The Dissertation House

Helping to move you from ABD to PhD!


Welcome to our 2023 Winter Writing Challenge! If you are here, you are on your way to making daily progress toward completing that proposal, thesis, or dissertation!

First of all, Congratulations to all of our new PhDs! (Check our “Alumni” page for regular updates) You can participate in the online Dissertation House from around the world. Students have joined the Dissertation House (DH) from various states in the US and many countries worldwide. The “DHers” who participate come from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), with sponsorship from the PROMISE program and the Office of Graduate Student and Professional Development (GSPD), and funding from the graduate school at UMBC, where Dissertation House has been institutionalized.

Dr. Wendy Carter-Veale is your “Head Coach.”

Our pre-registered participants are required to blog daily during their time in the Dissertation House and are encouraged to continue blogging until they finish their dissertations.

To join us online:

  1. Go to the comment section below and introduce yourself (name, school, department.) Note: You may use your full name or an alias. If you have a blog, you may use your blogger ID; however, you do not need a username or password to participate.
  2. Tell us what you are working on and what you plan to accomplish today or over the next few days.
  3. Blog daily, preferably twice a day (morning and afternoon/evening), to report your goals for the day, your daily accomplishments, and your goals for the next day.

We will repeat something that we said before because it is both important and true: Our graduates and participants pushed (and we do mean that they pushed through adversities, complications, and issues) to finish sections, get chapter approval from advisors, complete drafts, pass proposals, pass defenses, and turn in their final documents. These grads are now professors and researchers working in non-profits, industry, and federal agencies and have had postdocs throughout the global academic community (e.g., France, South Africa, Egypt.) Learn about our NSF-founded program, the Maryland AGEP PROMISE Academy Alliance (APAA) postdoctoral program.

If you have joined us in the past, come back again if you are still working on your document. We are still here and will still be part of the community that will cheer you on! Post your goals for the next four months on this page. You are not alone; this is your online community. Focus on completion. Remember, Dr. CV says “A good dissertation is a done dissertation.”

70 responses to “Winter 2023 Writing Challenge!”

  1. Allison French Avatar
    Allison French

    Hi everyone! My name is Allison (she/her) and I am a 6th year in the Applied Developmental Psychology (ADP) PhD program at UMBC. This week I will be working on my dissertation proposal. I am doing a three paper dissertation, where ch. 1 is an introduction that outlines how the 3 papers connect, ch. 2 is paper/study 1, ch. 3 is paper/study 2, ch. 4 is paper/study 3, and ch. 5 will be an overall conclusion. As of today’s writing, ch. 2 is completely finished (the paper was recently accepted for publication). I have drafts of paper 2 (ch. 3), and paper 3 (ch. 4), but they need to be built up, which is what I hope to focus on this week. I am in the process of analyzing the data for paper 2 and will be collecting data for paper 3 this semester, so I primarily want to work on the methods for both of these papers, and work on the theoretical backgrounds for both (if there is time). I also want to outline ch. 1 to work on the framing for how all of these papers connect with one another. While these are my big writing goals and the reason why I am here this week, I know that there are going to be moments where I will need a “Zombie Task.” I have several articles already downloaded that need to be read and summarized. My goal is to read at least 4 throughout this week.

    In terms of my specific goals for today, I am going to start by creating a table of contents to prepare for my 1:1 meeting with Dr. C-V. I am then going to read through my drafts of ch. 3 and ch. 4, since it has been a while since I worked on either. I also have some feedback for ch. 3 from conference reviewers (my most recent draft was a conference proposal), so I plan to also review that and write a few notes about ways I can improve the lit. review and method specifically. Dr. C-V recommended that I write up something for the introduction that explains how paper 2 and paper 3 are similar, but different to help me prepare for writing the rest of those chapters. I then want to focus on writing the method section for paper 2 today. If I have time or need to break things up with a zombie task, I will read Stake & Mares (2001) and write a brief summary.

    I will check back in later this afternoon/evening to let everyone know how today went. I’m hoping that everyone has a productive work session today!

    Reply
    1. Dr. Carter-Veale Avatar
      Dr. Carter-Veale

      Allison thank you so much for writing such an wonderful long blog post. You have started us out well. Welcome to day 1 of the DH.

