00:01[Music] Hi everybody, this is Dr
00:08Guy E
00:15White
00:22I am the founder of The Dissertation Mentor® (www.TheDissertationMentor.com), and I want to welcome you to this really in-depth look at the dissertation literature review and how you can write a literature review in perhaps a single draft, without taking much more than a handful of weeks of your time
00:29That's really the aim of this presentation
00:31So, this is going to be an in-depth look at the dissertation literature review and how you can apply the Dissertation Mentor® mindset to your work on your literature review in a way that will benefit you
00:44When we think about the literature review, quite often the reaction is, "You want me to write how many pages of this thing?" and I often hear..
00:57Dissertation writers, if you've had this experience, you'll totally agree
00:58Quite often, what dissertation writers find is that when they write their, what they call, first draft of their literature review, they often discover that there is information being requested from them by their chair that should have been requested from the beginning
01:18Most dissertation writers say that if they knew the expectations for the literature review beforehand, they feel they would have a much greater likelihood of producing a quality first draft
01:26Additionally, many dissertation writers also say that if they just knew how to write a literature review, how to write even the first one..
01:37Three chapters of their dissertation, then they would be able to actually, uh, do it much more quickly and with much less effort, really in the end
01:48So, in general, uh, you might have had the experience of feeling exceedingly capable as a human being, exceedingly capable as a student, yet for some reason, when it comes to this dissertation and writing a literature review, there's this feeling of feeling less than capable
02:07Think for a moment— is that something that you have felt in your doctoral journey or in your writing of the dissertation, where you feel capable in many things, in many areas of your life, but when it comes to this project, it feels, for some reason, exceptionally difficult and almost hazy, like there's no clear path
02:27Forward and specifically, you feel like for something that's been done by so many people, you almost feel like there's no clear roadmap to go forward
02:38There's no way to actually get ahead in a way that makes complete sense
02:45It's almost like I've bought lots of these dissertation-related books, and I read them, and I kind of get what they're saying, but when I actually sit down to do the writing, something is not clicking, the roadmap is not working for me
03:00So, if you had a roadmap, you might feel like, wow, if I just had the right roadmap, then I could actually make progress on this thing
03:12Similarly, you might have felt that this literature review task is just such a mammoth effort; it's one of the biggest papers..
03:19Perhaps that you've ever written, and it feels as if, um, if you just knew what to do, it would be easier
03:29But right now, it just feels like this gargantuan thing that I'm adding to all the time, and I have to go find things and put them into this document
03:38Yet, it still doesn't make sense
03:42You might even say to yourself, "I've written 30 pages of this thing, but it still doesn't feel like it's clicking." Have you experienced this feeling—that if you just knew the steps, if someone just told you the steps, you could take them and actually finish this thing? That's why you're watching this video
04:01If you're watching this video and you've felt any of those things, then you're in the right place
04:08We are talking in the coming weeks ahead, and if you put, uh, if you add your comments, uh, to the comment field below, you know, call me Dr
04:14Guy
04:20And this presentation is about how to write the dissertation literature review
04:26In my opinion, win big, avoid insanity, and be a pro
04:28I just had to work in some pictures of my kids here
04:34This is on the left here; this is my daughter Lizzy Snow, and on my right here is my son Guy F
04:39And the reason I include them here is that whenever I’m approaching any project, there's that reality that I’m spending time away from my family
04:56Even though this project might be one of the top goals in my life—whatever this project is, like a dissertation—it’s taking away from those things that are my number one
05:05For you right now, think about what your number ones are
05:10What are the things that this project is keeping you from? This dissertation project, for me, whenever I'm working with doctoral candidates—whether we're doing a seminar together or working one-on-one in a coaching relationship, or if I'm, you know, a chair or a committee member for any of my doctoral candidates—is always focused on the number one question: who is your number one, and what is this project preventing you from doing and moving forward with in your life? That's the seriousness we bring to this presentation today—to remind you that there's so much waiting for you out there
05:52If you just finish this thing, you can make it
05:55Forward and keep going forward, because, you know, if you did not finish this dissertation project as much as you could, you probably would carry on and feel just grand about yourself
06:05There be just a little piece of you that felt like you didn't get what you wanted
06:10What you want is to finish, and that's what this whole presentation is about
06:17That's really what TheDissertationMentor.com is about—it's about enabling doctoral candidates to finish and providing them with a roadmap to move forward
06:24 And so, that's what we're discussing with you here today
06:25I want to thank you for allowing me the honor of being on your screen right now and for allowing me to be someone who would present to you—the fact that you're taking the time it takes
06:36Personal commitment, what I call "wherewithal," like the guts to actually be someone who would watch a video like this
06:43Not many doctoral candidates will spend the time to do something like you're doing right now
06:48What I want to say is that I'm fully committed to do whatever I can in this limited time we have here on this video to give you as much blessed content as I possibly can, to make a difference in your doctoral journey
06:59At the end of this presentation, I'm going to share some ways we can move forward together and some next steps you can take
07:08So, bear with me here
07:10Just a little about me: I've written three books, the most recent of which..
