Comparatively Evaluating Potential Dissertation and Thesis Projects

Graduate students suffer from many pressures when writing a dissertation. Deadlines loom, jobs are highly competitive, publishing is always a bonus, and these are often combined with outside research, teaching fellowships, or other occupations. In order to finish a quality dissertation without too much wasted time or effort it is useful for students to begin early and to think hard about their projects in a variety of ways. Students may have a broad conceptual interest or field interest without a focused and tractable project. In addition to the normal practice of discussing potential projects with advisors and mentors, there are several ways to evaluate potential projects that may be overlooked. This essay helps bring a good dissertation project to the front of several potential ideas a student might have by describing several characteristics for comparison across topics. In addition, this essay provides a rubric by which students can develop and discuss a project with faculty and colleagues. Without a doubt, one of the most important aspects of preparing a dissertation project is to discuss that project with faculty mentors and potential committee members (Banesh 2001). Between these discussions, or before the first discussion of potential projects, students can spend considerable time thinking about various ideas for their thesis or dissertation. Students approaching their project systematically may have many projects they are considering and wish to narrow down those projects to a manageable few before discussing them with advisors. As a first time dissertation writer, however, most graduate students are unaware of criteria that can be used to evaluate and compare their ideas objectively so they can compare several project ideas and narrow down the field. The criteria described here combine and extend other criteria previously developed, such as developing questions that are important in the real world and those that contribute to scholarly literature (King, Keohane, and Verba 1994). The criteria described below were developed specifically for dissertation projects, but are also very useful for students writing theses for other purposes such as undergraduate senior projects. The guide provided here should enable students to compare several potential ideas objectively to begin to find a viable project. Although the initial development of a thesis project based on a student's theoretical or empirical interests is mostly idiosyncratic and personal (See King, Keohane, and Verba 1994; Van Evera 1997), once a student's interests emerge there are some common ways to objectively evaluate several dissertation projects. This essay helps students develop several ways to think about their dissertation projects and create a rubric so that several projects can be evaluated on comparable terms. Thanks to the two anonymous reviewers and Ronald B Mitchell who made instrumental suggestions on improving the text

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