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alissa sherry, ph.d. |
Current StudentsRead online or download the following articles: NOTE - all accepted or prospective graduate students should read the following: Do you need me to write you a recommendation letter? Want me to chair your prospectus or dissertation?What to expect if you decide to choose me for a mentor, dissertation chair, dissertation committee member, or prospectus chair First and foremost, I value the fact that the University of Texas at Austin is considered a Research I institution. This is one of the things that made UT an attractive program for me to develop as a professional. As this may imply, my value system is closely aligned with this philosophy and my expectations reflect this. Second, I also value my relationship with my students and maintain an open door policy as much as possible. Do not hesitate to ask me questions if needed. Here are some things to consider if you are thinking about asking me to mentor you in any of the above areas. Meeting times I typically meet with students for either their dissertation or prospectus during the regular sessions (fall and spring) approximately every other week for an hour. I usually schedule a standing appointment (one that is the same every other week). I have found that weekly meetings do not give a student enough time to work on the most immediate goals and more infrequent meetings do not provide enough structure. At the same time, I am completely open to meeting additional times as needed for example during periods of your manuscript preparation that may require more assistance (statistical analysis, etc.). If you have not made any progress between meetings (which can happen during busy times) I would prefer you cancel the meeting with me rather than come in to my office and try to fake it or salvage something out of the time. We both have busy and pressed schedules and it is best to use the time wisely, even if that means using it for other things. The prospectus (and the dissertation) is your responsibility. If you do not contact me to schedule times or repeatedly cancel meetings due to lack of progress, you may very well find yourself the April before prospectus is due without one page written. I will not schedule time to see you over the summer in this situation. If you have used your time wisely throughout the two main semesters, I am more likely to schedule time to meet with you over the summer if you need it and if I am in town and available. However, this is not a guarantee. Likewise, you may find yourself finished with all of your coursework not even having an idea for your dissertation. Or having proposed your dissertation, completed an internship, but not collected or analyzed your data. If semesters begin to pass without progress to the point that the *GSC (Graduate Studies Committee) needs to review your case, I will not advocate for you at the GSC meeting if you do not show some progress, however slight, on your dissertation. I recognize there are extenuating circumstances at times. However, it is your responsibility to communicate with me about these circumstances. In such cases, I will advocate for you on your behalf. Writing Ability It is my responsibility to mentor you in professional, empirical writing. It is not my responsibility to be your writing coach regarding basic grammar, sentence structure, or proper use of the English language. If any of these things are an issue for you, you need to visit the learning center at 471-3614 and revise your drafts before turning them in to me. Failure to do so will result in my returning them to you without having reviewed it in order for you to visit the writing center. Suggested Timeline Prospectus Dissertation However, having said that, the start of your internship or the deadline for applying to internship is in no way correlated with when your dissertation is ready to defend or propose. In other words, I will not sign off or allow you to proceed to a defense meeting if your dissertation is incomplete or does not meet a certain standard of acceptable research. Do not attempt to put pressure on your chair or other members of your committee in an attempt to subvert this position. For either the prospectus or the dissertation, it is standard practice to give your chair and your committee members two weeks to read any given draft, regardless of where you are in the process. Some professors may take longer. Make sure you factor these lag times in to your timeline. Additionally, if you need a draft read by a certain date (to meet a deadline, etc), make sure you give the draft to your chair or committee member in sufficient enough time so that she or he will have two weeks and you will have enough time to make the requested revisions. Dissertation Expectations I am not a professor that requires an experimental design. I am perfectly fine with correlational research designs as long as they are meaningful and have a potential to contribute to the literature. That is not to say that I will not mentor you in an experimental design project. I will. However, I expect it to be a meaningful design that has the potential for meaningful results. Often, students do not have the resources or do not want to invest the time in experimental design projects. This will be up to you. Keep in mind that the dissertation proposal is a contract. It is assumed in the proposal that you have outlined what will need to be done in order to produce a quality project in the end. Therefore, if you propose 120 subjects based on a power analysis, I will not clear you to defend until you have collected data on 120 subjects. Again, "leaving for internship" is not an acceptable reason to stop at 85 subjects if you have decided to do a time consuming data collection procedure. Along these same lines, you need to make sure that the subjects you want to collect data from are available and willing to participate BEFORE you propose. Essentially, all your ducks should be in a row prior to the proposal date so that hypothetically, you could start collecting data or at least submit your IRB the week after the proposal meeting. Don't just propose something and "hope for the best." Publishing Theoretical grounding Length Use of Email For dissertation or prospectus drafts (if I am chair), I prefer you email me your drafts rather than provide a paper copy. This reduces waste and speeds up time in that I can get it immediately. I typically use a function on Word called "track changes." With this you will be able to see exactly what I have changed when I email it back to you. It is important that you go over the document and review all changes before accepting them. Sometimes I write notes to you rather than changing text. All documents need to be written in Word. As a Committee Member Obviously, as a committee member, I have less control over your dissertation process. However, I am willing to meet with you and provide assistance in any of the areas of expertise in which you believe I may be valuable. My primary expectations are that I receive a copy