07:16The time of the recording of this is building the world's greatest high school, an awesome book with my co-author
07:21I run the most comprehensive dissertation training on the web; there are lots of trainings out there, and they're fantastic—many of which are, I should say, excellent
07:36But this one is by far the most comprehensive, and I hope you'll come to the same conclusion as well
07:45I've served on dozens of dissertation committees, either as a member or as chair
07:53So, I have practical experience in serving directly with doctoral candidates in those capacities
07:57When I actually sat down to write my dissertation some time ago, it took..
08:04Less, really, when I put my mind to it
08:07Really, when I started to work on it and work on it well, it only took me— it took me less than nine months to complete
08:15And what's shocking to most doctoral candidates is the average road—I don't know if there's any research about this, but in my experience—the average road to finish a dissertation without proper guidance can range from never finishing, but really, the average is somewhere around 18 months to three years after finishing coursework, meaning that you're totally dedicated to the dissertation project, and it takes 18 months to three years without proper guidance
08:43So my hope here is to provide you with some opportunities, some guidance, really, about how to… Waves, and to actually make progress fast and really to set the frame for this, I want to tell you this quick story about myself, which is that I just finished a master's degree, and for various reasons, which I won't get into here, I found myself during most of my free time traveling through Central and South America, and I was having a grand old time as a single guy out in the middle of nowhere, just enjoying my life
09:22Yet, there was a feeling that something was missing, maybe something big
09:26Fortunately, through a set of circumstances, I met my beautiful bride Kristen
09:35The picture on the right is probably my favorite — these are the people throwing..
09:41The bouquet at her wedding, and the, uh, you know, for me, uh, I feel like, uh, so much happened, so wonder, so much wonderful stuff happened so quickly in my life, and the reality was that I wanted to be with her and be with my new family as much as I possibly could
10:06But the reality was that I had other responsibilities
10:09We, um, we got married and had an amazing wedding, and we were living in that kind of, that pre, that, uh, early marital bliss of hanging out with one another and enjoying just the, the new possibilities of what we could build with one another in our lives
10:34And it's like standing at the threshold of possibility
10:41I mean, think about it, like, if anything was possible and you were done with your..
10:46Doctoral journey: what would happen? What would happen if you moved, if you were quickly able to move on and move forward in your doctoral journey? Like me and my wife, we got married, and there were all these possibilities that were present because we had gotten married
11:05Similarly, if you were to finish your dissertation, what would happen for you? This presentation is for you if you want to finish your dissertation quickly and well
11:15There are lots of people out there in the world who will say that they will help you finish your dissertation quickly, but the caution I always give to people who hear that kind of message is that it shouldn't be just quick—it needs to be quick and well, because well is what truly matters
11:31What finishes well is what defends well, and so that's what I want for you
11:38This presentation is also for you if you want to move on with your professional and personal life
11:44Just like my lovely bride and I, we had this — we got to the altar, we got married — but the reality was that I wasn't done with my doctorate, and so I had some journey to go through still
11:56 What would happen if that part of your journey, your doctoral journey, finally was able to come to a close? What would be available to you? And if you want to cut through the clutter of information and get a clear road map forward, this presentation is for you
12:11Are you interested? Well, then, let's get to it, shall we? So, by the end of this talk, you will most definitely have a clear roadmap
12:21of how to finish your dissertation literature review and know the steps that you need to take on a very foundational level to finish your literature review in less time than if you were just left to your own devices
12:35So, to start us off today, I just want to tell you in general what we're going to be talking about
12:42We're going to be talking about how to know exactly what needs to go into a literature review
12:50I don't want you to waste time looking for material to include in your literature review, and I don't want you to waste time writing your literature review
12:58So, we're going to be discussing that, and we're going to talk about how to actually get the information that you're seeking
13:05Organize it so well that the writing becomes truly a secondary activity; the writing is the easiest part of this
13:12So, after you've gathered the materials, the writing becomes the easiest part
13:17That's what we're going to be discussing in the middle of this presentation
13:21Also, we're going to talk about how you can communicate with your chair and your committee about your literature review, which will actually minimize the chances that they will ask you for a revision of some kind
13:33If you've ever had the experience of getting what I call a left hook from a committee member—that is, someone bringing in this strange idea that you have to incorporate into your paper—that can cost you months and sometimes
13:47Years of time, so I want to show you a way of minimizing the opportunity for that
13:53My promise is I'll be giving you the best that I can give you today, and at the end of this conversation, I'm going to provide you with the information you need to take this further if you'd like to go further
14:05I'm going to give you lots of great stuff here, and then we'll take it forward
