Completing Your Doctoral Dissertation or Master's Thesis in Two Semesters or Less

Rating:
Summary: Optimistic, but then, you need some optimism in this process
Review: Dr. Ogden's book gets down to the nitty-gritty. It's not the book you want if you're interested in your dissertation being a great piece of research. But if you're interested in FINISHING IT (and getting those three letters after your name), then its insights are very, very practical. She mentions the specifics of how to get it done with minimal obstacles. She gets into the keys of proposal, selecting the right dissertation chairperson, analyzing what you'll need to do, the stages, setting a timeline, and oral defense of the thesis. I agree with another reviewer who said her timelines were unrealisitic (Can a first time thesis-writer really collect data and do literature review research at the same time?); however, the optimism in which the book was written makes it great. Her method of analyzing other dissertations of your chairperson was a very key insight, and she sets it out there in step-by-step fashion. Simply following her guidelines puts you on the clear path towrd PhD, not ABD.

Rating:
Summary: Good overview and extremely encouraging
Review: Dr. Ogden's book gets down to the nitty-gritty. It's not the book you want if you're interested in your dissertation being a great piece of research. But if you're interested in FINISHING IT (and getting those three letters after your name), then its insights are very, very practical. She mentions the specifics of how to get it done with minimal obstacles. She gets into the keys of proposal, selecting the right dissertation chairperson, analyzing what you'll need to do, the stages, setting a timeline, and oral defense of the thesis. I agree with another reviewer who said her timelines were unrealisitic (Can a first time thesis-writer really collect data and do literature review research at the same time?); however, the optimism in which the book was written makes it great. Her method of analyzing other dissertations of your chairperson was a very key insight, and she sets it out there in step-by-step fashion. Simply following her guidelines puts you on the clear path towrd PhD, not ABD.

Rating:
Summary: Optimistic, but then, you need some optimism in this process
Review: I waited a mere 6 months for my copy of this book and I had given up hope when a week ago the email came saying it was available. Was it worth the wait? YES! I have read almost every one of these types of books I could get my hands on (probably to procrastinate more than in search of inspiration!) and I can safely say that this book along with David Sternberg's How to Complete and Survive a Doctoral Dissertation have offered the best advice.

Chapter 1: The Doctoral Degree Facts of Life -- The Beginning Chapter 2: Researching your Committee--The really critical research project Chapter 3: Selecting the Dissertation Topic Chapter 4: Spending Money and Using the 20th Century to Your Advantage Chapter 5: Designing Your Dissertation and Preparing the Prospectus and Proposal Chapter 6: Writing the Dissertation -- Twenty Workdays to go! Chapter 7: Defending the Dissertation -- Two Hours to Doctor! Chapter 8: Celebrating, the Last Revision, Postpartum Depression

I am giving it 4 stars only because (and I hate this!) there is no Index. Each chapter is clearly outlined in the Table of Contents and each chapter has a summary paragraph at the end so if you need to cruise through and get on with it, you can do it easily (but I still miss that index!)

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Overview of the Dissertation/Thesis Process
Review: In this book, Dr. Evelyn Hunt Ogden outlines a practical, yet optimistic, approach for finishing a Doctoral dissertation in two semesters or less. She is also quick to point out that the book is essentially suited to a Master's thesis. I will point out that in programs that have de-emphasized thesis writing, instead relying on a written 'Graduate Research Project' (GRP, which also goes by other names), generally of smaller scope than a thesis, this is also very applicable.

The focus of the book is making the dissertation or thesis as painless as possible. Dr. Ogden has advised scores of Ph.D. candidates on their dissertations, and her tips are on the money. She focuses on how to strategically and tactically plan your dissertation by focusing on what suitable topics are, and particularly emphasizes how to pick your advisor and committee (if you have a choice), how to focus your topic to manageable size, how to design your study and methodology, how to minimize required changes along the way, time line construction, and preparing for the oral defense. After reading the book, I came away with a new approach to this subject for myself, and I truly believe that this book is the most useful I have read on the subject, certainly more so than most formal research methods books. Having said that, I do believe her time line is quite tight. Although it sounds plausible to complete the dissertation in two semesters, I truly believe that in most cases it may require more, particularly in some scientific disciplines where the basic research can add substantially to that time line. Nonetheless, even if it does take you longer, the techniques and tips in this book will save you countless hours if you heed their wisdom.

I was on the borderline between four and five stars as a rating for this book, and though I love the book and highly recommend it, I settled on four. The reasons for the one star downgrade ore fairly straightforward: first, the book was originally published in 1993, and reprinted in 2002, making it out of date with regard to personal computer and printer technology and methodology (for instance it recommends daisy wheel printers); and secondly, the book is largely geared to examples of educational studies (although there are a few others including biology and ecology studies) to illustrate the authors points. The large bulk of these examples involve empirical study of large populations using statistical treatments (though there are no statistics in the book itself). This is great if you are a geneticist or psychologist, for example, but it applies less to a historian or language major. She very much promotes statistical treatments of empirical data whenever possible, and doesn't delve deeply into case study type dissertations, which are very common.

Overall, this is a great book. It is concise, easy to use, and universally applicable in the vast majority of concepts discussed. I highly recommend that any graduate student buy this book and read it before starting their dissertation or thesis. It will pay for itself many times over!