of your document 2 weeks prior to any meeting held (proposal; defense) and that you incorporate my suggestions providing subsequent copies for me to review to insure that this is done correctly. Possible Topic Areas It is often helpful to know what areas a faculty has interest or expertise. I may be able to mentor someone in areas other than those listed, but it is best to choose faculty who are closely aligned to your interests. The following list represents my areas of expertise. Primary areas Secondary areas * * * Want me to chair your master's report?What to expect if you plan to ask me to chair your Master's Report The following are certain guidelines and expectations that I have implemented to help you decide whether or not you want me to chair or be a reader of your Master's Report. These are outlined in order to help the process run most efficiently and to help you produce a quality product. Availability My slots for chairing master's reports are limited. If you know you want me to chair your report, you need to contact me as soon as possible. This is also true for second reader slots as well. It is in your best interest not to procrastinate on this issue. You may do this by email (no need to set up an appointment just to ask me). When you do so, indicate the semester in which you plan to complete your master's report. This will help me know if I have openings for that semester. I am not available to chair master's reports during the summer session. Meeting times Regarding meeting times, I typically meet with students for their master's reports during the regular sessions (fall and spring) approximately every other week for an hour. I usually schedule a standing appointment (one that is the same every other week). I have found that weekly meetings do not give a student enough time to work on the most immediate goals and more infrequent meetings do not provide enough structure. At the same time, I am completely open to meeting additional times during periods of your manuscript preparation that may require more assistance (idea development, etc.). If you have not made any progress between meetings (which can happen during busy times) I would prefer you cancel the meeting with me rather than come in to my office and try to fake it or salvage something out of the time. We both have busy and pressed schedules and it is best to use the time wisely, even if that means using it for other things. It is up to you if you want to take advantage of a regular meeting time. This is not a requirement. I am happy to review drafts independently as well (see below for draft submission and review process). Keep in mind however, it is up to you to take advantage of the time I have available for you. Waiting until 4 weeks before the semester is over to meet with me is not acceptable and it is highly likely that at this point in time my calendar will be full and I will not be available to meet. Writing Ability It is my responsibility to mentor you in professional, empirical writing. It is not my responsibility to be your writing coach regarding basic grammar, sentence structure, or proper use of the English language. If any of these things are an issue for you, you need to visit the learning center at 471-3614 and revise your drafts before turning them in to me. Failure to do so will result in my returning them to you without having reviewed it in order for you to visit the writing center. Use of Email and Draft Submissions I prefer you email me your drafts rather than provide a paper copy. This includes if I am your second reader. This reduces waste and speeds up time in that I can get it immediately. I typically use a function on Word called "track changes." With this you will be able to see exactly what I have changed when I email it back to you. It is important that you go over the document and review all changes before accepting them. Sometimes I write notes to you rather than changing text. All documents need to be written in Word. Also, keep in mind that departmental policy indicates that I have two weeks to read, review, and provide comments. This includes times when I am the second reader. This timeline is true for every faculty member. So keep this in mind as you schedule time to complete your project. In other words, turning in a draft three weeks before your draft is due to the graduate school is not a good idea. I may require two weeks to read it and provide feedback, you will need to make changes, and your second reader will need time to read it as well. This will not give you enough time, especially if I need to see it and review it a second time or if your second reader requires any changes as well. I expect your first draft of your master's report by the end of the semester before you plan to complete it. In other words, if you plan to complete your master's report by the end of the Spring semester, you need to give me a draft of it by the end of the Fall semester (I will review these drafts at the end of summer if you plan to complete it in the Fall). If I do not receive it the semester prior, you forfeit your space in my schedule and I will not chair your report. You will need to find someone else for your chair. Please keep in mind that a sufficient "draft" does not mean a copy of a report written for one of your classes. A sufficient draft has all of the essential background information and characteristics of the final draft. This needs to be an honest effort. I am MORE than happy to meet with you during this preliminary semester to help you with your idea and your report. Consistent Problems I Have Seen with Master's Reports As for those of you who are my current students, are thinking about asking me to be their chair, or you have a draft you are working on, I expect you to read this summary and apply these things to your draft before submitting it to me. If you are thinking about asking me to be your chair and you have not started on a draft, please read this so that you will have a sense of what my expectations are. First and foremost, this is not something you will be able to complete without spending extensive time in the library and reading a great deal of literature. Use of websites. In general websites are not a good source for academic reports/papers. Anyone can develop a website and put anything on there and claim it is true. There are no regulations like there are with books (editors) and journals (reviewers). If you do use websites, they need to be government sponsored (statistics, etc) and maybe sponsors by large research entities like large universities or research hospitals. Even at that though, you should only cite a few, and should stick to basic statistics (i.e., 15% of women have reported feeling depressed). Any more than 3 starts to look like you were too lazy to go to the library and look stuff up. Use of direct quotations. Direct "quotes" from a source should be used sparingly. Ideally, there should be no more than one direct quote in the entire paper. Quotes are to be used when there is really no other way to express the original author's thoughts in your