Come, Look over My Shoulder: Organizing the Paper

As you may recall from my previous post, I have been asked to write an article on the relationship between maternal and child obesity for a journal. In the earlier post, I showed you how I do literature searches. Today I will set up my paper and decide where I am going with it.

I have read the literature that I downloaded earlier and am now aware that there are several key issues: The effects of obesity on the mother in pregnancy and childbirth, the effects on the fetus and newborn, and long-term effects on the child. There is evidence from both human studies and animal studies related to the child issues, so I want to make sure I address both of these areas. My initial plan, depending upon how long the paper is at this point, is to end the paper with a brief discussion of weight gain in pregnancy and summarize the research concerning interventions to reduce maternal weight gain during pregnancy in obese women.

I like to begin writing a paper with a title- that way I can keep focused on where I am going. My starting title is: The Effect of Maternal Obesity on the Development of Child Obesity. I then do an initial outline:

I. The effects of obesity on the mother in pregnancy and childbirth

II. The effects on the fetus and newborn

                A. Human Studies

                B. Animal Studies

III. Long-term effects on the child

                A. Human Studies

                B. Animal Studies

(Maybe)

IV. Weight gain in pregnancy

V. Interventions

A first look, tells me I am going to be way over the 12 pages I am allowed if I include all of this. So I think I will add a very short discussion of weight gain to the mother topic and leave out interventions. I will concentrate on human studies, but may mention a few animal ones. My starting outline then for writing is:

I. The effects of obesity on the mother in pregnancy and childbirth

                A. Weight gain in pregnancy

II. The effects on the fetus and newborn

                A. Human Studies

                B. Animal Studies

III. Long-term effects on the child

                A. Human Studies

                B. Animal Studies

I like to set up my paper in APA format before I actually start writing, it lets me feel like I am not staring at a blank page. So next, I'll write out the cover page info, add page numbers, label the Abstract page (I will write this last), and add the title to my page 3, which will be the first page of the manuscript. I also add in my references as I write, so I set up a page for that.

My next step is to write an introduction, which I know I will probably change later. I want something that will grab the reader's attention and also give me focus as I write. I end up with this intro paragraph.

Marie is pregnant with her first child, at a weight of 200 pounds and with a height of 5'6" her body mass index (BMI) is 32, which is considered obese according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC; 2011). How could her obesity affect her health during pregnancy? How could her weight affect her baby and are there long-term implications for her child? This article will explore these issues.

How does the process we went through relate to the writing of your dissertation? You need to decide what the key issues are before you begin writing; otherwise, the temptation will be to wander away from the topic. Most people have this problem (including me!), so put guides in place to keep you on track. This is the purpose of doing an outline, and thinking about the topics to cover before you start writing. The penalty for not doing this is that you may write many pages only to realize that they have absolutely nothing to do with your topic. Setting up your paper in advance, may help you avoid the paralysis of a blank page. Writing an interesting introduction grabs your reader and lets them know where you are going in your paper. Finally, I find it helpful to keep reminding myself that nothing is permanent when I am writing, I can and probably will change it later. 

Next time we will take a look at how you may be sabotaging your progress. 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

Committee Members

Could you please address the formal process for asking faculty to be on your committee?  I am under the impression that you first must develop your prospectus, then write prospective faculty a letter, preferably a couple of quarters prior to the date you expect to begin your dissertation.  However, I've tried to register for the prospectus class for 3 quarters and it hasn't been offered; I'm afraid I'm falling behind and can't seem to find clear information, with a timeline, anywhere!  Thank you! Joanna

There are a couple of issues here that need to be separately addressed. First, only students that came in under (or transferred into) the newest catalog are eligible for the prospectus class. So that is probably why you have not been able to get into the class.