      Reply
  2. Jenn K Avatar
    Jenn K

    Hello all,

    My name is Jenn Kirk, I am a 5th-year doctoral candidate in the gerontology doctoral program at UMB/UMBC

    Over the next few days, I plan to:
    1. address edits from my proposal defense in my dissertation methods chapter
    2. (a) finish and (b) submit my IRB for aims 1-2
    3. send out 2-3 rounds of recruitment emails for aim 3

    Today, I will be working on 2a. finishing my IRB application

    Reply
    1. Dr. Carter-Veale Avatar
      Dr. Carter-Veale

      Hello Jenn
      Glad to see you on the blog. The dissertation house is online this week because of construction going on in the Commons on campus. We start online at 9am if you want to join us on the Webex link otherwise please continue to post here.

      Reply
      1. Jenn K Avatar
        Jenn K

        Just seeing this now. I, unfortunately, have a ton of meetings the rest of the week. So, I won’t be able to be on the webex call. I appreciate you thinking of me. 🙂

        Reply
  3. William Avatar
    William

    Good Morning DH,

    My name is William Walton. I am a part-time Ph.D. Candidate in my 8th year, in Electrical Engineering (CSEE Dept.).

    Today, I am compiling some regenerated experimental results in order to update some plots in a journal paper manuscript that my advisor and I have been working on.

    Later, this afternoon, in following my Dissertation preparation plan and outline, I plan to take one of my previously published journal papers and began integrating it into my Dissertation (as Chapter 2), using the UMBC LaTeX template.

    Hence, this week I plan to work on both of these projects each day: continuing to update a current journal manuscript and working on Chapt 1 and Chapt 2 of my Dissertation, at least organizing parts of it so as to make the rest of the writing/revising more manageable in the weeks ahead.

    I wish all of us much progress this week as we leverage Dr. C.V.’s invaluable coaching!!

    Reply
    1. Dr. Carter-Veale Avatar
      Dr. Carter-Veale

      Thanks for joining us online William. Good to see that you have followed through on making a post and getting something done. How is that cutting and pasting going? Is it taking longer than expected?

      Reply
      1. William Avatar
        William

        Yes, it is taking longer, but the insight I am gaining is revealing ways to expedite it in the days/weeks to come. The UMBC LaTeX template has some helpful information that is beyond what is initially apparent.

        Reply
        1. Dr. Carter-Veale Avatar
          Dr. Carter-Veale

          Good for you William keep moving forward. Baby steps are still steps as long as they are moving in a forward direction.

          Reply
  4. Jahir Avatar
    Jahir

    Hello all,

    I am Jahir, a PhD candidate in Environmental Engineering at UMBC. I will defend my PhD in July 2023, so I need to dedicate most of my time to finish my dissertation.

    After meeting with Dr. CV, I decided to focus on two tasks today:
    1. Dowload PhD dissertation template and fill it out with my information
    2. Keep writing journal article #2, especially in the result

    I hope you all have a wonderful starting of this workshop.

    Best,
    Jahir

    Reply
    1. Dr. Carter-Veale Avatar
      Dr. Carter-Veale

      Hello Jahir
      Glad to see and hear about the daily progress. What is the plan for today are you done with the results and will now be moving on to the discussion? Where is your note to self about your next steps?

      Reply
    2. Dr. Carter-Veale Avatar
      Dr. Carter-Veale

      Hello Jahir
      This seems to be the only post that I see

      Reply
      1. Jahir Avatar
        Jahir

        Hi Dr. CV,

        I posted my tasks yesterday and they did not go through.

        Best,

        Reply
  5. Janerra Allen Avatar
    Janerra Allen

    Hello everyone!

    My name is Janerra Allen and I am a 4th electrical engineering PhD student. This morning I addressed the reviewer comments for a conference paper that is due for re-submission. This afternoon I will be downloading articles (in my research area) from specific journals to tailor and edit my current manuscript draft. If there is time this week, I will also edit my proposal draft.

    I look forward to making progress this week. Good luck to everyone!

    Reply
    1. Dr. Carter-Veale Avatar
      Dr. Carter-Veale

      Look at you Janerra, motivated enough to plan to move on to your proposal draft. Nice to see this progress. You can make progress even if you don’t feel like it just start and the motivation will catch up to you. 🙂

      Reply
  6. Natalia Figueredo Avatar
    Natalia Figueredo

    Hi Everyone!!