own words. It has to be a highly unique position or expression of a point. Most of the time, you can reword it and just cite it without quoting it. Use of class lecture material. There is a mechanism for citing something that someone tells you. In the APA Publication Manual, it is referred to as a personal communication. However, similar to the website thing, you can't just go around and talk to a bunch of people about your paper, ask them a bunch of questions and then cite that throughout your paper. Similarly, you can't go through your notes from a class and cite what a particularly professor may have told you about a topic during lecture. Personal communications are typically reserved for instances in which you have an opportunity to talk with leaders in a particular field of study. While you may consider those of us who teach your classes to be such leaders (and we do appreciate this), most of what we are conveying to you comes from other sources. For example, if you hear me lecture about Bowlby's theory of attachment, you can't cite me in your paper for whatever you heard me say. You need to find Bowlby's readings, read on attachment theory, etc, then use that material in your paper and cite it. Proper use of citations: Your best resource on this is going to be APA's publication manual. I bet you can get a used one on Amazon or check one out at the library. The manual is written about more than just citations that would be helpful. Basically, what I am looking for is an APA style manuscript. So using the manual is to your advantage. The other issue with citations is knowing when to cite something. Basically, if it isn't your idea, it needs to be cited. If you continue with someone else's idea, chances are you will use that citation more than once, even in the same paragraph. Style of writing used for academic reports: The citation issue brings me to another issue: the style of writing that is expected in these reports. The majority of your paper will require citations throughout. Only the last section, which is something that you will contribute to the field of study, should have fewer citations. When I read a paper, if there is a page in the beginning that has no citations, there is usually one of two conclusions to be drawn 1) the person is not citing someone else's idea when they should be or 2) there is a lot of 'fluff'. There are a few things that I consider to be fluff that have no place in these kinds of papers. One is what I call "floral" writing. An example of this might be "The most frustrating thing for a teacher to face is seeing a child in pain." Or "A child's most painful experience could haunt them forever if help is not provided." These are dramatic statements that have no basis in empirical literature and there is no way to test if they are even true. Academic writing does not include these types of statements. Another example is what I call "filler". That is when a thought that can be easily expressed in one sentence is instead expressed in 5 or 6. The reader can easily get bored with this because they are looking for the next anchor to keep their attention, but instead they are reading the same thing over and over again. From an advisor's point of view, it comes across like you are trying to fill up more space in order to get the required number of pages done. However, from my standpoint, I would rather you have a 10 page paper that is high quality, to the point, etc than a 30 page paper that reads convoluted because there is so much filler in there. Summarizing articles: This is a common error for people just starting to write academic papers. Typically, articles need to be integrated throughout the report. However, instead, many people summarize one article in one paragraph, another article in another paragraph, and so on. When mentioning an article, you don't need to go through the methodology of it (sample size and type, measures used, etc) unless the method direct relates to your point. Sometimes citations of articles are as simple as "Sherry and Rochlen (2003) had similar findings." That might be the only reference to the Sherry and Rochlen article in the whole paper. You don't have to go through all of the gory details necessarily. Sometimes you may summarize just the findings, other times compare and contrast two articles looking at similar constructs with different populations. It just depends. This however, definitely takes time to master and will be part of what the reader-student process should be about. Bottom line: I know for many of you (although not all) this master's report process just seems like a hurdle and you just want it out of your hair. Many of you have already secured jobs and are ready to enter the practice world and leave the academic stuff behind. However, there are two important reasons why you should take the master's report process seriously. First, it is a requirement for your degree and you want to provide a product that represents both your abilities and the level of academic aptitude that makes UT as an institution competitive and unique. As such, it is important to start on it early. Many of you decide to turn your report in Leslie Moore's class into a Master's report. If this is the case, I would suggest first reading some of these guidelines, making changes to your report based on these, then submitting it to who you would like to be your first reader by the end of the semester PRIOR to the semester in which you will be enrolled in your Master's report hours. This will give the professor time to review what you believe to be a good first draft. Enrolling in Master's report hours does not insure you will finish your report during that semester. You have to have a finished product by then in order for the professor to give you credit for the report. Second, this kind of writing will be important for your career. There may be times in which you will need to develop a program or justify a needed expense to your supervisor or principal. Possessing the skills it takes to write a comprehensive, professional report will add credibility to you as a professional which may open even more doors than your degree alone will. Finally, completing this step in your education will require you to 1) use psychinfo 2) go to the library 3) look up articles, copy them, read them, summarize them 4) and invest a great deal of time and effort. A good master's report does not come from articles that have all been obtained through websites, does not come primarily from books, and does not come from information gathered from lectures or personal communications. If you have a fear, phobia, whatever of the library or if you don't know how to use psychinfo or the library, just let me know. Either library personnel or myself will help you. Possible Topic Areas It is often helpful to know what areas a faculty has interest or expertise. I may be able to mentor someone in areas other than those listed, but it is best to choose faculty who are closely aligned to your interests. The following list represents my areas of expertise. Primary areas Secondary areas |