By Noelle Sterne, PhD

Welcome to Dear Dr. Noelle!

Unashamedly, I have modeled this column on the popular “Dear Abby” advice column but aimed at us more evolved intellectuals. The column is for you graduate students, new academic doctors, and professors who have questions that burn in your minds even when you’re binging on a Netflix series.

Fair game: anything pertaining to a dissertation, article, monograph, or book: intellectual, expressional, procedural, psychological, emotional, relational, maddening.

I will give you my best input, and sometimes pontifical advice. This stems from my own agonizing doctoral journey and 30-plus years of helping graduate students with their dissertations and new doctors, professors, and independent scholars with articles and scholarly and mainstream books. (A surprising number of us bookish types secretly want to write those other unscholarly works.)

For many years I contributed monthly columns to TAA, and they are probably in the archives. In responding to your questions, I will likely draw on these articles, and you can then read more if you want to.

I cannot answer all questions received but will choose what seems most pesky or timely.

Kindly limit your questions, quandaries, and comments to anything related to your academic world. This is my area of expertise. Sorry that I can’t help you with repairing your house siding or canning all those bushels of beets.

You are invited to submit your questions, and I will address one a month. It is your choice to add one of these: (a) your name (first name and last initial, with state), (b) “Anonymous,” or (c) a name describing your state of mind (“Seriously Disturbed”).

Please submit your questions through this form. The first response will be posted on the TAA Blog on November 15, 2024.

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Dissertation coach, nurturer, bolsterer, handholder, and editor; scholarly and mainstream writing consultant; author of writing craft, spiritual, and academic articles; and spiritual and motivational counselor, Noelle Sterne has published many pieces in print and online venues, including Author Magazine, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Children’s Book Insider, Graduate Schools Magazine, GradShare, InnerSelf, Inspire Me Today, Transformation Magazine, Unity Magazine, Women in Higher Education, Women on Writing, Writer’s Digest, and The Writer. With a Ph.D. from Columbia University, Noelle has for 30 years helped doctoral candidates wrestle their dissertations to completion (finally). Based on her practice, her Challenges in Writing Your Dissertation: Coping with the Emotional, Interpersonal, and Spiritual Struggles (Rowman & Littlefield Education, September 2015) addresses students’ often overlooked or ignored but crucial nonacademic difficulties that can seriously prolong their agony. See the PowerPoint teaser here. In Noelle`s Trust Your Life: Forgive Yourself and Go After Your Dreams (Unity Books, 2011), she draws examples from her academic consulting and other aspects of life to help readers release regrets and reach lifelong yearnings. Following one of her own, she is currently working on her third novel. Visit Noelle at www.trustyourlifenow.com