Choose your best dissertation chair

It is impossible to overestimate the significance of the student-advisor relationship. . . . This is both a personal and professional relationship that rivals marriage and parenthood in its complexity, variety and ramifications for the rest of one’s life. (Zhao, Golde, & McCormick, 2007, p. 263)

These wise observations were made by a new “doctor” in the study by Zhao et al. (2007) of how the doctoral students’ choice of chairs and their behavior affect the students’ satisfaction. The candidate quoted above echoes what many doctoral students learn, with ease or agony, during their dissertations. Your relationship with your chair (sometimes called advisor or supervisor) is absolutely the most important in your entire doctoral haul.

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11/7 TAA Webinar, ” Writing Your First Book: Developing Your Dissertation Into a Manuscript”

Publishing your first book is imperative for many early-career scholars, but turning your dissertation into a book can be a confusing and difficult process. Join us Thursday, November 7, from 10-11 am ET for the TAA Webinar, “Writing Your First Book: Developing Your Dissertation Into a Manuscript”, where presenter Margaret Puskar-Pasewicz of MargaretEdits will discuss practical strategies and tips for bridging the gap between completing your dissertation and writing a compelling book manuscript. She will also share some of the most common mistakes that she’s encountered in her years as an academic editor and writing coach, the importance of staking a claim that you can defend consistently throughout your book as well as developing your scholarly voice. 

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AcWriMo starts tomorrow – see what we have planned

Established in 2011, Academic Writing Month (AcWriMo) is a month-long academic write-a-thon that happens every November. Here at TAA, we have continued to plan special opportunities for our members to engage in AcWriMo as a group to enhance their individual writing efforts. Some of our members have also created or sponsored additional AcWriMo events throughout the month.

This year, TAA has decided to focus on a theme of “Distinguishing features of academic writing”. Specifically, we have used a list of academic writing features to further focus our weekly TweetChat discussions and shared resources to include: academic precision, complexity, formality, objectivity, and accuracy. Below are several of the planned activities we have scheduled for AcWriMo 2019.

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Member Spotlight: Katy Peplin

TAA member Katy Peplin is the Founder of Thrive PhD and is an academic author in the media studies writing discipline.

Her most recent publication is her second academic publication, Ford Films and Ford Viewers: Examining “Non-Theatrical” Films in the Theaters and Beyond forthcoming (Jan 1, 2020) in the collection The Institutionalization of Educational Cinema: North America and Europe in the 1910s and 1920s (eds. Marina Dahlquist and Joel Frykholm).

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