If you are a graduate student or recent graduate, chances are you are concerned about getting a job. If you are in school, you want to find a job that is flexible enough to work with your school schedule, but that also relates to your major. If you have finished graduate school, then you predictably want to find a job in your field.

Given the cost of graduate school, students are thinking long and hard about their options. They seem to be in a “Catch 22” in this economy. If they terminate their educations after the Bachelor’s degree, the job market is not that great, especially in certain fields. On the other hand, if they choose to go on to graduate school in order to make themselves more “employable,” then they face even greater debt that may eat up the additional income they may able to earn for years to come.

You have finally conquered the monster that has been lurking around for the past 18 months. You are probably pretty proud of yourself, and you have right to be. Writing a dissertation is a project that very few individuals are will to take on, or, if they do, a large number just never finish. Now for the final task before typing the final copies, binding them and getting off to the dissertation committee for that oral defense.

You only do this once – write that dissertation proposal. And the frustrating part of this proposal is that your advisor and committee seem to have some need to reject it the first time it is submitted. Will always be asking for changes or additions.

The first step in the approximate 1 ½ year project of getting that dissertation finished can be the hardest – selecting that topic area and then developing a research question that you advisor and your committee will approve. There’s a lot that goes into coming up with dissertation ideas that will be acceptable and, as well, be of sufficient interest to you that you will be excited about conducing the research and producing the huge document that accompanies it.

If you have never produced a case study before, you are in for a unique experience - one that most grad students in business, economics, sociology, psychology, political science, education, and health care/medicine will have.

You’ve been around the block a time or two. And you certainly can provide a pretty decent answer to the question, “What is plagiarism?” But just to be certain, let’s define all of its facets. First and foremost, plagiarism is using the words or ideas of another as your own. The “words” part is pretty easy. If you use another author’s exact words you use quotation marks or set it off, single spaced, with credit being given.

You have the next 12-18 months to create the most major academic work of your life – your dissertation. If you have already submitted your proposal, you have submitted a timeline for completion, and that will be your general guideline, as you go through this process. Make no mistake about it – dissertation cannot be accomplished without a big-picture plan.

If you are in a doctoral program in any academic discipline, you are no doubt in the initial planning stages for your dissertation, beginning the project, or somewhere in the middle of it all. You know that it involves a number of steps, from identifying your research question, to writing your proposal, to preparing each chapter, according to your department specifications, submitting the finished product, and then preparing for your oral defense.

Every institution is different, and every department within an institution may be very different in terms of their guidelines and specifications for the Ph.D. dissertation. Your first step is to read through the manual that has been provided by your advisor – not just a cursory “look through” – but a thorough reading, so that you are absolutely clear about all of the requirements.