When I was finishing grad school, my department instituted a "3 paper option," which allowed students to elect to write three papers in lieu of a dissertation. The papers were supposed to be of such a quality as to be publishable in a top-tier journal, and were expected to be related in some (at least) loose way (e.g., three papers on realism-- one in phil sci, one in metaphysics, one in ethics). This seemed to me to be a good idea at the time because many of my classmates were working on topics that were developing so quickly that their first dissertation chapter was obsolete by the time they'd finished a draft of their second chapter. The option also enabled students to finish their degree with three stand-alone articles to submit. But I suppose there are drawbacks.
Anyway, does anyone out there have any data or insight regarding the wisdom (or not) of the 3 paper option?
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I know that when I was writing my dissertation, I was jealous of those who had the option. My career was off to a craptacular start after graduate school because my best work was in the dissertation and it was going to take a lot of work to take chapters and make them into papers. (I come from a program where you can't possibly get a job without publications and probably won't get much of a job with publications. The upside was that we were in a crap part of the country, so I spent a lot of time in the library.)
There were some benefits of writing the dissertation. I learned a lot more about the literature than I would have if I only had to write three excellent papers. I'm able to mine more from my dissertation now than I would have been able to had I only written three papers. To date, I have something like ten pubs and only one came from the dissertation itself. Some built on some ideas I had when writing the dissertation, but I still have material I can cannibalize now that I'm having to worry a bit about tenure.
My guess is that you'll be quicker out of the gate if you do the three paper option but you'll have more to build on if you do the old fashioned dissertation. If you're into slow and steady, maybe you should do the traditional dissertation.
It seems to me that the main draw back to doing the 3 paper option (3pO)is that one comes across, on the job market, as not having a "project." It seems to me, as a recent job marketee, that people like the thought that you are a) an *expert* in your area and b) developing a distinctive view within that area. It seems hard to present yourself as either with the 3pO.
Having said that, the first commenter is exactly right: pulling papers out of a dissertation can be hard. This isn't just an issue for post-graduation publication, but also for going on the job market, where you need at *least* two fantastic papers to do well.
Having just finished the whole thing (dissertation, job market), my own view is that one should write chapters as though they are stand alone papers, but that one should conceive of the entire thing as one project with a main point. In the very least, one should set it up so that it can be presented that way to others. This enables you to both have papers at the ready and to come across as having a project. How the whole thing *actually* hangs together (i.e. if someone were to sit down and read through it) matters less since no one is going to go through the whole thing.
Scholarly publishing in English is much more book-oriented than in Philosophy. The general attitude seems to be that an article is just a dry-run for a book chapter, unless you’re not brilliant enough to write a book. Most research gigs require a book for tenure. Some require two. Meanwhile, the academic publishing business is teetering on the abyss. This is very, very stupid. Virtually every book I’ve ever read in my field would be about thirty pages long if you stripped out all the fluff. (What ever happened to editors who, you know, edit?) So I think everyone in my field should only write articles, and if, some years down the line when you’re a full professor, your work is extremely highly-regarded, then it might be worthwhile to publish some of your best essays in a collection. Otherwise, books just waste my time. The MLA officially agrees, but nobody listens, since literary study is controlled by self-righteous morons who can barely construct a deductively valid inference. All of which is just to say: I think it would be very sensible for graduate students to have the three-essay option, in English as well as Philosophy. I’ve read some good book-length works in both fields, but virtually none of them were dissertation books. If there’s anything graduate school should teach you it’s (1) make sense, (2) say something interesting, and (3) for God’s sake, make it short.
I would have confidently endorsed the 3 paper option in years past, but I have now lost my great confidence in that. I still believe that philosophy is an article driven field. And I believe that we should be training grads to write articles; that is a duty to them, to make sure they have that professional skill, so that they can, in essence, get and keep a job. But I don't believe that one can package philosophical work in any container like "the journal article". That bothers me, though I nevertheless encourage my own students to produce dissertations that look like a collection of articles.
I am an enthusiastic supporter of the option. I (think I) was the first in my programme to do it -- and it was the perfect choice, although I wrote four papers on a theme + introduction.
For one thing, it meant that as I finished chapters, I could submit them to journals...which I did: it's much easier to argue that you have work of publishable quality when it has passed peer review of respected venues.
For another thing, when I finished chapters, I was finished those chapters: each were stand alone pieces and none dependent on any other. Thus, nothing to worry about concerning rewriting chapters in light of what follows next -- I wasn't writing a larger narrative.
I think that there was very much 'a project': all were centred on a particular theme (in my case, a new manner of interpreting Hegel's canon) and chapters were case studies.
In light of my experience, and given how few dissertations are turned into books even today amidst the explosion of publishing houses, I wouldn't recommend dissertation writing generally: I would encourage everyone to do the paper route (caveat: all things considered, recognizing that some projects may be unsuitable).
Of course, if we call it the "Connected three paper option" then we can shorten it to the C3PO. Just sayin'.
I have nothing much to say on this topic, other than that students in English should be allowed to turn in a collage or diarama instead of a dissertation. I am posting only because the verification word--"dedlasts"--sounds like a good name for a band, and I didn't want it to slip past without mention. (I wonder how many posts are the result of a cool verification word?)
