Selecting A Dissertation Topic

Selecting a dissertation topic is not that different from selecting any research topic, but the stakes are a little more important. Your dissertation helps define you for your first foray into the academic job market. The writing sample you submit as part of your application should be from your dissertation, as should your job talk. Your dissertation highlights your ability to generate interesting research ideas and your ability to execute them.

This chapter covers some of the same ground covered in Chapter 4, repeating some of the text verbatim. Chapter 4 focuses more on the mechanics of executing a dissertation, while this chapter focuses on selecting a dissertation topic.

Do not let the importance of your dissertation lead to paralysis on your part regarding selecting a topic. There are more good ideas than there are students writing dissertations, so have confidence that you will select one. By the time you’re picking a dissertation topic, you should have lots of experience brainstorm- ing ideas as well as writing research papers, presenting them at conferences, and even trying to publish one or more of them. Spend time with your advisor and others exploring ideas. While it is true that the first idea a student has does not always pan out, I have yet to work with a student who reaches the dissertation phase that has not been able to develop, write, and defend a quality dissertation.

As with research topics in general, start by identifying ideas that are interesting to you. Next, think about how they might be interesting to others. Focus your time and energy on these two tasks. In particular, it is critical towriteabout the ideas you have and how they might be interesting to other scholars. Writing about your ideas imposes a discipline and structure that simply talking about your ideas

cannot achieve. Once you are confident you have addressed these first two tasks, you can begin to consider the specific feasible analyses you could pursue.

Dissertations generally take one of two forms. Traditionally, dissertations are written like a book, with introductory and concluding chapters serving as book- ends around a series of substantive chapters. Often in this format, there is a sep- arate chapter that articulates the main theoretical argument guiding the rest of the research. I generally assume a minimum of three empirical chapters that make up the core of the dissertation. More recently, departments have allowed students to write a collection of standalone papers as a dissertation project. Sometimes the papers are related by a common theme or theory, but other times the papers are really independent. A hybrid model might provide a short introduction and conclusion tying the three papers together.

I don’t think that one model is necessarily better than the other. Under either model, you would be expected to produce three empirical papers or chapters. The ultimate goal might be to publish these papers or chapters as separate journal articles, to publish them together as a book, or some combination thereof.

You should emphasize the quality of the work you produce over the quantity of pages you write. Nevertheless, good advisors will expect well-crafted papers or chapters that are complete and could potentially be considered for publication in leading journals if everything works out. You have no incentive to cut corners or to be overly brief in your dissertation. This is your chance to get a committee of experts to read your work carefully and offer you advice going forward. You should take advantage of that by providing your committee with your best possible work.

A real value of having to do at least three empirical papers/chapters is that this gives you room for one of those papers to fail. You will learn, if you have not already done so, that even well thought out and designed studies sometimes don’t work. Generally students can still successfully defend a dissertation if one of their chapters blows up. In fact, sometimes we learn a lot from projects that don’t work out. Of course, the publication world is heavily biased in favor of publishing articles based on studies that do work out, so your committee will want to make sure at least something from your dissertation succeeds.

Advising individual students requires consideration of their individual circum- stances, but I often encourage students to take some risk in at least one of their

papers/chapters. Papers designed to make an incremental contribution often suc- ceed because they are taking a small step away from already published work. There is little risk in taking a small step, but the reward is also small. Your oppor- tunity to make a larger more exciting contribution is strongly related to how far away you step from existing work. Taking that bigger step increases the chances of the project not working, but it also increases your chance to make a substantial impact. On a related note, if you build a track record of publication while in grad- uate school unrelated to your dissertation, you can also afford to take more risk in your dissertation.

Many graduate students lose too much time while they are picking a disser- tation topic. Part of this comes from worrying about picking a good topic. A large part of this, however, comes from the circumstances in which students find themselves. Most PhD programs consist of coursework for two or three years followed by comprehensive field exams, often called comps or prelims. Most pro- grams don’t expect students to defend a dissertation proposal until sometime after comps.