14:08 So, with that, let's talk about this first major topic that we're discussing in this presentation today: what needs to go into a literature review
14:15Really, this is the cure for wasting your valuable time
14:19If you imagine the literature review and know exactly what needs to go inside of a literature review in a very detailed way, then you won't waste any time
14:36Finding that material and putting it into your dissertation is so important, not to waste time
14:40The literature review really is just a collection of some very specific information organized in a specific way, which we'll be discussing
14:50If you are able to gather that material and put it in there quickly, then it's not going to be such a big deal
14:57But without the proper guidance and without knowing what you're looking for, you can spin and write a draft of a literature review that can be 50 pages long, but it's still going to miss the mark
15:08And really, what it all comes down to is knowing what to get and where to get it
15:14If you know what to get and where to find it for your literature review, you're going to be in a great spot, far more than you might think
15:23More of a good spot than the person who just goes and writes 50 pages, because that's not the goal of this
15:27To write 50 pages is not the aim; the goal is to create something very specific
15:33A lot of people don't know what needs to go into a literature review, and that's where we need to begin today
15:42Most candidates make the mistake of sitting down to write a dissertation, and they just sit there and write
15:57Specifically, when it comes to the literature review, most doctoral candidates mistake thinking that the number one task is to write a literature review
16:09What I want to say to you is that this is the least productive way you could approach writing one if you are just..
16:18Sitting down, uh, at your desk or at a table or wherever you sit, and you are cracking open books and typing them into a Microsoft Word document that you call your literature review, is the least productive way of producing your literature review, only second to sitting there, uh, in a library or classroom playing Candy Crush Saga
16:39That actually makes no sense
16:41You know, clearly, there's a step before writing your literature review, called the literature search
16:54If you don't search, that is, if you don't engage in a gathering step, and you don't gather all the materials you need for your literature review first, what you'll find is that you'll just spin in the writing
17:08You'll, you might be able to write 50 pages or you might not, but it's not going to produce the type of, uh, the type of literature review that actually will withstand going through a committee, a quality review process, an IRB, or even defending
17:21And that's the worst one—if you actually get through a proposal, you present your proposal, you advance the candidacy, you get everything done, and all of a sudden you're in your oral defense, and then something goes wrong
17:34We don't want that to happen
17:35We want you to be able to write something that really, on the first or second attempt, quickly gets through
17:43And if you just knew what needs to go in there, it would be much easier
17:49And really, what the starting point here is..
17:52That you must first engage in a gathering step
17:53Most people, when they sit down to the dissertation project, don't realize that a dissertation really is a maze of nuanced, connected sections, where different sections feed into other sections
18:06You know, from the outside, it almost looks like a dissertation is a chronological document written from Chapter 1 to Chapter 5, but really, that's not true
18:14Certain sections are built directly using components of others
18:19For example, there are "brother-sister" sections, where they are almost like twins
18:24For example, your research questions, for instance, are often copied directly, verbatim, between all different sections of your literature review
18:34Brothers and sisters, excuse me, tend to mimic one another and their behavior
18:44So, chapters one and two, for example, there's kind of a mimicry that occurs between those two chapters
18:51There's a metaphorical "Mother Sun" section, meaning that mothers give birth to sons, and some sections of your literature review give birth to others
18:59If you understand this arrangement—that which sections feed into other sections—you would see that there are really some initial steps you must conduct before jumping into the writing phase of a literature review
19:16It really starts with you beginning with your purpose statement
19:22You and your chair need to come to a complete agreement
19:28Agree on what your purpose statement is before anything else
19:33If your purpose statement is unsteady, if you cannot say that this is your final draft of the purpose statement, then there's really no point in moving forward
19:43We first need to hone that down because the purpose statement really defines the variables or the theory areas that you'll be working with in your dissertation
19:54Those theory areas or variables actually end up feeding into Chapter 2, in the sense that they define what historical periods and background we need to research
20:08For example, if your purpose statement—I won't make one up now—but if your purpose statement dealt with, say, high school..
20:14Activities directors, and uh, you're looking at leadership behaviors
20:18You know, you'd want historical background about activities directors, and you'd want historical background about leadership behaviors
20:26These are two different pieces, so you'd have two different major sections in your literature review
20:31 And what goes into a literature review? What are you gathering? Well, you're gathering all research from the past, all research from the past, and that is placed and organized in chronological order
20:45There's this falsehood, this fake idea, that a literature review only can include sources that are less than five years old
20:57Well, that's not exactly true when it comes to..
