A Conceptual Conversation for Developing Your Dissertation Topic
By Dr. Sonja K. Foss and Dr. William Waters
You bring many resources with you as you begin contemplating your dissertation topic-courses you took, theories that appeal to you, methods with which you enjoy working, data available to you, expertise in particular areas that you developed for your comprehensive exams. But how do you bring all of your resources to bear to actually choose a topic and then develop the proposal for your dissertation? This is where a conceptual conversation comes in, and it replaces the serendipity by which most students pick their dissertation topics.
What is a Conceptual Conversation?
A conceptual conversation is a conversation you have with one other person in order to work out the major decisions about your dissertation. It is based on the premise that you intuitively know some or all of the key pieces you want in the research you do for your dissertation. Because no one has asked you to articulate these pieces, however, you often don't consciously know what they are and have not pulled them together in a way that enables you to come up with a dissertation topic.
Inviting a Partner
Conversations involve more than one person, so who is your partner in this conversation? Your preferred conversational partner is your advisor. Sometimes, though, your advisor is not your best conversational partner for any number of reasons. Maybe she is unwilling to take the time required for this kind of conversation, or maybe you don't know your advisor well and don't feel you can ask him to have this kind of conversation with you.
If you are unable to have your advisor as your conversational partner, perhaps another faculty member with whom you have a good relationship or a fellow graduate student would serve as your partner. If someone in your academic circle is not available, a spouse, partner, or other friend will work. Sometimes, in fact, someone who doesn't know a lot about research or your field of study can be a particularly good partner because their naive questions can help you design a good study.
When and Where?
Schedule a block of uninterrupted time for your conversation-something in the neighborhood of two to three hours. If you do not get your dissertation figured out in this amount of time, you and your conversational partner will want to schedule another session as soon as possible after the first. Also key is to hold this meeting someplace where you will not be interrupted-in your home or at a coffee shop, for example, rather than in your office if other people are likely to interrupt you there.
Asking and Answering Questions
What goes on in a conceptual conversation? Your partner begins by asking you questions designed to help you identify some key pieces or elements you want to include in your dissertation. Here are some of the questions he might want to ask:
* What are your major interests in your discipline?* What personal experiences have you had that were particularly significant or meaningful for you that are relevant to your discipline?* What coursework did you take that you found most exciting?* What theories and concepts are most interesting to you?* Are there some ideas you have studied that you are curious about and want to explore more?* What bodies of literature have you encountered that intrigue you?* Are there some theories that you do not want to work with anymore?* With what kinds of data do you enjoy working? Do you have ideas for specific data, texts, or artifacts you would like to study?* Are there resources to which you have access that could provide participants or data for your study? Does your job offer any of these resources? How about your volunteer activities? Is there someone you know who could give you access to these kinds of resources? Is there an archive, organization, or upcoming event in your community that is ripe for analysis?* What kinds of methods do you like to use when you do research?* What are your career goals when you finish your degree?
As you answer the questions, your partner should ask exploratory, open-ended, follow-up questions, all designed to encourage you to produce more talk about your interests. Ask your partner to take notes about your ideas so that you don't have to and are free to think and talk. Neither one of you should do any evaluating of ideas at this stage. Even seemingly silly ideas can lead you to new places and to significant new ideas.
Identifying Key Pieces
Now is the time for you and your partner to use the information produced in the conceptual conversation to identify the key pieces that you want to be part of your dissertation study. What are key pieces? They are key components of a study that will be used to form the proposal for your dissertation.
With the help of your partner, use what you articulated in your conversation to identify the key pieces that you know for sure you want in your dissertation. For example, one key piece you might identify is that you are interested in answering a particular question-such as how gender affects participation in social movements. Another key piece might be that you want to work with a certain set of data-perhaps an archive of land-ownership records that exists in your community. Maybe you have access to a particular group of individuals such as clergy wives and want to make use of that group as participants. Perhaps you really like a particular theory such as chaos theory and want to be sure you get to work with it in your dissertation.
Once you identify the key pieces of which you are certain, continue to talk with your partner to work out the key pieces or decisions that are still missing. By the end of your conceptual conversation, you want to have identified the following five key pieces:
* A research question to guide your study* Data to analyze* Method of data collection* Method of data analysis* The areas of your literature review
Assessing the Key Pieces
End the conceptual conversation by assessing the five key pieces with your partner. You can do this by asking questions such as:
* Do all the key pieces align with and follow from the research question?* Does the proposed study make a contribution to the field?* Can the project be done with the resources and time you have?* Is the project of interest and even exciting to you?
As a result of a conceptual conversation, you have made the key decisions about your dissertation and can use them as the basis on which to write your dissertation proposal.
About Dr. Sonja K. Foss and Dr. William Waters Sonja and William are the co-directors of Scholars' Retreat ("dissertation camp"), a week-long retreat that provides the opportunity for intensive, focused, non-distracting, supervised writing time so that participants can may make significant progress toward the completion of their dissertation or thesis. The next Scholars' Retreat will be held in June in Denver, Colorado. More information is available at SonjaFoss.com (click on "Scholars' Retreat") or e-mail at Sonja.Foss@cudenver.edu. Sonja is a professor in the Communication Department at the University of Colorado at Denver, and William is an assistant professor in the English Department at Northwest Missouri State University.
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