    My name is Natalia Figueredo and I am a second-year Master’s student in the Geography and Environmental Systems Department. Over the next few days, I will focus on updating and finishing up my literature review, creating outlines for my next 2 chapters, and reading more papers.

    I am very excited to be part of the proccess.

    Reply
  7. Allison French Avatar
    Allison French

    Hello again! Back to report what I accomplished today and start brainstorming goals for tomorrow’s session. I felt that today was productive. I started by creating a table of contents and reading back through what I have for papers 2 and 3. I had some feedback for my paper 2 from conference reviewers, so I went through my paper 2 draft and wrote notes based on their feedback. After re-reading what I have so far, I did some free writing to write about how my three papers connect to one another. I then worked on the method section of paper 2.

    I also did my 1:1 with Dr. C-V today, which was helpful. After my discussion with her, I think I am going to focus my energy on paper 2 for now and put down paper 3 for the time being. I also need to work on my timeline.

    I haven’t had a chance to read Stake & Mares (2001) yet. I feel good about what I accomplished today though and feel that I have more direction and more focused goals for tomorrow. I plan on working on my paper 2 tomorrow. Given how many moving pieces there have been to my dissertation, I kind of skipped over the outline stage for my paper 2. I think it might be helpful to go back and work on that before continuing on with my draft. I also have a few papers that I would like to read that I think would be helpful in framing my literature review so I would like to work on that as well.

    Reply
  8. Jenn K Avatar
    Jenn K

    End-of-day check-in: I finished my IRB draft application and sent it to my chair for review. The day flew by, but I was surprised by how setting my goal that was specific for the day kept me on track and allowed me to know that since I finished early I can take some time to practice self-care and destress this evening. I even ended up catching up on a stack of emails I was feeling very overwhelmed by.

    Reply
    1. Dr. Carter-Veale Avatar
      Dr. Carter-Veale

      Jenn
      Nice to see that you set 1 goal accomplished it and moved on. Let’s rinse and repeat and do the the same tomorrow.

      Reply
  9. Jenn Kirk Avatar
    Jenn Kirk

    Hello all,

    For day 2, I will work on my third goal, which is focused on sending out recruitment emails for my 3rd aim.

    To be specific, I will be:

    1. Drafting the recruitment emails
    2. Scheduling emails in batches of 250 providers for a total of 1,500 emails based on time zones
    3. Scheduling follow-up emails for those same providers in ~30 days

    If I finish all of that today, I will work on a manuscript that is preliminary data for my dissertation.

    Hope everyone’s day goes well.

    Reply
    1. Dr. Carter-Veale Avatar
      Dr. Carter-Veale

      Jenn,
      Did you get all of those emails finished? Are you ready to work on your manuscript today? Are you starting with an outline or is that your step 1 for today? Keep up the good work and thanks for posting your progress.

      Reply
  10. William Avatar
    William

    Good morning everyone,

    Yesterday I was able to compile about half of my experimental results.
    I also started the process of integrating my prior journal paper in to the LaTeX Dissertation template. However, I am finding that I need to plan this more carefully.

    Today I will continue with the same two tasks. However, for the Dissertation part, I plan to focus on becoming more familiar with the LaTeX template so as to be able to more expeditiously use it. Yesterday, I found some very helpful components in it that will help expedite the writing/integration process.

    Reply
    1. Dr. Carter-Veale Avatar
      Dr. Carter-Veale

      Good Morning, William
      I’m writing to introduce Janerra from the DH, who is also on this blogs. I was checking to see if she had posted a question for you. Clearly, I’m putting her on blasts, but I want everyone to feel comfortable interacting with one another on the blog. I suspect that her question can help others. She has a question about engineers working and writing with clinicians and about any tips that you can provide.

      Reply
      1. William Avatar
        William

        Dr. C.V.,

        Sure.

        Janerra (and everyone), feel free to reach out. I am in CSEE. I have worked with clinicians from time to time, throughout my part-time Ph.D. (meaning I work also), including ocassional stints side-by-side with them in the clinic, publishing a few papers with them, being a part of their IRB, and getting approval to use their “deidentified” data, both for my job and my Ph.D. While this clinical interaction started on my job, I have been able to leverage much of this for my Ph.D. For instance, my advisor has been a part of some of the publications with the clinicians (and vice versa). It can take extra effort to navigate and manage this, but it can be very very very beneficial towards a Ph.D. and collaboration.