20:59Mentioning the most current research, yes, you most definitely need to include the most recent research that comes from these different theory areas, but the reality is a literature review is all the research, all the findings, and all the history of a time period, going back to the times of your topic all the way to the present
21:20So, we need to find those seminal documents—that's what calls to actually give us hints about where all this started—and then you work up to today's research, and specifically, what those researchers recommend that we study
21:37So, notice what we have here is, first, we start from the purpose statement, which defines these theory areas
21:41But really, what I want you to get out of this slide is that we start..
21:47With the most recent, excuse me, start with the oldest research, the oldest historical documentation about a specific area of interest like leadership or high schools, things like this, and we work forward to the most current study
22:06So really, what needs to happen is we need to gather all of those materials
22:12Do you see how big the literature review really is? Do you see how the gathering step is really the biggest step? Because if we're gathering all the research, as much as we can, from way back to the present, then the writing part is really only a secondary piece
22:31If, during my first or second year of my doctoral journey, someone had told me that my activity as a dissertation writer would be much different, rather..
22:40Than sitting there trying to write chapters 1 and 2 over and over again, trying to make progress of some kind, and only finding myself bored and distracted, I would know that my job was to actually go and gather the oldest information out there
23:01When my wife and I both were working on our dissertations around the same time, we ended up just sitting in the same house, and we'd sit and work, work, work, work, work, work
23:13Over time, I realized that if I had just organized and gathered the material ahead of time, what would have ended up happening is I would have been able to write a dissertation or a literature review much quicker
23:32The gathering step became the most important step because when you gather the..
23:39When you gather all the information first, what ends up happening is that the writing becomes the secondary thing because, quite often, you know, you might have had the experience of writing a literature review and then suddenly realizing, wow, I really don't know where this fits
23:58Like, I found this quotation in the source, but I don't know where it fits
24:08If you're finding yourself experiencing that while writing, something's gone seriously wrong
24:12I was able to quickly generate and create a literature review because I had actually designed and, excuse me, actually gathered all the..
24:24Materials ahead of time, and then I was able to put them in a specific order and put them together
24:28What ended up happening, of course, is that things finished fast
24:32I was able to finish a draft of my full proposal, I was able to submit it quite quickly, and I was able to finish the entire dissertation process
24:43When I sat down to start working on it in full, with a full effort, I wasn't just playing with the dissertation; I was actually writing it for real
24:53It took less than nine months to do it, and I just want to say, I can't tell you the exact sense of accomplishment I felt sitting with my friends and family at my doctoral graduation, experiencing what it truly felt like to be done — not just done with the work, but truly accomplished
25:18Coursework, but completely done, and the dissertation, though a lot of people helped me along the way, the dissertation really was a result of my hard work and me using smart ways of working to actually get ahead
25:35And that's why you're watching this presentation
25:39I hope it's because you want to work hard, but you're looking for a smart way of getting ahead
25:46If you had the information ahead of time about what you needed to put into a literature review, how could that change your process going forward? There's such a sense of accomplishment that you will feel when you finally graduate, and I'm so happy you're here, investing the time to actually get there
26:07So, the question then really is, if this is the first step in a literature review..
26:15The review is to gather the right materials, then the question really becomes how do I get that information? How do I find the information that I'm looking for? How do I gather it in the first place, and then how do I organize it in such a way that it would allow me to write a literature review in a first or second draft quite quickly? I mention the second draft because you can write the best literature review out there, but your chair and your committee are still going to have some input into what you've included, and chances are you might make an APA error somewhere, and you might have to change it
26:49So, when I say writing a great literature review on the first try, that's my hope — that you'll be able to write a great one
26:58A literature review on the first try
27:00Many of you that are watching this might have already written a literature review, and the hope is that revisions are small because when revisions are big, that can cost many months or years of life
27:11So, our goal is to organize the material ahead of time, so you have some idea now of what you're looking for
27:20We know that the purpose statement gives birth to theory areas or variables
27:24So, think about your purpose statement, if you have one
27:26What are the big areas of your literature or of your purpose statement? Are there one, two, or probably three areas that your literature review will need to cover because your purpose statement mentions them? So, for example, if we're talking about high school Activities Directors and we're discussing leadership behaviors, those are two different topics
27:50We know what I'm looking for; I'm searching for historical documents and up-to-date research about Activities Directors and leadership behaviors
28:03But that's only a small part of it
28:04Now that I actually know what I'm looking for, unless I also know how to go out and find those materials and how to organize them, that's really only a small part of the battle
28:16So, this entire section of the presentation is about how do you go about doing that
28:20About gathering this material and organizing it, for me, the metaphor of building a house is very, very valuable
