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The reasons for PhD student attrition seem remarkably persistent over time. Ernest Rudd conducted interviews way back in with research students who had either quit, or had taken a very long time to complete their studies.
In descending order, I found the following themes in my data: Mentioned less often were: In the comments I found three main factors: The comments are full of shame, blame and largely unspoken tensions.
It seems that many people who are entertaining quitting thoughts find it hard to give them voice. It must be easy for a disaffected student to become quite socially isolated.
How then, can these stories become a valuable source of knowledge about the PhD experience? These narratives, he claims, can help us better understand and respond to the experience of people who are undergoing treatment.
The ultimate aim of this better listening is better treatment and more empathetic care giving. Distressed PhD students certainly in need of empathetic caregiving, from supervisors as well as family and friends. So I went back to my data again, this time asking myself: I hashed the multiple narratives together in a diagram which appears on the left.
The resilience narrative This is when people talk about the PhD as a journey or trial which can, or must, be overcome through the diligent personal effort. Others talk back to these expectations in defiant terms, especially those who have quit and say they feel liberated.
When we hear the resilience narrative, or find ourselves repeating it, we should perhaps pause for a moment. What do we have at stake in this person finishing their degree?
The Chaos narrative These comments speak of events in aconfused, non linear way, almost as if the person is having trouble putting their experience in words. Chaos narratives are marked by anger, fear, powerlessness, misery and apathy. This is not the same as doing nothing. The ambivalence narrative This narrative is marked by lack of faith in the future, or uncertainty about what the future holds.
Others talk in more pragmatic terms of just finishing in order to put the experience behind them.1 timberdesignmag.com Thesis Statement Mini-Lesson. Lesson Objective. The purpose of this lesson is to provide students with a working definition of a thesis statement.
A statement – You will have no trouble deciding whether the possible thesis statement is a statement or a question. Just look at the punctuation.
Just look at the punctuation. A position – To decide whether or not a thesis statement expresses the author’s position, ask yourself if people might disagree about it.
Thesis Statement Teacher Resources. Find Thesis Statement lesson plans and worksheets. Showing 1 - of resources. 1 In 1 Collection In this paper planning worksheet, learners write a thesis statement that includes a topic, an assertion, and a plan of organization.
Students then complete a graphic organizer on two articles they have read.
A thesis can only be expressed by a complete, declarative sentence (not a question, either). So be sure to write out a complete sentence when identifying the source’s thesis.
So be sure to write out a complete sentence when identifying the source’s thesis. As the thesis statement is the unifying force in the essay, so the topic sentence must be the unifying force in the paragraph. Further, as is the case with the thesis statement, when the topic sentence makes a claim, the paragraph which follows must expand, describe, or prove it in some way.
Find thesis statements lesson plans and teaching resources. From writing thesis statements worksheets to revising thesis statements videos, quickly find teacher-reviewed educational resources.
The thesis statement is at the heart of a well-developed essay, and as the narrator of this video emphasizes from the start, having no thesis.