The problem is that too many students fail to start thinking about a dissertation before comps. Many students also reward themselves after taking comps by giving themselves permission to do nothing for a month or two. Finally, with classes completed, students no longer have the weekly structure of seminars to help make sure that they are moving forward on their work from week to week. You should avoid these traps.

For example, there is no need to select a dissertation topic during your first semester of graduate school, but you should begin thinking about it in the back of your mind early on. As you take more classes and write more papers, you should begin to develop a sense of where your interests lie. Studying for comps should also help you synthesize what you have learned, which should provide a founda- tion for your own research ideas. Besides, if you have been paying attention and working hard from week to week during your coursework, your preparation for comps should be more about organizing and reviewing than it is about studying.

I developed my dissertation proposal as part of the required research paper I had to write for the last substantive seminar I took in graduate school. My professor was very supportive of this strategy. This provided me with structure and regular feedback, which I found extremely helpful.

In my experience, students planning to complete their PhD in five years while being on the market during that fifth year are much more successful if they can defend their dissertation proposal in the spring semester of their third year. This allows them to spend the summer after their third year working on their disserta- tion as opposed to just their dissertation proposal. As a result, students can make much more progress on their dissertation and improve their chances of getting something published out of their dissertation project before they go on the job market.

3.6.1 What Is a Dissertation Proposal/Prospectus?

I mentioned defending a dissertation proposal several times in the previous section. A dissertation proposal, sometimes called a prospectus, is a written docu- ment that outlines your plans for your dissertation. You will be required to defend your proposal in front of your dissertation committee. This allows you to get feed- back on your plans before getting too far along on your project. It also provides students with some protection at the defense of their eventual dissertation because if you execute the plan that your committee approved, they should be supportive of your final dissertation.

The event is called a proposal defense, but you should not be defensive. You want to highlight areas of concern and get help, not hide those areas of concern hoping that no one notices. The proposal defense gives you the chance to get feedback from experts with lots of experience. For that 1-2 hour period, they will all be focusing on your work. This is a great opportunity for you. Besides, you should be working closely with your advisor, who should not let you schedule the defense unless you are ready.

The best dissertation proposals provide a motivation for the project. You should describe the theoretical, substantive, and/or methodological contributions the project will make. You should also include a detailed outline of the work you will be doing. In a perfect world, that work plan would be so sufficiently detailed that you could hand your proposal to one of your grad student friends and they could execute the dissertation pretty much the way you would have. That level of detail requires identifying data sources, specifying analysis plans/statistical mod- els, and articulating the evidence you expect to find if your theory is supported.

People disagree on the desired length of a dissertation proposal, but I tend to think that 20-30 double-spaced pages should be enough. Less than that, and you probably are not providing enough information. More than that is often associated with ideas that have not been boiled down to their most important components.

This page length also corresponds with the guidelines for the National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant program that is part of the Political Science Program at NSF.1I think every graduate student doing empirical research for their dissertation should follow the NSF guidelines for their dissertation pro- posal whether they plan to apply for funding or not. Funding agencies require a clear rationale for the proposed project along with a detailed plan that convinces the funding agency that the researcher knows what they are doing and can execute the project with a high probability of success. If you can meet these standards, you will easily pass your proposal defense. Accepting the discipline and rigor of the NSF guidelines will serve you well. Currently, their deadline for proposals is June 15 of every year, which is also perfect for those able to defend their proposal in the spring of their third year. I encourage you to apply – even if you do not get funded, it will be a good experience.

I applied to NSF for my dissertation. I did not get funding from them, but I did get funding from another source. Even without that funding, however, the process was extremely beneficial to me. It gave me a clear path for my dissertation as well as experience seeking funding. Many of my students have applied to NSF. Some received funding and some did not, but all of them were grateful for the experience.