28:29I want you to imagine that you're, for some reason, building a house, and you might not have any, you know, building experience, but that doesn't matter
28:37This is a metaphor
28:40I want you to picture a vacant lot, and, uh, it's your job to build a house
28:43What you do is start building this house piece by piece, but here's the catch: every time you need a new piece, you have to run to the local do-it-yourself store to gather that piece
28:56Can you imagine how long it would take to build that house? You're laying the cement for the foundation, and you're like, oh, I need a hose to go, you know, to wet
29:07The cement, so you run and you go, and you get a hose, then you come back
29:10You're like, oh, wait, I need a T-R to actually smooth out the cement
29:14I'm going to run back to the story
29:15I'm going to go get it
29:16You get the idea
29:18I mean, you make so many trips back and forth to the store that you're going to be spending most of your time tripping to the store than you are actually building the house
29:24And quite similarly, there are many of you—there are many literature review writers
29:30You might have the experience of feeling like you get to a section of your literature review, and you run back to the store—that is, you run back to your research online or some books—and you try to figure out what goes next
29:43Can you imagine how slow the literature review writing process can be? The process goes if you keep having to run back and forth to online resources, online research, back to your books, then into your document, and back and forth, back and forth—that is a complete waste of time
29:59So, naturally, the best way to build a house is probably to gather all the materials ahead of time before you build it, so that way they're all sitting in the yard waiting for you to build that house
30:14And think about it from the literature review perspective: what if you gathered all the materials you needed for the literature review first, and then you started to write the literature review? Most of us think that writing a literature review is a writing task, but it's not a writing task, the literature review is a reviewing task
30:22It's a..
30:30Searching task: it's you on your own, searching and reviewing the literature
30:38The written portion of the literature review is just you reporting in an organized way what you found
30:47So, where do you go then to get your materials? If you are going to engage in the step of gathering all your materials first into the yard before you build this house called a literature review, what do you need to focus on? For my, the people that I work with, that I coach one-on-one, the people that I work with in seminar, or if you're one of those people that is one of my dissertation candidates, I’m your chair or I’m one of your committee members
31:19I always emphasize that there are some sources that are more useful
31:21Than others, and quite often, literature review writers take the, uh, they actually flip this over, and that's where they get into trouble
31:34They focus on gathering the wrong things
31:36The first thing you should be looking for are books
31:39You should focus on gathering the best, most notable books in the theory area that you're researching
31:43So, let's say leadership is something you're researching; rather than going for the most recent documents or articles about leadership, I want you to find the oldest books you can, as well as the newest books
31:56I want you to find all the books from all different time periods regarding leadership, and the reason why is because articles are often born from this foundational knowledge
32:10Researchers, and from books and journal articles and dissertations — it's these things
32:15Books, books typically come first in the order of things
32:20If you think about the amazing books that have been written about leadership lately, if you're into that sort of thing, those books came from somewhere, and most likely the content of those books is built off previous books
32:36So, you want to gather those books first
32:38Second are dissertations — there are lots of doctoral candidates like you out there who are writing dissertations about similar topics, and they could probably guide you
32:46Those dissertations can guide you towards sources that would be useful to you
32:53Clearly, you cannot copy from them, but you can
32:55Definitely get a guide to where they found their resources so they can lead you to further resources
33:00Journal articles are also useful, but in my opinion, they're the least useful when we're writing a comprehensive literature review because, you know, journal articles are really the research—typically what's happening now—and that's important
33:13Every single literature review, every section of a literature review, typically ends with talking about the most recent research
33:23But really, you want to start with the books, start with the oldest and work your way to the present
33:28Just get all the major books for your theory area from all time periods, then get dissertations, and then you..
33:33Get journal articles, and then there are other print articles like magazines and newspapers, but those aren't scholarly resources most of the time, so you're really—that's the last thing that should be on your mind
33:46Now, what do you do with these when you get them? There's a process, so it's almost like you process them—you're taking them in and then you're doing something with them, and then you're processing them out
33:56You're sending these resources back or you're organizing them if it's something you get to keep
33:59So, what do you do first? Right when you get any of these things—a book, a dissertation, a journal article, whatever—I want you to immediately photocopy the copyright page or, and/or, the title page
34:09Usually, the copyright page is the most useful because it has the title and the year, which is so important
34:15It might even have an ISBN number if it's a book that has been written in the last many decades
34:23You also want to copy the Works Cited page of all those documents right away because, two things happen: first, you might lose information as you're doing a dissertation, as you're writing one, and second, you need the title page so that you have all the citation information from the copyright page to properly cite your sources in your Works Cited page
34:52But the question is, why would you copy the Works Cited page of a..