        Hence, if I can be of help, let me know. If I don’t have the answer, I might be able to recommend someone who does.

        I myself have definitely gained some “very critical” bits and pieces of information from other students at DH house (and related events) over the years.

        Reply
        1. Janerra Allen Avatar
          Janerra Allen

          Hi William. Thanks for sharing your experience. I am also in CSEE working in computational neuroscience and medical imaging. My paper focuses on using a physics based model to identify connectivity biomarkers. After speaking with my clinical collaborator, the focus of this study may change to understanding the clinical relevance of the data, comparing healthy controls and patients with schizophrenia. One of the challenges is finding an appropriate journal and being on the same page with our goals. Any advice for choosing a direction or focus once you’ve collected your data?

          Reply
          1. William Avatar
            William

            Janerra,

            Sorry for the long-windedness below, but here are my thoughs.

            First question to ask in general:

            o Is your advisor onboard with your approach and the collaboration with the clinician? (no need to respond, just consider it.)

            Regarding finding an appropriate journal:

            o Some questions I have found worth asking (both from experience and from discussions with others):

             What journals do the clinician publish in?” (Same question w.r.t your advisor.)
             What are their stories regarding their success with these journals?
             Which conferences or professional organizations do they interact with?
             Does your advisor publish in any of these journals or is he receptive to them?

            o Then consider the papers that you have found in your literature search

             Which journals have those authors (or their primary references) published in?

            o As an “engineer” doing graduate work that applies “engineering in a medical domain”, one experience that worked well for me was publishing in a “biomedical engineering” type journal. Publishing in it helped with both the clinicians’ and the engineers’ professional repertoires. I say this because, in my case, our clinicians publish in different types of journals than we engineers do and the nomenclature and jargon can have subtle, to diametrically different, meanings.
            o Also, I learned (the hard way) that it is better to research and choose a journal (or candidate journals) upfront so as to be familiar with their requirements.
            o It is also helpful to find out if the conferences that you attend have journals associated with them.

            As for choosing a direction or focus:

            – (Pardon the philosophical aspect) but I keep thinking about something a professor at one of the UMBC networking events said regarding his early career: he was able to “be true to himself in his research”, meaning, he was able to stick to what he was interested in.

            – In reality, we have to jump-in at some point though, and I must say, the following:
            o On multiple occasions, it turned out that the clinicians and other subject-matter-experts that I work with enlightened us on aspects related to the research that we simply had not considered. This caused us to change our direction (though not our broader focus) on a few occasions. Remember, the clinicians are “experts in their field”. We engineers have expertise that they do not. However, we are “in their field”, and I have found it very important to sit back and consider what they have to say, versus thinking we can solve the problem. (When the reviewers responded on a clinical aspect of my first journal paper, it was the clinician we had to rely on to help address the comment.) However, if what a clinician proposes it is too far of a shift from what you are interested in, you may want to consider whether you truly want to follow the path. Talking to them some more, along with your advisor (and others…even other clinicians) may help in such cases.

            – Also, in a more generic sense, in the various research discussions you have participated in with the clinician, your advisor, at conferences, etc.: “have you noticed a gap, or un-met need in the field that you think would be fitting for you to try to address with your research?” Is your focus, addressing that such a gap? Is the new direction that stems from the clinician discussion addressing such a gap? …just some things to consider.

            Hope this is helpful.

            Reply
            1. Janerra Allen Avatar
              Janerra Allen

              Hi William,

              Thank you so much for providing such an in-depth answer! I actually copied your response so that I can keep these questions in mind, but also bring up in the meeting with my advisor tomorrow and with the clinician on Tuesday. I do appreciate the expertise of the clinician and am excited for what can come from this paper. I think because I had already spent a considerable amount of time analyzing and writing my current version, I was a bit apprehensive. Nonetheless, this process is about finding the gap (as you mentioned) and interpreting the data the best way possible.

              Again, I appreciate your response and hope to keep in touch!

              Thanks!

