3.1 Focused discussion with mid-career and senior scholars  (Page 3/7)

This sentiment was echoed by another scholar who said,“What is required [of a dissertation] is to master a bodyof material. Does this mean it should [necessarily] resolve into abook? It is essential that students put together an extensive argument with a range of ideas, but don’t assume that’s tantamount to a book. Now that the publishing situation has become so hard,the way we fetishize the book at the expense of articles has to be rethought. We may be sending our students off to their doom. I’ve read articles that were much more important than many books I’ve read; exhibit catalogues that were fabulous. We very much overvalue‘the book.’”

Another scholar pointed out,“What strikes me is that some average talent is pushed toward publishing a book,when [it would be so much better] to have four sensible articlesthan this long crazy [tome].”

Of course, part of the problem in turning dissertations into books has to do with the understandable tendencyof many students to focus not so much on what the dissertation may someday become, but rather upon just getting it done in the firstplace. Said one scholar,“I don’t think students think that far ahead. They are thinking of getting past the Ph.D. committee.”Another said,“Students are very concerned about getting a job and finishing their dissertation. They might think about [publication]down the line.”

Students, as not yet fully socialized members of their chosen profession, also tend to labor under oddassumptions about what is required of them in writing a dissertation. One scholar said,“The problem with graduate students is they have strange ideas about what a dissertation is about. Youhave to get them to understand what they should be doing, and it depends on how much time you are willing to give.”

Professors who advise students on their dissertations are torn between encouraging them to seek non-bookoutlets for their work or to think in terms of potential book publication throughout the dissertation process. One scholar said,“I talk to my students in the thesis stage about the possibility of publication.”Another said,“I call [the dissertation] a bookbecause it’s a way of working it out. There is no time to write a‘dissertation.’If I talk about it as a book, they’ll organize it in a way they want to read. It’s different from when I was in grad school.”

An issue that students must confront regardless of the potential outcome of their dissertations islearning how to make strong arguments in their writing.“Students tend to labor between argument and information, long passages wherethings become purely informational. I try to counsel them that editors and publishers don’t want long passages of information. I do talk to them about the dissertation being published, as anideal, a dream. The most important thing is that the screw should be turning on the argument the student wants to make.”Another scholar agreed that“the key thing is the quality of the argument and how compelling it is, not the length.”

Nevertheless, mid-career scholars were in general agreement that“all of our universities insist on a book”in order for a scholar to qualify for tenure. One scholar noted that an associate dean at his graduate school recently issued adirective that“no dissertation may be composed of chapters of separate articles. It must be a single argument. The dean is, ineffect, telling us that students have to write [something that] could become a book and not a series of articles.”