34:56Book or a dissertation well because they are going to tell you where to find other information about your topic
35:01In fact, most dissertation writers are suddenly shocked the first time they get a great book into their hands
35:08They go to the Works Cited page, and that Works Cited page could list hundreds of other works related to the same stuff that you're researching
35:17So wouldn't it be useful to know what other people have looked at and are looking at, so that way you can refine your own search as well? Isn't this useful to go through this here now? It's an assembly line; that's what you need to start
35:30Everything needs to be a process
35:33What I've hoped you've kind of gathered is that if you go back and forth between tasks, that's..
35:37Where you lose time is when things don't work very well
35:42Going back and forth doing tasks over and over, you know, because the changing of tasks is actually what wastes time
35:49So if you group similar tasks together and do only one thing at a time, you're going to have things move much more smoothly, and things are going to happen much faster
36:03What you do is get sources into your inbox
36:06I highly recommend actually having a physical inbox—a cardboard box, a milk crate, a cart—something where you receive your sources
36:13If you're fortunate enough to be at a university that does interlibrary loans, this might be your inbox, like your email box, or you might print the sources
36:27Things if you're that sort of person, it could be that, if your university has a premium interlibrary loan service—that is, they actually ship you books—I was so fortunate to go to a university where they actually would ship me books for free
36:39Then, yeah, I would put them in my inbox
36:41I'd order them; when I received them, I put them in my inbox
36:44The first thing I do is photocopy the copyright, title page, and the Works Cited page, and I would staple those together and put them in a file, which is a totally different story
36:52But the easiest way to do this is just alphabetically by the last name of the author
36:59What I would do is I’d read the source—so I’d actually, let’s say it’s a book—I’d read the book
37:04I’d personally just visually scan the table of contents
37:06Contents with my eyes, I'd look through the table of contents and index, and I'd look for the things that I'm searching for—those pertinent topics, theory areas, and different information
37:16I'd locate the sections of the text that were applicable
37:20Sometimes, what I would do is put in Post-it notes to actually allow me, and most of my candidates do this, they use Post-it notes of various colors and kinds to go ahead and put in the book and label the different theory areas
37:34But really, what you're doing is a quick scan, and then what you're going to do is actually read
37:40That's the last step—once you've identified the areas of the book that you're actually going to focus on, because you can't read everything at once
37:47The whole thing, guys
37:48So, what you're going to do is you're going to go in, read, and decide on at least five quotes from this source that are of significant value
37:53You might not know why this source is of significant value to you, but you have a feeling this is something worth writing down
38:08So, what you're going to do is type it into your Literature Matrix
38:12The Literature Matrix is just simply, you know, an Excel spreadsheet or a Microsoft Word-based table that you create
38:18You're going to type in a few pieces of pertinent information, which I'll cover momentarily
38:24Then, you're going to type in the quote, type in the citation, and then you're going to..
38:33Process the source in your outbox, which means you're going to put that book into an outbox, and then you're going to return those sources
38:40Each one of these tasks is separate
38:43You know, what I would say is you should get something in your inbox and focus on doing these steps with that source
38:51This is how to get rid of a source
38:55And this is what a literature matrix looks like
38:57These are the things that all the people I coach and work with find most useful
39:04We have these different columns: the year column, the type—what is it? a book, an article, a dissertation—the full citation
39:12Do it now so you won't forget
39:15You have to do it later, and that way you don't lose your source or, God forbid, forget to cite the source and get accused of plagiarism
39:23You write down the topic of that specific source, and then you actually type in the quote—you write out the quote in long form—and include the citation if possible
39:34Make sure you always include the page numbers in your literature matrix when you're doing a direct quote
39:42Frankly, always include the page number in your literature matrix so that you have that information for the future
39:50This is what it should look like; that's the process
39:53For me, my process was—I just noticed there's..
39:57Some beer there in that picture
40:00What I did was I bought some water
40:03Uh, that's my Pelino, and so what I would do is I shipped all that, shipped it, I grabbed it, went to the store, and I went
40:10I had rented an office space
40:18In fact, renting is not even fair to say; my father-in-law, God bless him, gave me use of one of his offices
40:25So, what I was able to do was take all that water, and there are lots of restaurants around his office, so I just went there, and I would work, you know, between six and eight hours a day, a couple of days a week at least, to work on this literature review process
40:39And so, what you're seeing in front of you, like on the right-hand side here, is me processing books
40:45What I'm doing is I've received all..
