Dissertation Writing Groups

As a group leader, you are in charge of the logistics for peer review workshops. The following guidelines should help you prepare for and execute peer review workshops. These guidelines work well in conjunction with Workshop Guidelines.

As a leader of your group, the first item you should consider is setting up a calendar for workshops. Having a set calendar for meetings creates deadlines that might help writers in their creative process. Once you have this calendar, possibly 2 weeks after the mandatory orientation meeting, please send a copy to April Conway and Stephanie Moody. This copy will allow April and Stephanie to follow your progress and help you along the way.

Preparing for the workshop

You first need to decide what role writer and readers will play during the workshop: will the writer have 5 minutes at the beginning to introduce the chapter and remind the readers of his/her concerns? Will the writer stay mostly silent during workshop? These are things you will negotiate with your group, but you should remind your peers in advance about how the workshop will develop.

You should plan on workshopping only ONE writer per 60 minutes, since that time allows for extensive, targeted, and constructive feedback. You can also decide the order readers will follow in giving their feedback.

About 5 days before the workshop, you should remind the writer to circulate their chapter, if they haven’t done so already. You should also make sure that every group member has received the chapter to be workshopped.

Remind readers they can use the Feedback Letter to draft their feedback. That document guarantees equal feedback from group members. It is important that you account for readers’ critiques so that group members will see this work as integral to the dissertation writing group. Please let April or Stephanie know if you need any help with that.

Remember that, most of all, you are a reader as well (or a writer if it is your turn).

Discussing workshop values and goals with your group members

Soon after you are acquainted with your group members, possibly during your first meeting, discuss with your group members what makes a workshop successful. Remind your group members of the positive aspects of interdisciplinary feedback. One important aspect to touch upon is that academia, and many other professional outlets, are based on interdisciplinarity. If your goal is to apply for a job in academia, then you will have to practice this kind of interdisciplinary exchange, and the dissertation writing groups offer you an avenue for such practice.

During your first meeting, it is also a good idea to assess expectations. You might consider asking your group members what they would like out of the workshop, or what they consider less desirable, to create an open dialogue about the shared values of the workshop. The following are some of the attributes of an effective workshop that you might emphasize during the meeting:

• Readers should begin their feedback with positive traits so that writers can know what they have done well and what their strengths are. These positive traits work as templates for writers–they allow writers to know what works well in their writing.
• Readers should offer respectful, but brave, feedback. It must be clear that feedback comes from a positing of caring, even when that feedback is critical. While readers and writers should be mindful of disciplinary differences, focus on how these disciplinary differences might enhance your writing process and benefit you in the long run, for your academic and professional careers.
• Readers should focus on global concerns, taking inspiration from the list they can find in Workshop Guidelines.

With your group members, you should also decide what role you would like writers to play during the workshop. In reader-response workshops, the writer is usually instructed to remain quiet and take notes so that readers can share their feedback without interference from the writer’s perspective until the end of the workshop, when the writer can ask questions. However, you might choose for the writer to be more active in their own workshop and allow them to ask questions about their chapter either at the start or throughout the workshop.

If you decide that the writer will play an active part in the workshop, be sure to discuss with the group the writer’s role, making it clear that the writer should ask open-ended questions about the chapter, not simply provide a defence for it. These decisions are best taken at the beginning of your experience in the dissertation writing groups, as they set up specific standards of practice.

Peer workshops offer the opportunity to learn from group members through exposure to peers’ work in a different academic field. The purpose of the workshop is to start thinking critically about revision strategies together. By workshopping your peers and dealing with different academic fields, you will also improve your ability to revise your own writing for clarity and accessibility. This is particularly important because, once you enter the job market, often the committee that will read your work will be composed of scholars that might not belong to your field of study. It is essential to practice ways to engage in conversation with them, to enhance your professional chances. The following guidelines provide clear directions for each step of the group workshop as well as some general principles to keep in mind during workshop.

Preparing for the Workshop

Step 1: The writer being workshopped should circulate their chapter at least 4 working days before the workshop. This time-frame will allow readers ample time to give constructive and extensive feedback. In addition, writers should include with the chapter a cover letter addressed to readers in which they identify specific concerns. This letter can be drafted following the guidelines in “Writer’s Cover Letter.” This is the writer’s chance to guide the readers toward providing the most useful feedback. Remember, ask your readers exactly what you want to know about how to revise your writing.

