What is your ultimate goal of being in a doctoral program? Isn’t it to get done and have that diploma? One way to speed the process along is to make it as easy for your committee as possible. What do I mean by that? When you send drafts to your committee, leave their former track changes in place and use track changes as you write. That way they only need to check the changes you have made. Does it make you crazy to see the track changes? It is possible to turn on track changes, so it is keeping track of what you have altered, but not show it as you write. In Word 2010 go to Review/ turn on track changes/ under final show markup – choose "Final". It won’t show the changes as you type but it is saving them. Them when you are done, choose "Final: Show Markup" and they are shown. (If you have a different version of Word, check the help menu). If it feels wrong to send a track changes document, you can also send a clean draft with all track changes removed. However, do send both versions.
How else can you make it easy for your committee? Make sure
you address each comment from the faculty member. You may disagree and that is
ok, but indicate why you disagree in a track changes comment. It needs to be
more than a simple "no, I don’t want to change this." You need a good
rationale.
Other ideas- write to your committee member once a quarter
(assuming you have not talked to them recently), and give them an update on
your progress. Sometimes I don’t hear from a student for years, and don’t know
if they dropped out, are on a leave of absence, or just slow in their progress.
Don’t forget to thank them occasionally for their help, everyone likes to be
appreciated!
Next time, we will take a look at facing your fears. Do you
have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post?
Send me an email with your ideas. leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu
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