Shaping the thesis and dissertation: case studies of writers across the curriculum

Abstract

Shaping the Thesis and Dissertation: Case Studies of Writers across the Curriculum concentrates on how writers learn to conceptualize and produce texts during the high-stakes transition from graduate school into the profession: writing the thesis or dissertation. Using a theoretical framework informed by rhetorical studies of genre and a methodological approach of case studies, Gonzalez describes the writing histories and writing processes of five students as they begin crossing the textual bridge between writing as a graduate student to writing as a professional. The five writers featured represent different fields of study including art history, biblical interpretation, composition and rhetoric, journalism--advertising/public relations, and literature. These stories demonstrate the ways that multiple contexts--the individual, local, and disciplinary--impact thesis and dissertation writing.Shaping the Thesis and Dissertation presents four major findings.^First, advanced graduate students need the guidelines, direction, and models they previously received when encountering new genres in undergraduate and graduate courses. Second, graduate faculty across the curriculum increasingly acknowledge the need for explicit writing instruction. Third, graduate students seek support primarily from those they consider experts, resisting or rejecting potential help from peers, writing center staff, or other non-specialists. Fourth, thesis and dissertation writers rarely pursue non-disciplinary sources of support and instruction for their writing despite that the university has made multiple sources available to them. However, some writers seek mentors who are not sanctioned by the university (i.e.^professional editors or industry professionals) because the writers do not receive the mentoring and/or support they need from their advisors.These findings indicate that academic advisors provide the political position in the local institution and the insider knowledge in the discipline that thesis and dissertation writers need to help them navigate the thesis and dissertation process. Although non-specialists such as writing center consultants and professional editors cannot replace this invaluable advisement. As a result, this study demonstrates that the once seemingly tacit forms of advanced disciplinary writing are teachable, and that these forms are, in some cases, taught out of necessity by non-specialist or non-disciplinary sources.