              Reply
  11. Allison French Avatar
    Allison French

    Good morning everyone! I’m excited about day 2 of Dissertation House. After my conversation with Dr. C-V yesterday, I think I need to take a little bit of a step back and break down tasks into smaller chunks. Instead of trying to write two papers at once, I am going to just focus my energy on paper 2 for now. I have a small draft of paper 2 that started as a conference paper, but I don’t really have a solid outline. Today I plan to take a step back and go back to the outline stage so that I can get all of my thoughts organized on paper and have more of a clear direction for where things are going. Depending on how the outlining goes, I may return back to the method section that I worked on yesterday. I plan to work on these tasks this morning/early afternoon, since that is when I tend to do my best work. Later this afternoon, I may work on some zombie tasks. I have Espinoza (2011) and Stake & Mares (2001) downloaded and ready to read and summarize.

    I hope everyone has a productive day 2! Looking forward to seeing everyone’s goals and accomplishments.

    Reply
  12. Priya Rajasagi Avatar
    Priya Rajasagi

    Hello,

    I am Priya Rajasagi, a fourth-year PhD student in the Human-Centered Computing program. My focus during the DH is to get started with my proposal. I want to create an outline and start working on it during and after the DH. On Day 1, I worked on organizing the literature I collected so far. By the end of yesterday, I was able to almost finish the list (4 remaining). On Day 2, I plan to complete the pending list from Day 1 and create an outline of my proposal and add citations to those sections. On Day 3, I would like to work specifically on the related works section, and would like to come up with a zombie list that I can go back to in the future.

    Reply
    1. Dr. Carter-Veale Avatar
      Dr. Carter-Veale

      Priya sounds like a great plan. I see that you are moving through your list. Keep going.

      Reply
  13. Natalia Figueredo Avatar
    Natalia Figueredo

    Hi Everyone!

    Super excited for day two! Yesterday, I was able to update my literature review. I had written one for an assignment last semester and I realized I could use a lot of the information for my thesis. I have been able to identify where I need more information, what sections need improvement, and what references I need. Today I will be focussing on further working on my literature review. I also want to take some time to outline chapter 2 of my thesis. Following advice from today’s lecture, I will try to write a couple of “ugly paragraphs”. I am looking forward to my meeting with Dr. C-V. Hopefully, I will gain more insight on how to make my thesis stronger and how to stay motivated 🙂

    Reply
    1. Dr. Carter-Veale Avatar
      Dr. Carter-Veale

      Good for you, Natalia, for being willing to commit an ugly draft to paper. Today, let your inner editor clean up your draft. I concur with the strategy of drafting one day and revising the next. Keep it up.

      Reply
  14. Janerra Allen Avatar
    Janerra Allen

    Good morning,

    Cheers to day two! Yesterday, I downloaded articles from the NeuroImage journal and I will print an article today to begin reading (abstract). I also addressed the reviewer comments (easy to medium tasks) and will reformat the references. I started preprocessing some fMRI data yesterday (for one subject) and will finish by this step by this afternoon.

    Reply
    1. Dr. Carter-Veale Avatar
      Dr. Carter-Veale

      Hello Janerra, Keep moving forward, baby steps are still steps. I would love to see your literature review spreadsheet today if possible.

      Reply
    2. William Avatar
      William

      …I responded to Dr. C.V.’s comment with regards to a potential question you might have.

      Also, Dr. Adali in CSEE has also historically done a lot with fMRI data, more so from the machine learning perspective though.

      Reply
      1. Janerra Allen Avatar
        Janerra Allen

        Great! I also answered above. I’ve worked with Dr. Adali briefly and am now advised by Dr. Choa.

        Reply
  15. Allison French Avatar
    Allison French

    Good afternoon everyone! It’s the end of day 2, and I feel good about what I accomplished today. I have most of an outline written for my paper 2. There are parts of the literature review that I need to work out in the outline, but I feel much more organized and ready to write. I think I will be able to finish this outline by the end of the week and send it to my advisor for feedback. I also spent some time writing out my methods section. I wrote about two paragraphs today and made a small table. I also got through my zombie tasks for today. I read through and summarized two articles.

    Tomorrow I will come ready to talk about my research with the group. I plan to continue working on my outline and to read/summarize some more articles. I also need to work on writing out a timeline for myself, now that I feel a little more organized.