40:46Those books, or I've gone to the library, you see my cart there
40:50I've brought these books directly here, and then what I'm doing is—right there, I am looking at the title page, scanning it, copying the Works Cited page, and then I process forward
41:00Over time, and this is a little bit crazy, I mean, this is the method I recommend—it's old school, but it works
41:12What I do is I type out my Literature Matrix, and what my candidates often do, and what you're seeing here, is some candidates' work
41:18You take your Literature Matrix, print it out long form, cut it into little strips of paper, and then organize it
41:32What you end up with are just lists of sources that actually fit with one another, and it's like you might have three sentences that say the same thing, but they say the same thing from three different sources
41:46That means you've synthesized the work together, right? And then you're taping it all together
41:52What I do is I would tape it all together, and what this candidate did clearly is he taped it all together, then he put it onto some paper, and then he put it up on the wall
41:59This is a literature review in process
42:00This is what? The gathering, or this is—we've gone from gathering
42:03At this point, they're done with the gathering
42:07Now we're in the organizing step
42:11They're organizing, and then finally, the last step… It is to actually type it out, so your brain is probably spinning a little bit
42:15So, uh, this last part here, we're not going to spend much time on, but it is by far one of the most important things we can discuss
42:21One of the top three things we can discuss is how can you communicate with your dissertation chair and your committee in such a way that revisions are minimized
42:31The key is that whenever you're working with another human being, they can sense that if you communicate with them in the wrong way
42:44They can sense that maybe you're not ready to move forward
42:45And so, when you are ready, we want to make sure that you're communicating with your chair and your committee members in such a way that communicates, "I'm." Ready
42:56I'm moving forward versus I'm confused, right? I don't know what to do, so let's get into this a little bit and talk about what I mean
43:09I want you to imagine for a second that you're a dissertation chair, that you've graduated, you've moved on, and that someone's actually asked you to be a dissertation chair
43:17You work perhaps for a university or something like this, and this is the email you receive
43:20I'll read it to you
43:23 "Dr
43:25John, how's it going? Hey, I know we haven't talked for about a year since the fire
43:27You know, my cats are fine now, but man, I'm stressed
43:32I haven't been doing much writing until yesterday, but I was able to finish 20 pages in two hours
43:37Wow, I'm ready to graduate now
43:39Let me know what you think of my..." Dissertation, see attached later
43:43Signed naive doctoral learner
43:45Just imagine if you're a chair, and this, and this, and you know, this guy—or this gal—has been off the map for like a year, right? We haven't heard from him in a year, and all we're hearing is that he hasn't been doing his writing
44:06Well, and that all of a sudden he feels like he's made significant gains in a very short amount of time
44:11Doesn't this seem a little—aren't you just skeptical just listening to it? I mean, if the guy says he finished his dissertation, and he hasn't been heard from in some time, and if you finish 20 pages in two hours, what's that even mean? Now, you might not ever write an email like this to your doctoral chair, but elements of this, you might
44:33Actually, you will be communicating in your communication
44:36Notice, for example, that there's been a lack of communication, and you're kind of doing the whole catch-up thing
44:42When you're playing catch-up with your chair, that's probably a bad sign
44:46Communicating that not much writing has been done and explaining that life's been getting in the way, just notice how, as a doctoral chair or dissertation chair, you might be thinking, "Okay, but what's going to happen from that?" I mean, life does happen, and chairs know that, but just feel what it feels like for a chair
45:04There's also the sense of finality, like, "I've made sudden progress and I'm ready to go." That doesn't always seem like a secure footing
45:13It's almost like you want a clear, strong foundation, and then, all of a sudden, if there's progress, it's always best if it seems like it has come from a strong place rather than a sudden, new place
45:26Just notice that—what's this even asking, right? Let me know what you think of my dissertation—that's not a request we make of chairs or committee members
45:37There are some specific things we want to communicate to each of these, and that's what I want to say: if you communicate the wrong way to a dissertation chair or committee member, that unsureness can be very revealing of where you are
45:53You never want to lie to a doctoral chair or a committee member, but what I want to say is you want to..
46:00Communicate, uh, strength and robustness, and where you are, and communicate directly the way that you communicate with them
46:05That says a lot about you and where you are
46:10Um, let's look at each one of these statements
46:15You know, if you said, "Could you look at this draft and see what you think? Am I done?" Notice, I mean, this is an actual email that I've received personally, or something at least paraphrased like this
46:20And notice that what it communicates is this question of, "Am I done?" Right? Well, you tell me
46:27You're the person writing the dissertation
46:33Are you done, or are you not done? And, um, how long do you think it would take for me to finish? Uh, this is an actual question that I've received numerous times from different..