Step 2: Readers should follow the “Feedback Letter” to draft their response letters. In addition, readers are invited to print a paper version of the chapter and mark it extensively. Readers are then invited to take paper copies of the feedback letter and the marked-up chapter to the workshop, and give those documents to the writer at the end of the workshop, so that the writer has material copy of the feedback. It would be advisable to mark on the chapter’s paper copy any later order concerns, such and typos and syntactical issues, since you might not need to spend time talking about them during workshop, but the writer might benefit from your minor editing.

Step 3: Readers should make a list of possible issues to address during the workshop. Keep in mind that you will not have time to address all you’ve written in your letter to the writer, so choose the 1 or 2 concerns that you believe more pressing. The following questions should help you to think about some topics to address in your list. You need not answer all of these questions, but some may stand out as being pertinent to you.

• Development of central argument. Does the chapter stay on topic/lose focus at any point? Is the chapter geared toward a too restricted, specialized audience? Do you feel you have learned something new reading the chapter, or that you needed to know something in advance before reading the chapter?
• Support. Is there enough evidence to support the central idea? As far as you can tell, is all of the evidence relevant to the main idea? From a lay perspective, do you need to know more? Are some passages too obscure?
• Organization. What is the purpose of the chapter? Is it an introduction? A Lit review? An analysis? An Argument? Please refer to Academic Writing for Graduate Students to see if the chapter follows the conventions of its genre. With that in mind, are paragraphs ordered effectively? Do sentences and paragraphs have a clear purpose? Do they use transitions to create relationships? Do they build well on each other?
• Style. Does the voice or tone improve the chapter or take away from the writer’s credibility? Is the language use appropriate for the audience?

General workshop principles

1. When, as a reader, it’s your time to speak during workshop, start with concerns of the higher order, based on the list you’ve made in Step 3.
2. Use specific examples. This is why it is better to have a paper copy of the chapter with you, because you can always point out specific parts or sections in it. If the writer needs to go deeper, point to the place that left you too much on the surface. As a helping device, imagine that you are a member of the writer’s dissertation committee, or of a hiring committee. Do not shy away from offering constructive criticism.
3. In this respect, offer critique, not summary. You do not need to offer a play-by-play—remember the writer will receive your letter at the end of the workshop. Always remember that revision is most often than not a considerable activity, and writers know that. In your critique, focus on depth.
4. Be kind. Be brave. Remember that the goal of the workshop is to provide a space for the writer to brainstorm essential revisions. It is not an exam; it is a conversation. Writing is an act of discovery, and there is no end to discovery. Your intelligence and interest will help the writers further their discovery. You are an ally in the path toward completion.

The role of the writer

As a writer, remember that you’re always in control of your writing. Some feedback you receive might appear not relevant to your purpose, and that’s ok. Among your group members, you are the expert on your discipline and your committee’s needs, and you will decide what kind of feedback to retain and what to discard. It is better to have more than less. This is why it is very important for you to draft the letter you will send your group as a cover letter along with your chapter, indicating what specific areas you want feedback on. Following the template provided in the “Writer’s Cover Letter” will allow you to retain agency of your writing process. Also, remember that your group members are intelligent, high achieving people, as you are, at the very top of their disciplines. Chances are, if they find something unclear, it is not simply because they are not from your discipline. You might need to revise/clarify your writing.

Most importantly, we invite you to see workshops as conversations that continue even past the workshop meeting. We encourage you to pay particular attention to the letters you receive from your group, and the paper copies of your chapter that your group gives back to you. Then, we invite you to engage in one-to-one email with any one member of your group if you need clarifications, or if you think that a one-to-one conversation might further help you. If you need some external help in understanding or actuating the feedback you receive, remember that you can always April Conway and Stephanie Moody and they will be happy to work with you.

Read the workshop draft twice.

Because you’re reviewing work from somebody who might not work in your academic field, your first read should work as a general introduction to some specific terminology you might not be familiar with. During this first reading, underline all concepts you believe need clarification, and send a personal email to the author asking if those concepts are easily understood by the author’s audience.

During your second read, in which you mark up the text for argumentative concerns, you can mark up the text gathering the necessary information that will allow you to write a letter to the writer following the template below. Remember that the comments you provide will serve the writer in rewriting/revising his/her chapter. It will be the writer’s task to decide how to use your comments. Do not fear being over-simplistic. To create consistency in the feedback the writer receives, we suggest you write a letter including these three paragraphs. If there is anything else you would like to add, please feel free to do so.

