Dear Colleagues,
This past few days, I've been taking a workshop with Prof. Ron Adams of Victoria University on doctoral supervision. Ron does workshops for doctoral students as well.
Ron's workshop book -- Demystify Your Thesis -- clarifies many aspects of the process students go through in earning a PhD. The workbook section contains many practical examples with useful activities that help PhD students understand the key issues. The book is especially good on showing students how to understand the literature, use the literature to carve out a niche for their own research contribution, and find an effective voice for their work.
Ron has graciously allowed me to make his book available to colleagues across Australia and around the world. To get a free copy, go to my Academia.edu page,
http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman
Click on the section for "Teaching Documents." Demystify Your Thesis is at the bottom of the page.
Here is the table of contents:
1: Getting the most out of your supervisor
2: Being an independent researcher is more than completing a thesis
3: What is a thesis?
4: Developing a research question
5: The literature review: when to start & when to stop
6: Finding your voice in what you write
7: The architecture of a thesis
8: Controlling your chapters
9: What examiners look for
The workshop is particularly useful because it is not discipline-specific — students can learn from each other, comparing notes, ideas, and experiences across disciplines. PhD students in design, informatics, and anthropology students can share ideas with and learn from PhD students in chemistry, history, and astrophysics. Since design is a field that is still developing research traditions and supervision skills, this kind of information is especially useful to design students.
If you'd like to contact Ron about doing a workshop for your doctoral students, you can reach him at:
Ron Adams <[log in to unmask]>
Highly recommended. Since Ron is here in Australia, this is a particularly valuable investment for Australian universities.
Warm wishes,
Ken
Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Mobile +61 404 830 462 | Home Page http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design/people/Professor-Ken-Friedman-ID22.html<http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design> Academia Page http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman About Me Page http://about.me/ken_friedman
Guest Professor | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China
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