Research to death, too = R2D2.
I wrote my dissertation as a collection of independent essays, and it worked well for me. More on that below. I’m inclined to think, though, that a dissertation should be longer than three chapters/essays—unless those chapters/essays are very long. I think 4-6 chapters/essays is a better number.
My dissertation is 6 chapters, which are written as independent essays. I even say “In this paper, I argue…” rather than “In this chapter…”. There was unity to my dissertation, which I explain in my 2.5 page introduction. While the unity was strong enough to form a coherent research project, it wasn’t strong enough to form a book.
When I was trying to figure out what to do in my dissertation, I decided that I didn’t want any “wasted” space in my dissertation. I wanted every chapter to be published, which meant that every chapter needed to be published as an independent article (or book chapter in a collection) or I needed to publish the dissertation as a book. Two considerations counted against the book-style dissertation. First, I didn’t think I knew enough to write a book on any particular topic. Second, writing a book is more risky: 1 book equals 1 chance to get into a top press, whereas 6 stand-alone chapters equals 6 chances to get in top journals. (Perhaps if I were working in an area that depended more heavily on books than mine, namely analytic epistemology, I would have been more inclined to write a book-styled dissertation.)
After writing my dissertation, I can say that there are definitely two further advantages to the independent essay format. First, it is harder to get bored. My papers had enough variety that if I got bored with one topic, I could switch to another for a while. In a book style project, there is less variety and, therefore, greater likelihood of boredom and burnout. Second, it has made it much easier to get things into the format journals want. I have had two chapters accepted to journals, and the only changes I had to make were the ones that reviewers suggested. This saves a lot of (boring!) busywork because you don’t to reformat each chapter to make it suitable for a journal article.
Some advice: when you are ready to write your dissertation, make a list of 8-12 paper ideas that you are interested in pursuing. Once you have them written down, see if some proper sub-set of those papers would make a semi-coherent project. If so, then you probably have enough to get started on your dissertation prospectus—at least,you have enough if you are writing in the independent essay style.
I like the paper idea, but isn't one chapter in a standard dissertation usually devoted to a lit review? I took it that this review was meant to demonstrate a certain breadth of knowledge that wouldn't necessarily show up in more narrowly focused later chapters.
I suppose in some programs this is covered by PhD exams, but it wasn't at mine. Little in my first chapter had much relevance to my exams. I did my diss on a particular problem in political philosophy. The first chapter laid out, in some breadth, the state of the field as it related to that issue. The rest of the diss developed a particular solution to the problem. This isn't a new problem -- answers can be found in the Crito. But my PhD exams really tested me on other areas.
Anyway, I'm not advocating this position. I guess I'm just wondering (a) if people think the review chapter from a standard diss does a kind of work that won't be done in the paper option, and (b) if it matters that that work get done.
Anticipating one response: papers usually have to do some lit review too. Right, though some do more, and some do quite a bit less. But even those that do more typically don't do as much as the standard diss requires (as far as I can tell). Should the paper option require "inflated" lit reviews, to demonstrate breadth, which can then be pared down for publication?
I like the 3 paper option. My own sense is that dissertations drift (and students end up as interminable ABD's) because people feel the need to say something grand or groundbreaking. (After all, shouldn't a 300+ page research project be grand or groundbreaking?) Most graduate students have a couple of good ideas, but not necessarily an ability to synthesize their ideas into something 'visionary' or book like. Save that for later in your career, I say. So I think the 3 paper option might shorten the time spent in grad school. I also think dissertations contain stuff that people should be able to do (summarize the relevant literature, lotsa background), but we shouldn't need the dissertation to see they know how to do them.
My only worry is the quality demand: three "publishable in top-tier journals." I guess it depends on how top-tier is defined, but that's a pretty stiff requirement for skilled senior faculty. I'd settle for less from grad students.
This 3 publishable "top-tier" paper for the PhD discussion got me thinking about community standards in our discipline. I just finished my first review of a tenure packet for a colleague elsewhere and now I'm wondering whether I was too generous. Spiros, what do you think is a baseline level of research productivity we should expect from tenure candidates? At, say, a decent SLAC and a research university
Anon 12:27 I realize that you asked Spiros what he thinks is a baseline level of research productivity we should expect from tenure candidates should be, but I need to point out that departments have tenure standards. This is the bottom line for faculty. As I understand the process, external tenure reviewers speak to the quality of the materials submitted for review, taking into account information from the chair, dean or provost's letter, and the CV of the candidate.
But, it seems to me very important that the reviewer speaks to the quality of the research, since this is the purpose of having reviewers. Reviewers shouldn't have to determine the quantity of research--the is an internal matter set by the department and institution. Whether a department wants 8 top-tier pubs, or 4, or a book, whatever, doesn't seem, at least to me, to be the reviewer's primary concern. Assessment of the quality of whatever the faculty member has submitted for review is what is at stake in these things.
Awesome blog post, particularly the part about the new socio-literature phenomena going on in the northwest. I’m always interested in cultures and subcultures specially when dissertation is part of the equation and this issue sounds quite unusual. j23j
I agree with this decision because the students have more possibilities to write the their topics, I think it stimulates the motivation in every student, sometimes they feel like stocked when they aren't allowed to choose what they want.
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