    Reply
    1. Dr. Carter-Veale Avatar
      Dr. Carter-Veale

      Allison, Sounds like a plan I am looking forward to hearing more about your research this morning.

      Reply
  16. Michael Fleming Avatar
    Michael Fleming

    Hey everybody!

    Today, I was able to work through most of the comments for Chapter 2 of the dissertation. I am almost done with Chapter 2 and plan to finish it tomorrow.

    Best,
    Michael

    Reply
    1. Dr. Carter-Veale Avatar
      Dr. Carter-Veale

      Thanks Michael for taking the time to make a post. Commit to 15 minutes a day toward your dissertation.

      Reply
    2. William Avatar
      William

      Best wishes on progress with the dissertation Michael (and everyone).

      I am getting there myself, slowly, but surely.

      Reply
  17. Dr. Carter-Veale Avatar
    Dr. Carter-Veale

    Good morning, everyone, and welcome to day 3 of the Dissertation House! It is essential to commit to writing at least a little bit every day for your dissertation. Small steps keep you engage. Instead of searching for one-hour blocks of time to write, make a commitment to writing for at least fifteen minutes every day. Commit to making notes for yourselves before you exit the document, and commit to a schedule for when the work will be finished. Make sure that your project is well-planned out from now until you graduate, because a dream without a plan is simply a dream. Utilize some or all of the strategies we discussed in the DH this week.

    Today’s DH will focus on being the expert in your field and introducing your research to a larger audience.

    Reply
  18. William Avatar
    William

    Hello All and Best Wishes for a great day at DH!

    I am continuing to compile my re-generated experimental results to update more figures in my current journal manuscript.

    Also, I continue to familiarize myself with the UMBC LaTeX Dissertation Template in planning to incorporate my prior papers into my Dissertation.

    Reply
  19. Allison French Avatar
    Allison French

    Good morning, everyone! Happy day 3! First, I’d like to say that it was really interesting listening to you all present your research this morning. I learned a lot from all of you and feel that I have a lot to live up to when I present tomorrow morning. Great work!

    Today I am going to continue working on my paper 2 outline. Yesterday, I made some good progress, but there are sections in my literature review that need to be expanded. In terms of zombie tasks for today, I have an article that I need to find and download. I would also like to read one article that I already have downloaded and summarize.

    Reply
  20. Jahir Avatar
    Jahir

    Hello all,

    It seems my updates from yesterday did not go through, so here they are: (1) I wrote 4-long paragraphs in the results of chapter #3. I know they will need to be edited, but at least they are written, which is a good sign. (2) As zombie tasks, I wrote captions for two figures in chapter #3.

    Today, I need to analyze some data to keep writing results in chapter #3. So, my goal is to do the analysis before noon, then write the following discussion in the afternoon. I will apply the 25-min interval technique we discussed yesterday.

    Best,
    Jahir

    Reply
  21. Janerra Allen Avatar
    Janerra Allen

    Good morning!

    It’s almost Friday (yay)! After speaking with Dr. Carter-Veale yesterday, I started a literature review outline. I added my research question(s) and the corresponding categories that will help me identify papers relevant to my research. Later today, I will go through the papers I’ve downloaded and record this categorial information. This morning, I will take a step back and look at my overall research question and compile the draft proposals (zombie task) I’ve written to prepare a more comprehensive outline for my thesis proposal.

    Reply
  22. Natalia Figueredo Avatar
    Natalia Figueredo

    Good morning everyone! Made it to day 3, wooohooo! I feel like I am slightly overwhelmed with everything that needs to get done, but little by little. Today I will be separating my time into 3 slots. The first will be used to work on some data analysis, the second will be used to reorganize my literature review references, and the third will be used to continue to write some ugly paragraphs.

    Reply
  23. Michael Fleming Avatar
    Michael Fleming

    Hey everybody! Today, I plan to finish edits on Chapter 2 and draft an outline for Chapter 3.

    Reply
  24. Allison French Avatar
    Allison French

    End of day 3! Today felt like more of a struggle than the last two days. I don’t know if it’s the weather or just a day 3 slump, but I felt like I had a more difficult time staying focused today.

