Academic Discipline: Humanities

What motivated you to complete the doctoral degree?

As I completed my master degree, I decided to go on to the doctoral degree because I wanted to teach at the college level and I thought my chances were better with a doctorate than with an M.A. It certainly was an option to go to work first and come back to graduate school, but I had just gotten married, my husband and I were already used to being poor, and he was willing to support me until I finished my degree. I was 21 years old when I started graduate school; 23 when I started my doctorate. In addition, I watched a number of women who had come back to graduate school after raising their families and that looked like a terribly difficult way to do it, so I decided to continue until I finished.

How did you select your dissertation topic?

Even though my degree is in English, my primary field is composition and rhetoric, not the traditional literatures. I wanted to do a dissertation that would be useful to writers and teachers of writing. I was volunteering for an AIDS service agency and was very aware of the misinformation and misunderstandings about HIV/AIDS that were so prevalent at the time (circa 1988). My interests came together around the topic of how writers can best convey complex scientific and medical information to general readers and enable the readers to make informed choices about their lives. Of course, like everyone else, I did consider a number of topics before settling on this one.

How did you select your dissertation committee?

I had a wonderful dissertation director, a teacher of writing and rhetoric who had been my advisor throughout graduate school. She was a natural choice because I had already done so much work with her. I also chose a linguist because I had planned to do a linguistic analysis of the texts I was examining, a professor of Philosophy who was writing on the ethics of HIV/AIDS, and a medical doctor who treated HIV/AIDS patients (and for whom I had edited several articles and part of a book). I don't remember the exact process for selecting these committee members, but I'm sure my director helped me identify the types of expertise I needed on my committee.

Tell me about the design of your dissertation study?

I chose 20 texts, half from popular sources (such as Time magazine) and half from more scientific sources that contained information about HIV/AIDS for the purpose of educating the reader. I had medical experts evaluate the texts for scientific accuracy, HIV/AIDS workers and volunteers evaluate them for accuracy, and good readers evaluate them for rhetorical effectiveness. In addition, I calculated reading level, average sentence length, and other markers of reading difficulty. I compared the evaluations and the features of the texts to determine which writing techniques seemed to best convey accurate information that readers could use for decision making.

What was the significance of your dissertation study and how is this information useful in the world of education?

You mean dissertations are supposed to be significant and useful? (Sorry, I couldn't resist.) I don't know that anyone else has gotten anything out of it, but I certainly learned some things that I use in my own writing and teaching: readers do want numbers – they aren't necessarily turned off by them -- but they also want to be told what the numbers mean; shorter sentences do not necessarily make the material easier to understand if the connections between ideas are omitted; etc.

What challenges did you encounter in completing your dissertation?

(1) Finding volunteers who were willing and who had the time to serve as evaluators. Being a poor graduate student, I couldn't pay them, but I did feed a few of them while they did the work. (2) Getting the last bit done while working a full-time job. I started working full-time as a technical writer while I finished the dissertation. To finish, I wrote computer manuals 8 hours a day at work and wrote another 8 hours a day at home on the dissertation, plus at least 16 hours on the weekend. It was grueling, but worth it.

What tips can you offer to students for completing a dissertation?

(1) Your dissertation is not your life's work; find a topic you can manage for the dissertation so you can then get on with your life's work. (2) Pick a topic you love – you're going to be living very closely with it for quite a while. (3) Set aside time that is devoted to working on your dissertation as if writing it is your job. Don't wait to be in the mood, and don't get distracted by the laundry that needs washing or the house that needs straightening. It will still be there when writing time is done. (4) Allow yourself time to do something mindless so your subconscious can work if you're stuck; I've resolved many writing problems in the swimming pool or on a bicycle.

What would you do differently if you had to do it all over again?

I'm not sure – perhaps I'd finish the dissertation before taking a full-time job.

Just a humorous aside – it was 20 years before I felt like I could throw away my research notes and rough drafts of my dissertation. I had this deep-seated irrational fear that someone from the university would realize that they'd made a mistake in awarding me the degree and I didn't want to have to start again from scratch. I've heard from several other people who have felt the same way.

Dr. Diane Carr is an associate vice president of Arts and Sciences at Midlands Technical College. Carr earned a Ph.D. and M.A. in Composition and Rhetoric from the University of South Carolina (USC) and a B.A. in English and History from USC.

What motivated you to complete the doctoral degree?

As a college instructor with a master's degree, I felt it was necessary to excel at the highest level of education by receiving a doctorate. Without the doctorate, I felt it would be difficult to advance my credentials, distinguish myself from individuals with a master's degree and gain a promotion for an upper level faculty position at the university level. Also, I wanted to be called "Dr. Marie" for personal satisfaction, so I pursued the doctorate.

How did you select your dissertation topic?

I always had a strong interest in Southern Black or African American writers. I was raised in a book reading family, and we had a lot of books on Black people. While in college, I started looking at the work of an African American, Ernest Gaines, for my thesis. Having taken several African American Literature classes, I knew that was where I wanted to focus my attention. At the time, there was not a lot of research on these writers.

There were African American writers I knew were not on the public scene although they had written for Black organizations such as the National Baptist Publishing Board. They basically disappeared from the public scene, because at that time, African American writers were not in the lime light until after the 1960s. By the 1980s, these writers became somewhat popular. I was very interested in their work, as well as the history and culture of their era. It did not hurt being a southern girl.

How did you select your dissertation committee?

My major professor was my advisor when I first started looking into the possibility of pursuing the doctoral program at Florida State University (FSU). I talked with other African Americans and Caucasians students who were in the doctoral program. I also periodically talked with Dr. Fred Stanley who was the chair of the English Department at FSU. When I would visit Dr. Stanley, he was very positive, supportive and someone who believed in me. He told me how to pursue the route to the doctoral program by taking some courses before enrolling in the program.