The prospectus is a formal version of your project ideas. This may be done on your own or during the prospectus class. An important thing to remember- just because you have a draft (even if it has been approved by the instructor of the prospectus class), it is not "done" until your committee approves it and it has been approved by your program director! Typically, students continue to work on it during the first quarter in the dissertation class. There is info on it available in the research center. By the time your chair approves the prospectus, you will need to have a second committee member. They must complete a rubric on it in MyDR.

The timeline for recruiting committee members is:

Work on prospectus draft

During the quarter before you are ready to start dissertation class:

·       Finalize prospectus draft.

·       Write to Dr. Elisha Galaif elisha.galaif@waldenu.edu she maintains the current faculty availability list. Keep in mind that the list changes quickly, do not use an old list.

·       Write to several faculty that list your methodology as their area of expertise and ideally have some related interests. Keep in mind that methodology expertise is more important than content expertise. Include your prospectus with the email.

o   Pay attention to how long they take to get back to you – if they take a long time with this, they may also do so with paper drafts.

·       Pick a chair, complete committee form, and send to him/her.

·       Your chair should submit their committee form and your prospectus draft to the research center – this will lead to your being registered in the dissertation class the following quarter.

·       Continue working on prospectus

First quarter of dissertation class

·       Complete prospectus

·       Write to Dr. Elisha Galaif elisha.galaif@waldenu.edu and get the current faculty availability list.

·       Write to several faculty about being your committee member. Include your prospectus and committee form.

·       The committee member chosen will submit the committee form to the research office.

These are not firm rules; you can recruit a second committee member earlier. However, the above guidelines give you the timeline of requirements.

I have also received questions on what exactly does the second committee member do and how often should you be contacting him or her? I like to have my students contact their committee member once a quarter, just to update them on the student's progress. Technically, the committee member does not need to be involved in the process until the proposal (first 3 chapters of the dissertation) is approved by the chair. However, if you have questions on methodology (if he or she is your methods expert) or content (if your content expert) you should write and ask them.

They will review your proposal and give you feedback on it – they are another set of eyes, and will see the paper fresh- after all your chair has read it many times and may no longer see problems. They will want revisions. When they are happy with it, they complete the rubric for the proposal in MyDR and will be at your defense.

If the committee member is your methods expert, you may be more in touch with them as you complete your IRB application and begin to collect and analyze your data. I encourage you to use them as a resource. You may want to run chapters 4-5 by them, for their input.

They will be sent a copy of your final paper and will complete the rubric in MyDR when they approve it. They will also be at your final defense. 

Next time we will return to the article I am writing and take a look at organizing the paper. 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

Walden alumni interview!

Check out the interview with Walden alumni Dr. Rick J. Cicchetti on getting published at: http://jsbhseditorblog.blogspot.com/

"A-motivation"

A-motivation, paralysis. A time during a project when you can't take that next step, sitting down at the computer seems impossible. Whether your paralysis is due to a fear of failure, lack of belief in yourself, learned helplessness or a lack of belief in the value of what you are trying to achieve, it feels hopeless. How to get out of this slump??

A few suggestions. First, I strongly suggest that you get yourself a support group; it is very hard to do this alone. How do you do that? If you know anyone locally working on a dissertation, you could have an in-person group. You could ask people in your dissertation class or others you know at Walden to join with you in a virtual group. I have had a text support group for students in my class- you could form one too. Everyone in the group agrees to text when they think or work on the paper and to also offer support and encouragement to the group. A group seem too much? Then get a dissertation buddy - one other person who will agree to support you at least once a week by email or phone (and vice versa).

Second, put together an "Achievement File". Sometimes we need to remind ourselves, that we are bright and capable. The Achievement file is for this. Include the successes you have had – those papers that you got an A on, maybe your transcript showing your great grades, the ribbon you won at the state fair, the photo of your kids, anything that makes you proud of your achievements. When you feel down, pull it out and remind yourself, you have done great things before and you can do it again!

Third, perhaps it is time to tweak your project. Think about- what would make you excited about the topic again? Are you tired of thinking about children and eating disorders? Maybe moving it to adulthood would give you a fresh perspective and enthusiasm.  Maybe switching from eating disorders to another topic would help. Sometimes just switching chapters helps, a shift from literature to research methods may be all you need.