    I did manage to work on the things I said I would work on today. I made a little more progress on my paper 2 outline. I worked specifically on the literature review section today and added some bullets about sense of belonging and intersectionality. I think I need to read back through what I have tomorrow morning when I am feeling fresh to identify areas that need some work. I still feel good about having something that I can send to my advisor by the end of tomorrow.

    I worked on a lot of zombie tasks today. I revisited a stack of articles I had collected for my dissertation and organized them by topic so that they they would be easier to reference. I also had a few articles I needed to find and download (and in some cases request from ILL). Additionally I read Toven-Lindsey et al., (2015) and summarized.

    Reply
  25. William Avatar
    William

    Today I was able to get most of my regenerated experimental results compiled in spreadsheets, but have more work to do to update the plots properly in the manuscript. My goal is to get this done by sometime this weekend.

    Dissertation preparation-wise, today I finally became familiar enough with the UMBC LaTeX template, that I was able to began merging large parts of a prior journal paper into it (forming what will be my Chap. 2) without errors, or at least being able to directly address the errors. Now I am in much better position to incorporate and revise more content, though I have to also further revise my outline. …the work continues.

    Reply
  26. Michael Fleming Avatar
    Michael Fleming

    I finished my edits on Chapter 2. Tomorrow, I will work on an outline for Chapter 3 and try to edit some of the text that I already had written for Chapter 3.

    Reply
  27. Priya Rajasagi Avatar
    Priya Rajasagi

    Good Morning!

    And just like that, it is Day 4 of DH, which means I plan to complete all that I promised to myself on Day 1. Today, I plan to work on finding new literature (focusing more on IEEE Vis’s recent publications) and adding it to my existing list. I would like to add it to the literature in the format suggested by Dr. CV. Later today, I will include them in the related work section of my proposal and thereby, do some writing.

    I also look forward to meeting with Dr. CV at 10am.

    Happy Friday and Happy Writing,
    Priya

    Reply
  28. Allison French Avatar
    Allison French

    Good morning, everyone! I can’t believe it is already day 4. I feel like I got a lot out of this week and hope that all of you did too.

    Today, I am going to start by reading back through my paper 2 outline to see what is missing and where I need expand on certain topics. My goal is to have something that I can send to my advisor by early next week. Along with working on my outline, I want to work on a timeline for when I plan to have certain sections done. At the beginning of the week, I said I would read at least 4 articles. I still have one more that I need to read through and summarize to reach my goal for the week. That will be on my list of zombie tasks for today. If I have time or need another zombie task, I will work on my survey for paper 3.

    Reply
  29. Michael Fleming Avatar
    Michael Fleming

    Hey everybody! Today, I started working on my outline for Chapter 3 and started writing Chapter 3.

    Reply
  30. Jahir Avatar
    Jahir

    Hello all,

    I plan to move forward with the results and discussion focusing on the data I analyzed yesterday. With this, I have almost 70% of the discussion section done, which is really good.

    I will also take a time to update all the references and add them to EndNote, which can be my zombie task for today.

    Good luck to you all.

    Best,
    Jahir

    Reply
  31. William Avatar
    William

    Hi everyone,
    Today I am still updating plots in my current journal manuscript. I plan to finish that part today and address remaining paragraph edits from my advisor this week, such that I can get the draft back to him next week.

    Later today, I also plan to spend a little more time revising my Dissertation Chap. 2 outline so that I can complete the initial version of that Chapter, in LaTeX, over the next few days.

    Reply
  32. Allison French Avatar
    Allison French

    Wow! Congrats everyone on making it through Dissertation House this week. It was awesome getting to work along side all of you and learn a little bit about the research that you all are doing. Know that I will be cheering you all on as you continue to work towards your goals 🙂

    Today I worked on a timeline and my outline. I also searched for and downloaded several articles and reports. Today I had a 1:1 meeting with Dr. C-V, where we went through my outline together. Dr. C-V had some excellent feedback on how to make it flow better. It was great having someone I could talk through ideas with and someone on the outside that can point out issues in logic that I am missing.

    I learned a lot of great strategies this week on how to keep things moving on my dissertation. I think one of the most important things that I got from this week was establishing good habits around writing everyday, writing notes to myself, breaking things down into smaller tasks, and utilizing zombie tasks for the moments where I feel like I can’t (or don’t want to) work on my dissertation. I feel a little less overwhelmed and more energized to make some real progress.