I took the advice of Dr. Stanley and started taking courses as a special student in order to get my feet wet so to speak. Dr. Stanley primarily guided me from the point of interest in FSU's English doctoral program to the very end. I chose him as the lead person on my committee because I wanted somebody who was on my side. The other committee members were selected based upon the university's specified categories. You had to have someone outside the department, so I chose an African American Historian. There were not a whole lot of African Americans at FSU to choose from to serve on my committee. But there were certainly some very strong faculty members at the university who had both an interest in my topic and me. By choosing these supportive people, I never had to change my topic.

Tell me about the design of your dissertation study?

The design followed the pattern of looking at the views of African American writers in the South and how this information could be connected to the history and culture of that period. These writers were writing about themselves and about their people, which was very dramatic. If they were focused on the religion of the time, then the design would be to look at just this. However, I did not try to fit the writers into any particular formula other than here's a writer, here's what she or he wrote about and here's other information about the writers. Also, I did not have a limit to the discovery process. I wanted to write about those African American writers from the 1800s – 1953.

The biggest hurdle was the discovery process of requesting materials from different libraries. While working on my dissertation in the late 1970s, I had to use the Inter-Library Loan quite often. By the time I got to the end of my dissertation, I was pulling materials from the Baptist Publishing Board and any other places where I could find information on the African American writers. It was like digging and turning over rocks and stones to find materials on these writers.

What was the significance of your dissertation study and how is this information useful in the world of education?

First, the significance of my dissertation enabled me to earn a doctorate. As backbone to my research interest, I spent a lot of time looking at African American writers. I was a part of the College Language Association (CLA) while teaching at Alcorn State University. CLA is a Black counterpart to the modern language association, which provides a complete exploration of African American Literature. Another significance of my dissertation is that I identified African American writers who wrote fiction from the 1800s – 1953. This research was probably the first work that ever tried to uncover every Southern African American writer who was writing fiction during that period of time.

The research was useful when it was written because of the identification of all of those writers. From the time of my study to 2010, I was actually getting inquiries about my dissertation. One of the African American writers that I identified in the study was a relative of a person seeking to track the history, genealogy and biography of the family's roots. With a dissertation close to 400 pages, I identified over 100 African American writers enabling others to continue the research or track these individuals similar to a family member. I also wrote a book as a follow-up to my dissertation on, "A Bio-bibliography of Southern Black Creative Writers," 1829 – 1953.

What challenges did you encounter in completing your dissertation?

The major challenge was getting the research materials from the library utilizing the Inter-Library Loan. The African American writers were not considered important as evident by some of the libraries. When I would make a request of an Inter-Library Loan, I would get an original book that was written in the 1800s or early 1900s. There were not many copies of these books available in the libraries since I spent many days trying to obtain copies of them.

The other major challenge was that the topic was too emotional. I was emotionally drained by reading about the hangings, beatings and raping and how people were being treated back in that time. It hit my heart. There would be times when I would just stop writing and reading or read faster.

In some ways, because of the emotional impact, I probably functioned at a faster pace to get the dissertation completed. I wanted the hurt to end. You are reading about your own people and you are looking at how they were treated and how it just never stopped. It had no ending during that period. There were happy moments, but there were far more sad moments for African Americans. There were always these disruptions as reported by African American writers. Reading this made it very painful in completing my dissertation.

What tips can you offer to students for completing a dissertation?

I would say, make sure you choose a topic that you are very interested in doing. Sometime, you have to fight for the topic that you want. If you are not interested in the topic, if it is not something that you think is of value, you are not going to spend the time and energy needed. You would just move at a slower pace. I know people who worked on their dissertation for years. They would put it down; they would go back to it; and sometimes they don't finish. So, I would say chose a topic of great interest to you. Choose people who believe in you, as well as the topic that you choose. Also, understand why you are working on your study. It needs to have some relevance to both you and especially your advisor.

What would you do differently if you had to do it all over again?

I am not sure if I would do anything differently. I can tell you there was a point in time that I actually called my advisor because I wanted to get finished. I called him and said, "There is a job out there I can get if I finish the dissertation. You are standing between the job and me." If I did it all over again, I would choose the same person. My advisor was absolutely wonderful. I am glad that I chose my topic because it was an interest to me. I finished my dissertation in a year or less. So, I was on the job.

Dr. Marie Gnage is the president of Florida State College at Jacksonville - Downtown Campus. Gnage earned a Ph.D. in English with an emphasis in American Literature from Florida State University, M.A. in English from the University of Southwestern Louisiana and a B.S. in English from Alcorn A&M College.

What motivated you to complete the doctoral degree?

When I decided to pursue a doctorate, I knew I was doing it for my family, my community, people at church, as well as for myself. In fact, I knew that people were expecting me to complete the degree. They considered me a role model. And, I really wanted a Ph.D. in History. I wanted to spend my life researching and writing history.

How did you select your dissertation topic?

My master's thesis was on Black women's clubs in Charleston, South Carolina. My dissertation topic was an extension of my master's thesis. I was particularly interested in South Carolina women's roles in Civil Rights activism and the ways in which Black and White women worked together across the racial divide to realize change for all South Carolinians. Because I was born and raised in South Carolina, this topic was also very personal to me.

How did you select your dissertation committee?

My advisor was known for being very direct, hardworking, and task oriented and I knew she would demand the same of me. I also wanted a diverse and all female committee. My advisor was a White female, the second committee member was an African-American female, and the third member was an Asian-American female.