46:40Doctoral candidates, um, uh, that I'm their chair or their committee member
46:43Now, the people that I coach and the people that come to my seminar would never, ever ask this question because, you know, it's not a good question to ask, because the, of course, the obvious answer is whenever you finish, right? Um, the communicating—I’m lost
46:49I'm lost
46:54What do I do next? Um, remember, this is your dissertation process and project
47:00Um, it's okay to feel lost
47:04It's okay to communicate this feeling of being lost, and yet, um, where's the ownership? The ownership is it on the chair or on the committee member, or is it on the doctoral learner, the person writing the dissertation, to make some suggestions about how to move forward and how to get unlost? So just notice
47:21The unsettling feeling that all these statements have, and we want to avoid these, right? In my opinion, we want to communicate strength
47:30We want to communicate where we are and make a direct request of the person we're working with
47:37 So, this is an example of, I think, an ideal email, and it sounds like this: You know, I've worked very hard over these past weeks to hand you a polished draft
47:49I think that we are ready to move forward toward the formal proposal, or you know, advancement to candidacy, whatever you call it at your university
47:58As you can see, this is my final draft
48:00This draft is as final as I could possibly make it
48:05I respect your time, so whatever you see here is the best I have to offer
48:11Probably at this time, I'm ready for your input and to take action quickly
48:17I'm poised to make my formal proposal presentation and start collecting data
48:22Look at that draft — I love paper
48:26I always recommend sending paper to your committee if possible
48:28I mean, what I see here in this picture is not a Word document that says "Chapter One." No, this is a printed document that is laid out like a dissertation, including all the table of contents, front matter pages, all the tables, reference pages, and everything else
48:50And look, it's even tabbed for easy reading, clipped together, and looks just like this—hulking one- or two-inch thick stack
49:02...of papers and it feels like it's final, and naturally, you don't want to do this if you're not feeling this way
49:12You want to get to a point where you actually have something substantive to offer your doctoral chair and your committee
49:17But just notice the stress that's in this, you know, as a doctoral, as a dissertation writer
49:25That you're ready to submit, and that's the goal of all your work — to actually reach a place where you feel like you're ready to go
49:35Imagine you're in this position right now, where you're able to communicate, "Look, this is how ready I am
49:42Are you ready?" Send each of your committee members a paper copy of your finished proposal, with the IRB application attached, fully filled out
49:50With little tabs of where they can sign and what they get there, with an introduction letter from you saying how sure you feel that you're ready to move forward—if truly you are—and that you can even communicate to them, "Look, I'm already poised to collect my data
50:11I have all my survey instruments, you know, ready to go, and or at least I have my envelopes stamped and ready to go," and things like this
50:18Just notice the power and the message that communicates to your committee if you're ready to take that step versus, "What do you think about my writing?" Notice the difference in how that feels
50:34And so, that's what you want to communicate with your chair: really, where are you, no matter what step you're in in the dissertation process
50:43Where are you in the process, and what are your plans? Keep it short, keep it direct, and just simply say what you'd like to accomplish, where you're ready to head next, and if you're ready to move to the proposal, tell them that
50:57For me, being able to reach that point of finishing was probably one of the top five moments of my life
51:12I have children now, so they—you're right—the top three moments are really easily taken by getting married and having these full kids
51:20But being able to graduate, especially close to the same time as my wife, who graduated two, working with one another—what a cool thing
51:31I just want you to imagine what it would be like to sit in that position
51:38Think about yourself—what would it be like to finally finish and move forward? My hope today is that you've learned some amazing tools and strategies that you can apply in your own dissertation journey
51:50I just want to quickly tell you how you can take what you've learned today and apply it moving forward
51:59Specifically, as you can see, if you have not already done this, I want you to notice that there are some URLs at the top and bottom of the screen
52:05TheDissertationMentor.com
52:12I recommend you browse there, sign up for my free information, and continue to receive those updates
52:19I encourage you to set a goal of processing at least five sources a week—that is, getting five books or five scholarly articles
52:31Dissertations or five articles a week, and from each of those I'd like you to get five quotes
52:39So, five quotes times five sources equals 25 quotes a week
52:46If you keep that step, you'd have around 4,000 quotes after about 15 to 20 weeks, and that's a good number for when you're getting ready to write a dissertation—around 400 great quotes or sources
53:03Now, you're definitely not going to directly quote all of those, but these are the necessary pieces
53:09I would encourage you to build an environment in which you can write your dissertation, and if you can spend as much time there as you possibly can each week
53:19And I say if you can—I mean, gosh, if you can spend six to eight hours there three..
53:26Days a week, that's golden
53:33Um, and I encourage you to put your dissertation project first in your day, if you can give your first energy to your first priorities
53:39And if your dissertation is one of your first priorities, give your energy there
53:43So again, uh, I'm Dr
53:45Guy, and it's been a pleasure working with you today and presenting this to you
53:55My hope is that you'll visit TheDissertationMentor.com and continue your doctoral journey moving forward
53:58Let me know what you think of this video below in the comment field
54:06Please leave me some comments about what was useful in this video, how I could have improved it, and what ideas you're going to be using going forward from this point
54:16Again, thank you.