    Reply
    1. Dr. Carter-Veale Avatar
      Dr. Carter-Veale

      Allison, the DH is over but you still have work to get done so how is the progress coming along?

      Reply
  33. Janerra Allen Avatar
    Janerra Allen

    We made it!

    I am so glad that I participated in Dissertation House this week. Such a great way to kick-start the semester, especially since I was feeling guilty for my lack of progress these past few weeks.

    Overall, I addressed the comments for my conference paper and sent to my lab partner and advisor. I was able to make a literature review spreadsheet that I can share with my advisor, thus keeping track of the papers we’re referencing in our work. The 1:1 meeting today with Dr. C-V revealed my reluctance to begin working on this spreadsheet because I have yet to isolate the impact of my research question. After some discussion, we identified some potential gaps in the field: mapping and modeling brain behavior while including intersectionality of race (and other demographics). I think this is a great place to start and will include this measure in my findings.

    Reply
  34. Michael Fleming Avatar
    Michael Fleming

    Hey everybody! I was able to update the format of my dissertation document and get started on Chapter 3. Tomorrow, I plan to update the methods and materials section of Chapter 3.

    Reply
  35. Michael Fleming Avatar
    Michael Fleming

    Hey everybody,

    Today, I plan to work on the materials and methods section of Chapter 3.

    Reply
  36. William Avatar
    William

    My focus today has been on finishing updates to a journal paper with a goal to get it back to my advisor early next week. I plan to resume on the dissertation next week.

    Reply
  37. Michael Fleming Avatar
    Michael Fleming

    Hey everybody! Today, I was able to complete the materials and methods section of Chapter 3. Tomorrow, I plan to jump to Chapter 4 and work on the materials and methods section there.

    Reply
  38. Michael Fleming Avatar
    Michael Fleming

    Hey everybody! Today, I plan to work on the materials and methods section for Chapter 4.

    Reply
    1. Dr. Carter-Veale Avatar
      Dr. Carter-Veale

      What are you working on today Michael? Another day another opportunity to get it almost right. Forward progress.

      Reply
  39. Michael Fleming Avatar
    Michael Fleming

    Hey everybody! Today, I was able to finish the materials and methods section for Chapter 4. Tomorrow, I plan to add to the results and discussion section of Chapter 4.

    Reply
  40. William Avatar
    William

    Today I was able to finish adding the content (including text, figures, and citations) for Chapter 2 of my dissertation. I created one of the appendices that goes with it also. (Additionally, I was able to resolve a LaTeX related issue that was affecting the appearance of some of my figures. It should be smooth sailing incorporating the figures from here-on-out…though much work to do.)

    Tomorrow I plan to add the remaining appendices that will go with this chapter, and then plan for the next chapter.

    Reply
  41. William Avatar
    William

    Today I finished adding the remaining appendices for Chapter 2 of my dissertation, which completes this chapter, content-wise. I also began planning ahead for incorporating material that will go into Chapter 4 while I await my advisor’s feedback on material that will go into Chapter 3.

    The work continues. …time for some rest though.

    Reply
  42. William Avatar
    William

    This week, I finished a significant portion of Chapter 1 (Introduction) of my Dissertation, which largely involved migrating parts of my original Research Proposal Introduction into it. In reviewing that material, I realized that I had put so much effort and research into the RP (back when I did it), that it covers a large part of what I needed.

    Meanwhile, I also further planned for incorporating material into Chapters 3 and 4.
    (As reported earlier, I finished Chapter 2 in January, following DH.)

    Reply
    1. Dr. Carter-Veale Avatar
      Dr. Carter-Veale

      Keep making forward progress. Good to see that you are moving towards graduation and completing your PhD. It has been a long time coming.

      Reply

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What is dissertation house?


The Dissertation House program is an intensive writing retreat designed to help graduate students overcome the barriers that often impede progress on their dissertations. Developed by the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, the program provides a supportive and structured environment where students can focus on their writing, receive feedback, and learn effective time management and goal-setting strategies. Over several days, students work in groups, participate in workshops, and receive coaching from experienced facilitators. The Dissertation House program has been highly successful in helping students make significant progress on their dissertations. It is widely regarded as a valuable resource for graduate students seeking to complete their degrees.

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