If you have tried these and other ideas, and you still can't get interested, perhaps you need a break. You can take a leave of absence for a quarter, get your head together, and come back refreshed. If you go this route, I suggest really taking a break from school – read those trashy novels in your closet, go to the beach or mountains do something totally different from your regular life. Give yourself a chance to recharge and think about the bigger issues of life. What do you really want to be doing in 5-10 years? What do you love doing? What makes you excited to get up in the morning? Where does getting a doctorate fit in the picture? If you think a leave of absence may be your solution, contact academic advising for help on setting it up. 

Next time we'll look at issues related to committee members- getting that 2^nd member, and what do with them when you get them.

Come Look over My Shoulder: Writing

Previously we put together an outline for the maternal and child obesity article that I have been asked to write. Today I am going to talk you through beginning to write the paper. Rather than give you my actual writing, I think it may be more helpful to explain why I am approaching it in a certain way.

The first section from the outline was

I. The effects of obesity on the mother in pregnancy and childbirth

                     A. Weight gain in pregnancy

Remember when I talked about writing the literature review (see 4/26 post)? I discussed starting your literature review broadly and narrowing it as you progress, which I will also do my paper. I want to present a case during my review, that the issue is real and should be of concern to the reader. So I will carefully lead them in this direction. First, I need to educate the reader on terms and definitions of what I will be talking about. I will start with explaining what I mean by obesity, and give some definitions. If I have any quotes it would be in this section. Since this paper is for practitioners (midwives and doulas) any guidelines as to how to recognize obesity that I can provide will be useful for them in their practice.

I want to show that obesity is first an issue in the US in general, so it would make sense to look at some stats from the National Institute of Health (NIH) or the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) demonstrating the importance of the issue. Then I will narrow the topic to obesity and pregnancy- how many women are we talking about? This is also where I will discuss what is a normal weight gain during pregnancy and what is abnormal. I’ll discuss the interaction of pre-pregnancy obesity and weight gain during the pregnancy. What are the major health concerns during pregnancy for obese women?

Again, I want you to notice that I am guiding and educating my readers, do not assume that they know anything about the specific subject. Assume your readers are intelligent and experienced in their field, but do not use jargon. They can always skip over info they already know, but you can’t go back and fill in knowledge they are lacking.  Do not feel the need to write “academically,” typically such a style comes across as difficult to follow and makes the reader have to translate it; instead be logical, define terms, and guide them in the direction that you want them to go.

Next in my paper, I will look at the issues related to obesity and childbirth, how does it complicate giving birth? Again, my focus is on the mother, I will switch to the child in the 2^nd section. I keep reminding myself as I go – why do we care about this issue?

I always enter citations/ references as I go, and make notes to myself when I need to find a citation to support a statement I have made. Remember that any facts you state must have a citation. I also make notes (using comments in track changes) of areas that need more literature or need additional support from the literature.

Once I have a section that seems to be taking shape, I start the editing process – rereading and clarifying. I will start my next writing session by rereading what I wrote the last time and seeing if it still makes sense. Have I missed any steps in my logical argument? Have I led my reader to the point that I wanted to make in the section, that obesity is a serious issue for the mother during pregnancy and childbirth?

How does today’s writing relate to your dissertation? You also must educate your reader, build a logical argument, and demonstrate why your reader should care about the topic. As, potentially, a future reader of your paper, I beg you not to try to write “academically!” Your paper should be a careful balance between writing professionally about a technical subject and avoiding the use of the thesaurus just to impress. It does not impress me using convoluted language, I really prefer to understand what you are saying.

Next time I will talk about ways to re-motivate yourself when you are on in a major slump. 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

Come and look over my shoulder: Literature Review

I have been asked to write a literature review as an article in a journal for midwives and doulas. I thought you might find it helpful to "look over my shoulder" as I select a topic, do the literature search, and organize and write the paper. Today, I will talk about the topic selection and literature search, I'll save writing for a later time.

