Your dissertation is not a hurdle to jump or a battle to fight; as this handbook makes clear, your dissertation is the first of many destinations on the path of your professional career. Destination Dissertation guides you to the successful completion of your dissertation by framing the process as a stimulating and exciting trip―one that can be completed in fewer than nine months and by following twenty-nine specific steps. Sonja Foss and William Waters―your guides on this trip―explain concrete and efficient processes for completing the parts of the dissertation that tend to cause the most delays: conceptualizing a topic, developing a pre-proposal, writing a literature review, writing a proposal, collecting and analyzing data, and writing the last chapter. This guidebook is crafted for use by students in all disciplines and for both quantitative and qualitative dissertations, and incorporates a wealth of real-life examples from every step of the journey.
Sonja K. Foss is professor emerit in the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado Denver. Her research and teaching interests are in contemporary rhetorical theory and criticism, feminist perspectives on communication, the incorporation of marginalized voices into rhetorical
theory and practice, and visual rhetoric. She is the author or coauthor of the books Gender Stories, Rhetorical Criticism, Contemporary Perspectives on Rhetoric, Inviting Transformation: Presentational Speaking for a Changing World, Feminist Rhetorical Theories, Inviting Understanding: A Portrait of Invitational Rhetoric, and Feminism in Practice. Foss earned her PhD in communication studies from Northwestern University and previously taught at Ohio State University, the University of Oregon, the University of Denver, Virginia Tech, and Norfolk State University.
Together, Sonja K. Foss and William Waters offer writing retreats and present workshops on topics such as completing dissertations, publishing, and advising, and they coach individual scholars working on dissertations, articles, and books.
William Waters is associate professor in the Department of English at the University of Houston-Downtown. His research and teaching interests are in poetry, writing theory and practice, the history of the English language, linguistics, and modern grammar. He is the author of Unwatered Seeds and the managing editor of La Puerta: A Doorway into the Academy. Waters earned his PhD in language and linguistics from the University of New Mexico and previously taught at Northwest Missouri State University; the University of Maine; University College in Galway, Ireland; and Cheongbuk National University in Korea.
Together, William Waters and Sonja K. Foss offer writing retreats and present workshops on topics such as completing dissertations, publishing, and advising, and they coach individual scholars working on dissertations, articles, and books.
