useful information, although the author certainly guts any idealism or excitement when she says, "Make your objective a topic that is `tolerably non-boring,' a topic that has a high potential for success (finishing)" (p. 38). True to the title of the book, the chapter (as is with every chapter) is all about being practical. Topic choice is dictated by such considerations as access to the data, feasibility of data collection, and short-cut means-to-an-end topic mining (rather than interest).

The emphasis on efficiency and practicality, coupled with the brevity of the text, leads to some problems, however. In the chapter on research design, Ogden champions the experimental method over every other type, attempting to keep things as simple as possible. Not only does she leave out other types of quantitative approaches, such as observational studies, but she seems completely ignore any qualitative method. Speaking of case study research, she erroneously claims that "it is difficult to draw conclusions from the data and justify them with what amounts to a small sample" (p. 42). While it may be hard, if not impossible to make statistical generalizations with small case study samples, analytic generalizations and generalizations using case-comparison strategies are often made (see Yin's Case Study Research: Design and Method). Rather than arguing for a particular method, perhaps the author could have argued for using a structured method and provided more design options. Further, because design and topic choice are interdependent, the student may find an experimental design does not fit the topic of choice.

A final caveat I have with the book is, despite its realistic approach, ironically, her claim that a dissertation can be completed in two semesters or less is more fiction than reality. No wonder the author glosses over the revision process, typically a painstaking one that requires time. In Chapter 6, covering the writing phase, she states that after only three weeks of writing, "Figure another week for revision and voila--the end is in sight" (p. 85). She makes the revision process sound as quick and pain-free as painting the living room. Devoting a few pages to the revision process and how to speed up that particular end of things would have been helpful to the reader and in keeping with the practical nature of the book although might have conflicted with the book's slant. Despite such issues, the book provides a wealth of practical information when read with caution.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 14 reviews  4.1 out of 5 stars