21L25000 - Getting started, Lecture, 13.9.2023-28.12.2023

Submit a short essay (1000-1500 words) about writing a dissertation based on your main insights from interviewing a graduate and her/his supervisor by 23 October 2023. Also, build on your essay to prepare a 5-10-minute presentation for the session on 26 October.

To do so, choose a published dissertation (completed after around 2015) that is of genuine interest to you and that was not advised or conducted by your own supervisor. Then, carefully read the dissertation and interview both the graduate and the related 1st (or if not possible the 2nd) supervisor. Exemplary themes/questions informing the interview and writing your essay should include at least the following:

• What were the phases of writing the dissertation? What happened over time?
• What was the researcher’s main research question and task, and how did that come out in the dissertation? Does the doctoral thesis in your view address this task or question?
• An account that presents both from the researcher’s and her/his advisor’s point of view answers to the following questions: (a) What made it possible to finish the dissertation (successfully)? (b)Why is the dissertation like it is? (e.g. regarding the structure, choices of literatures and methods, style and content of the essays, …)
• Any observations, insights or questions evoked by this inquiry regarding the process doctoral studies and writing the dissertation.