PREPARING FOR YOUR THESIS, DISSERTATION,
OR CAPSTONE DEFENSE
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Copy and paste questions and answers into an e-mail. Remember to attach your draft and any committee comments.
To prevent delays, ANSWER ALL QUESTIONS COMPLETELY.
(02) E-mail addresses:
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Please provide secondary e-mail address.)
(03) Day/evening phone numbers
(in case the response to your e-mail bounces or the editors need clarification regarding the scope of service needed, deadline, etc.):
(04) City, State, Country (or time zone):
(05) Which of our services do you need?
Rewriting (for example, for language clarity, help incorporating committee suggestions)
Developmental editing / content advisement / organizing presentation of research
Research guidance, review of research
Statistical analysis
Indexing
General consultation / defense
Copyediting / formatting
NOTE: WE DO NOT PERFORM UNETHICAL SERVICES SUCH AS "CUSTOM WRITING."
(06) Is this the proposal or the final thesis/dissertation?
(07) What is your hypothesis, topic, and thesis statement?
(08) What is your college/university and academic department?
(09) When is your deadline for this portion? When is your deadline for the completion of the entire project?
(10) Currently, how many pages have you completed? How many pages are required for your final product?
(11) Does your work need to be in a particular format (e.g., Chicago, Turabian, APA, MLA)?
(12) What are your needs with regard to figures/tables/charts?
(13) Will your advisor be working with you from scratch or from a prior draft?
(14) What is your budget for the entire project/consulting arrangement?
(15) The name(s) of the advisors(s) you'd like to contact:
(16) How did you learn about our service? (e.g., name of website, name of search engine)
Attach a writing sample. Your name must appear in the document you submit, or it can be the name of the document (e.g., joesmith.doc).
Once your e-mail is received, the coordinator will forward it (plus any attached files) to the advisor(s) you selected. If no selection is made, the coordinator will send your submission to advisor(s) in your field of study or to advisors/editors who provide the services you have requested. If you require copyediting and formatting, your submission may be rerouted to an affiliated network of academic editing specialists.
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THESIS AND DISSERTATION WRITING HELP
TOPIC CONSULTANTS
John Bucci: finance, econometrics, mathematics, probability, data analysis, SAS, STATA, Matlab
B Collins: applied social psychology, research methods and assessments, communications, culture/ethnicity, ethics/morality, health, interpersonal processes, person perception, social influence, prejudice/stereotyping.
Tom Davidson: Doctorate program director: industrial psychology, organizational psychology, management, leadership, quantitative research, survey methodology, interviewing, applied field research, focus groups, mediation and moderation studies.
Helps students turn research ideas into specific and practical research designs, hypotheses, analytical methods and chapter outlines, literature reviews, methodology chapters.
Margaret Eaton: theology, classical Hebrew; Old Testament, Koine Greek, New Testament.
Les Foxman: public relations, journalism, communications.
Val Gerard: biology, botany, chemistry, ecology, environmental policy, environmental science, evolutionary biology, geography, geology, marine science, mathematical modeling, medicine, oceanography, physiology, veterinary medicine, zoology, and related scientific fields.
Dr. Gilbert:
Certified SAS base programmer, biostatistical analysis, medical data analysis, medical statistician, medical statistical analysis, biostatistician, survival analysis, ANOVA, MANOVA, ANCOVA, longitudinal data, repeated measures, path analysis, logistic regression, power calculations, structural equation modeling, robust data analysis, non parametric data analysis, cluster analysis, linear and logistic models, classification analysis, stepwise variable selection.
Dr. Sara H.:
Statistical Geneticist,
Quantitative Genetics,
Genetic Epidemiology,
Genotypic and Haplotype Tests,
Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium,
Genome-Wide Association Studies,
Golden Helix,
R Statistics – R Programming
Dr. Tracy Jackson: Nursing, Human Services, Social Work, Mental Health, Community Services.
Vicki Lawrence: Biostatistics, Research Methodologies, Public Health,
Epidemiology Research, Data Set Management
Suzanne Manness: business English, technical English. APA, MLA, Chicago Manual of Style, Turabian, Harvard, AMA, and AAA.
Debbie Nogsmith: Nursing and allied health fields, methodology, oral defense, alternative health care, social justice, integral studies, nursing ethics, nursing practice curriculum, cultural competency, feminism, geriatric nursing, health education, advising, coaching, mentoring, research
Chris Tomei: Slavic studies, humanities, computational linguistics, linguistic theory, Russian, comparative literature, folklore, modernism and women's studies, international relations, comparative culture, indexer of scholarly books.
Barbara von Diether: research strategies, scholarly writing, education administration, education technology, secondary education, curriculum development, needs assessment, education leadership, instructional design, instructional media, advertising, business administration, business management, business and educational leadership training and development, communications.
INDEXER
Madge Wallace is a professional freelance indexer. She creates indexes found at the back of nonfiction books. When an index is done according to generally accepted indexing standards, it performs flawlessly. The reader finds what he is looking for and doesn’t give the index a second thought. On the other hand, if the index is poorly done, the reader becomes frustrated and will likely move on to the next book. Worse yet, a nonfiction book published without an index may not be taken seriously by the publishing industry. In short, a good index enhances the value of a book to readers, reviewers, librarians, instructors, and researchers. It is a mark of a serious book.
Be aware that the graduate dean is ultimately in charge of the graduate student, not the department chair or the dean of the college. The graduate dean is the final authority over the dissertation. Some perceive this role as largely ceremonial, which they are disabused of the moment a graduate student petitions them because of trouble with a committee or an advisor. The graduate dean mediates problems of all kinds that arise from the relationship between the student and the advisor or committee members, and acts as the final authority over the quality of the dissertation.
The defense is the final step prior to award of the degree. Both the student and the advisor are part of the Defense because the advisor is considered to be the co-defendant. The advisor’s scholarship is reflected by the quality of a dissertation produced under their direction. The quality of the dissertation may affect promotion or tenure of the advisor. This is often reflected in overly critical advisors who have job-related concerns based on the final product of the study - the dissertation.
Normally, if a student is invited to defend, it means the committee and the advisor intend to award the student the degree. Students who are deemed unworthy of a degree are discouraged long before any possibility of a Defense arises.
The Defense follows a predictable pattern. The first request is always “Tell us about yourself.” This is not an invitation to talk about one’s private life. It is an invitation to summarize one’s job history, why the relevant graduate program was entered, and why the student was interested in the topic of the dissertation. The next request will be “Tell us about your research project.” Some committees require a PowerPoint presentation; others want to be told without visual aids. Regardless, the presentation should be a 20- minute summary of every chapter of the dissertation beginning with the background of the problem and ending with the recommendations for further study.
Following the presentation, committee members will ask questions related to the study. A favorite subject of questions is statistical tests that were performed, if a quantitative study, or how interview questions were formulated if a qualitative study. Small word changes may be requested. At the end of the questions, the student will be excused from the room so the committee can “deliberate” the outcome. When the student is called back into the room, the degree is approved, after which, by custom, the student is honored with the title “Doctor.” Changes in the dissertation are left to the student to perform without further checking by the committee. After the changes are made, the graduate reports to the graduate school editor with a copy of the dissertation. The graduate school editor will check the university required format and find any small errors in the text. When those errors are fixed, the dissertation is submitted to the graduate dean for the final signature.