The journal editor asked me to pick a topic on the subject of child obesity that would be relevant to childbirth educators (e.g., midwives, and doulas). Let's start by doing a search in the Walden library in Psycinfo, Cinahl (a nursing database) and Medline. I like to start searches as narrow as I can; I want to link child obesity closely to pregnancy – since that is the readers' interest - so I start with the search term of infant obesity. We find a variety of topics, many focused on interventions and assessments; we read through the titles and abstracts. One topic that particularly appeals to me is the relationship of maternal obesity to child/ infant obesity. Our next step, is to make sure there is sufficient literature in this area to write a literature review on the topic. Let's do a search using the terms maternal obesity and infant obesity, hmmm, only 3 articles. Let's try the terms maternal obesity and child obesity. There were a number of articles on this, so let's narrow it further and add in the term review- which will find us any previous literature reviews of the subject, and there are 3 recent ones.

Our next step (at least my typical next step) is to go to Amazon.com and search for any reference books on the subject. Let's search using maternal AND child obesity. There are a couple of books on the topic, they have the tables of content available, so we double-check and yes, there are chapters on the topic (I add the books to my Amazon wish list to save them for now). I now know there is a reasonable literature available on the topic. Now let's double check that the editor is interested in the topic. I send her an email and yes, she likes the topic.

Now we go back to the Walden library and extend the search to maternal obesity and long term effect. I also run the searches again in the Psychology Sage database. I download any articles that seem appropriate and save them on the computer, I end up with 10 articles. We also go back to Amazon and buy the best two books on the subject. I will probably need more articles when I start to write, but this is enough to get me started and familiar with the topic area.

Now I need to go read what we have found. How did the process we went through relate to your dissertation searches? Ours was a smaller version of your literature search. You can start with same basic search technique: 1) Discover whether there is sufficient literature for your proposed topic. 2) Start very narrow in the search and then broaden it. You will have specific variables that you are interested in, so include those as you broaden the search. 3) Download (or print) your articles and be sure to check if there are reference books available on the topic. Walden's library has some ebooks available, but they often are out of date and may not directly relate to your topic. 

Next time, I invite you to look on as to I write my article. 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

Secondary data

What is secondary data? It is data that has already been collected by someone else. It may be data that is collected as a standard practice in an organization (e.g., medical charts, pre-employment testing). Some things to know about this type of secondary data, particularly if it is from an organization where you are employed. First, you will only be able to use information that is available to any outside researcher. Second, the data will need to be "de-identified" before you get access to it. This means someone else will have to remove all names of individuals, so the data is anonymous when you receive it. Check with IRB early in the process, if you are interested in this option.

Another source of secondary data is large datasets that have been available by the original researchers. Walden provides students with the opportunity to access hundreds of datasets. To see what is available – go to http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/ The researchers provide information on the background, variables, and any coding they used for data input. The use of such a dataset is perfectly acceptable as a dissertation, however a few cautions. Make sure that the study you are considering has not been previously published with the data. Typically, the researchers give a bibliography of all articles published by them. However, it does not mean that other people have not published. Search the library carefully, and include dissertations in the search. Use the name of the dataset as a search term. Another very important caution is do not try to access the data until you have IRB approval, you must have Walden's ok to proceed. Also, be aware that it can be tricky to convert the data to SPSS, and to understand the logic of their data entry. You probably will not be able to contact the researchers, so you will need to figure it out with the help of your committee.

Secondary data analysis is a great way to get access to difficult populations' data; an example might be sex offenders. However, you are stuck with the variables that the original researchers used, and there is no possibility of getting additional information from the participants. If you decide to go this route, you can reduce your time to completion considerably, but be prepared to work through the issues I outlined above.

Next time, I invite you to look over my shoulder as to I do the literature search for an article I am writing. 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