Darby Vickers, Ph.D.

Currently, I’m spending my days preparing for my Candidacy exam (and TAing). The candidacy exam consists in an oral examination on the first chapter of the dissertation and an outline for the rest of the document. Although the revised version of my prospectus lays out a clear roadmap for my first chapter (and my other chapters), I am really worried about how to schedule my time over the next eleven weeks. Today, I realized that there was a pre-built roadmap in the form of Wendy Belcher’s famous book Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success. While I’m not submitting to a journal, I am submitting my committee. Since I did not get my schedule for the following quarter until yesterday, I’m just now setting up my schedule, but I’m hoping that I can power through all of it.

Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day by Joan Bolker serves as a guide for the larger process of writing the dissertation.