Friday, January 9, 2015

Thinking about your audience


A student question:

How do you remove yourself enough from your dissertation to put yourself into the readers' shoes so to speak, so you can tell if a proposal covers everything necessary?
Mavis 

This is a good question, Mavis! You want to assume that your audience is intelligent and knows generally about psychology, but has no knowledge about your topic. Think of it as educating your readers. Explain terms, tell them the background of your variables, and do not assume that they know anything about it. Put yourself in the position of the instructor, be through, and explain. 

I also want to reassure you that this is exactly what your committee will be helping with. They will tell you when you need more explanation and description. A common comment is "define this," or "go into more detail here." 

Next time I will consider some ways that you can recruit interview subjects.  Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Would you like to be a guest writer? Send me your ideas! leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu

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