This last part of the Doctoral Dissertation book was similar in setiments to my earlier post (part 1). I think the author does a great job of showing the human side of this work. Although everybody will aproach it through a different lense and through different research topics, the planning and understanding is what I’m understanding as the key to success here. I think the main idea behind the second half of this book is to further educate the reader how important the structure and planning is. Advisory committee’s, meetings, schedules, planning, funding are all crucial aspects to a dissertation that I previously was unaware of. I had no idea what this last piece of work entailed, bu feel furtunate that this book kid of provides such a clear ‘heads up’ on the matter.  Overall a very worthwhile read.

To everyone in class. Thank you. This has been a really insighful group. Ive grown acustomed to reading textbooks and learning from lectures as a standard class format. I think the most important knowledge I've recieved from this class was from listerning to your reactions, suggestions, and comment on this literature. I hope to have this type class with you all again.

The authors pack a lot into such a little space.  I especially liked the section on topic analyses -- they're like doing a mini paper, or a paper proposal for yourself.  I see them as being helpful for more than just dissertation work; they should he helpful throughout my paper writing, research-doing career.    Much of my uncertainty about writing up work is simply the form in which I should express them.  I spend a lot of time reading other papers just to see how others write up the kind of thing I'm doing.

I would like to say that I have really appreciated this class.  Every reading we did was well worth it, and the discussions in class ranged from being pleasant to eye-opening.  Thanks, Lorne and Terry! 

The context and guideline of this book could definitely apply to our dissertation plan: selection of topic, investigating existing knowledge, proposal, schedule, budget and co-working with advisor. It was a good text book for me. It confirmed a lot of stuff that I’ve wondered in successful dissertation as a doctoral candidate. I really enjoyed all chapters and was interested in the section of proposal because I found clear structure of the proposal for dissertation. 

I believe we have so wonderful faculties who can help make interaction with candidates so that advise important feedback and help effective communication in SIST at CGU. We can make it like David’s stuff.

The last three papers of our class are about editor’s expectations of good responsible reviewers, in another word ‘diamond cutters’. That’s a really interesting figure of speech. A good reviewer can make the article better the way a diamond cutter makes a diamond shine. But some times a diamond cutters can shine himself too. For example, Chomsky’s ‘A Review of B.F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior’ is probably one of the most seminal in social science. That’s an exception rather than norm. I personally think a good review is really important. Before I read a long paper I’d rather read its review first if there is any, the way I’d like to read some critics and reviews before going to a movie. Just like movie critics are often criticized for being too critical, it seems like academic reviewers have that tendency too. (I really don’t like critics to be too harsh on movies that I like.) But it’s understandable, I think. Reviewers are people too. They probably have a bad day or not familiar with the topic or they have more interesting work to do.

The second part of the book ‘Writing dissertation’ provided a very interesting step by step guide from proposal to publication of your dissertation. That’s very useful indeed, just like the first part of the book. The proposal part suggest to make a detailed plan and formalized way to prepare the proposal. I have to say it’s not my typical way to prepare a paper. I prefer to get into the topic by any angle that I came across and see if anything interesting is there. If things go well, some interesting ideas may show up. I supposed in a big project like a dissertation. A more organized way will certainly help and a detailed plan and schedule would also help to communicate with the committee and advisor.

I came across something very interesting recently and if proper I’d like to use it as my dissertation topic. But I’m still considering several topics. Fortunately, it must be at least a year from now before I’d have to decide my topic. I suppose I still have plenty of time. Anyway, the book is a very timely and useful reading.

I really enjoyed reading this editorial for a couple reasons. First, I liked the author or chief editor here voice his concern to the Information System community. I think it's commendable for a leader in any community to voice their opinion when they foresee quality starting to fall off in their industry. Also, I really did't have much an idea of what referee's did. We talked about it a little bit in class through experiences which both Dr. Ryan and Dr. Olfman had. However, some of the problems which were starting to surface back when this editorial was written raises some interesting questions. Firstly, if a referee consistently puts off reviewing and gives papers back late, is there any kind of recourse which the journal can impose? Does a referee's reputation suffer when the are late and/or give bad reviews, or is this something that is understood in the IS community? The way I understood scientific communities (which wasn't much an understanding at all) is your reputation means everything. So if you were a tardy or bad referee, you would hear it from your peers. Is this not the case?

I enjoy reading this book very much and will definitely use it as a good guide for my future research and dissertation development.   Compared to the first half of the book that explains what a dissertation development process is, why it is important, and its hardcode requirements, the second half of the book emphasizes on the “soft” side: how to develop a successful dissertation through well-thought planning, budgeting, effective communication, and appropriate selection of technology.  

Several things that impress me most: first, we should back up our data, records, notes, and write ups regularly to avoid unexpected events.  Both my friend and I had this kind of experience before.  My friend mistakenly deleted her one-year-effort code permanently for her dissertation and had to restart from the scratch; when I did my first thesis, I encountered a virus that prevented me using any application I had on my laptop.  I ended up buying RAMs and spending a whole week to fight the virus.  Therefore, it is extremely important that we store an extra copy of everything in another place to reduce the harm from accidents or disasters. 

Second, the writer’s block problem bothered me before when I wrote my term paper or thesis.  Professors, TAs (Sue, etc), and the book all suggest that the most successful or best approach to overcome this problem is simply to start writing.  A Chinese old saying also says that “a thousand miles starts from the first step”.   I keep this in mind and will try to practice it as much possible as I can.  

Third, the author suggested writing a dissertation from the mid sections of chapters as work is being done instead of a linear way from the very beginner.   This is very helpful to me because now I realize the first introduction section will change and need revisiting as the later juicy work becomes flashed and finalized.

On a whole, this book is a wonderful book that covers most of the situations and concerns during dissertation development and provides useful advices concisely and encouragingly.

The comments by the editor-in-chief of the magazine providing some valuable information on how to get one's own articles published.  The call for doctoral students to be part of the global base of reviews also has its benefits.  By reviewing manuscripts one can gain insight into who is doing research in a particular field, and how they address the problems.

The papers selected for this course provided good review practice in determining what makes a good paper.  We have developed our ability to determine why the articles were published, the main criterion is that it is related to IT and presents new information.