Paragraph 1: Detail what works in the essay. Articulate how or why something is particularly effective, given the purpose and scope of the chapter. Be as specific as possible, pointing out what works for a lay audience and what you think works for the specific academic community to which the writer belongs.

Paragraph 2: Paraphrase the chapter’s main point as you believe the author intended it to be. Try to extensively answer these questions from a lay perspective: What is this chapter about? What is its role in the dissertation? If you find it difficult to answer these questions, reflect in writing on why you find it difficult. Can you come up with 2 or 3 key points that work particularly well or that need revision, and expand on those? Keeping in mind the chapter’s goals, does the author express a clear narrative? What is it? Do you think the chapter adds to the scholarly work done in the writer’s specific field?

Paragraph 3: Detail any other substantial issue you notice in the chapter, related to analysis and organization but also on language issues. Do you have any concern about sources used or quotes reported in the text? Are there any features of structure or language that distract you from the overall goal of the chapter?

Providing a brief set-up, no more than one page, for your readers allows you to guide their feedback in the direction that best suit your needs. For example, you might be at a stage in your writing that style is not that central an issue, since you’re still figuring out your argument through your writing. In that case, receiving feedback on your style would not give you useful suggestions for revision. So, by telling your reader to focus on argumentation, and not on style, you’re providing a feedback frame that will be most useful to you.

To understand the utility of writing such a cover letter for your readers, think about the fact that you will have to write such a letter if you plan to enter the academic job market. In most situations, you will be asked to provide a writing sample, which will have a specific page number. Usually, what they ask is shorter than a chapter, so you will have to contextualize that section in a way that invites your readers’ understanding. Consider that writing this cover letter for your group will function as practice for your professional future.

In order to systematize and simplify the drafting of a cover letter, you can follow the template below.

Paragraph 1: Briefly set your writing context for your readers. Think about answering the following questions: what do your readers need to know about what comes before, so that they can understand the rhetorical situation of the text you’re workshopping? Where does this particular section fit within your chapter? At what stage in the composition process is it? Is it a very first draft? A restructured third draft? Close to being submitted to your advisor? Have you already received any kind of feedback from your advisor? If so, what was it? Answering these questions allows your readers to participate more actively to your writing process, and they will be able to provide the feedback you desire.

Paragraph 2: Guide your readers toward your most pressing questions and concerns. Think about these questions: what would you most like to find out about this specific writing? What would most help you in revising this text? Remember that you are in charge of your writing, and your readers are not there to evaluate your work–they are there to help you reach a comfortable and confident level so that you can submit your writing to your advisor. This might be a good moment to share with your readers if you know of any recurring issues in your writing, that maybe former teachers or consultants made you aware of.

Paragraph 3: Briefly reflect on what’s coming next. A dissertation is a complex writing endeavor, with a fractal logic. The logic you follow in the text you’re workshopping must be situated in the overall logic of your chapter and dissertation. By sharing your bigger structure with your readers, you help them consider if the text you’re sharing makes sense in your specific writing context, made up of what comes before and what’s coming next. Your readers might provide you with useful comments on your overall logic. In short: where does the particular chapter you’re working on fit within your dissertation?

This cover letter is an important tool to actively guide your readers to your questions and concerns. Don’t be shy in asking for exactly what you feel you need.

The university provides access to meetings spaces for your group. While you are also free to choose locations off or near campus — or within specific department spaces to which group members have access, this list provides links to other potential spaces for your group.

Brandon Center in School of Education
The Brandon Center offers both public and private group spaces that are worth considering — though some will require a group member in the School of Ed. soe.umich.edu/rooms/brandon_center/

Duderstadt
The Duderstadt Center on North Campus has study rooms – including three group study rooms –  that can be reserved online. dc.umich.edu/spaces/study-rooms

North Quad
North Quad provides a variety of unreservable  “shared spaces” that we encourage you to explore for your group. There are Media Gateway Team Rooms on the first floor in the Media Gateway area, and there are two Study Rooms inside of North Quad Space 2435. https://northquad.umich.edu/reservations

Palmer Commons
The Windows Lounge of Palmer Commons offers public space for groups. Though it’s unreservable, the central location may provide convenient space for your group. palmercommons.umich.edu/article/windows-lounge

Rackham
https://rackham.umich.edu/rackham-life/study-spaces/

If you know of other spaces we might suggest for groups, please let us know.