Conquering the “Lumbering Dinosaur”: Graduate Student Experiences at Political Science Conferences

2015 ◽  
Vol 48 (02) ◽  
pp. 324-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Rutherford
Author(s):  
Cecile Badenhorst

While playfulness is important to graduate writing to shift students into new ways of thinking about their research, a key obstacle to having fun is writing anxiety. Writing is emotional, and despite a growing field of research that attests to this, emotions are often not explicitly recognized as part of the graduate student writing journey. Many students experience writing anxiety, particularly when receiving feedback on dissertations or papers for publication. Feedback on writing-in-progress is crucial to meeting disciplinary expectations and developing a scholarly identity for the writer. Yet many students are unable to cope with the emotions generated by criticism of their writing. This paper presents pedagogical strategies—free-writing, negotiating negative internal dialogue, and using objects to externalize feelings—to help students navigate their emotions, while recognizing the broader discursive context within which graduate writing takes place. Reflections on the pedagogical strategies from nineteen Masters and PhD students attending a course, Graduate Research Writing, were used to illustrate student experiences over the semester. The pedagogical strategies helped students to recognize their emotions, to make decisions about their emotional reactions and to develop agency in the way they responded to critical feedback. By acknowledging the emotional nature of writing, students are more open to creativity, originality, and imagination.


Histories ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-9
Author(s):  
Brett Bowden

As a graduate student, I undertook my doctoral training in a Political Science Program [...]


1975 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 146-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irving Abella ◽  
Terence Morley

I was disturbed, and I understand my distress was shared by many others, to see the pages of such a respected scholarly periodical as the Canadian Journal of Political Science being so badly misused by a political bureaucrat for partisan purposes. I refer to the review of my book Nationalism, Communism, and Canadian Labour by Terence Morley, a longtime functionary of the New Democratic party, and now a graduate student at Queen's University.Because I was critical of some of the activities of the CCF in the 1940s, made some kind remarks about the Communist party, and questioned some of the policies of international unions, Morley labels my book a “Waffle-inspired tract.” What utter nonsense! I am not a member nor even a supporter of the Waffle, as should be readily apparent to any intelligent reader of the book. Indeed, if Morley had done any reading over the past year since the book appeared he would have noted that in their reviews and speeches, Waffle leaders were critical of the book's implications – and rightly so given their ideology. But, quite clearly, to the Terence Morleys of Canada, to be even mildly critical of the ccf, immediately marks one as an enemy – as a member of the “Waffle” – just as critics in past years were denounced as “Communists.”Although he is clearly unaware of the fact, I am, and have been for as long as I remember, a supporter of Mr Morley's own party.


2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (01) ◽  
pp. 142-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. J Zigerell

AbstractPolitical science graduate students need to develop strong skills in drafting empirical research manuscripts. Yet, many graduate student manuscripts contain similar shortcomings, which require student peers, faculty advisors, and journal referees to produce the same comments for multiple manuscripts. This article lists common comments on empirical research manuscripts, as a reference to help students revise their manuscripts before presentation to others for review, so that reviewers can focus on the more substantive elements of a manuscript, thus producing better manuscripts that are more likely to be published and thus contribute to knowledge about political phenomena.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
David L. Brunsma ◽  
David G. Embrick ◽  
Jean H. Shin

The graduate student experience, for many, can be a time of great stress, insecurity, and uncertainty. Overwhelmingly, studies verify that good mentoring is one of the best indicators of graduate student success. In this literature review, we outline in detail previous research that attest to these experiences, and pay specific attention to the experiences of students of color. In general, our read of the literature suggests that academia, in general, and sociology, in particular, does not do a good job of mentoring graduate students of color. We begin our essay with an overview of graduate student experiences. Next, we discuss the mentoring side of the equation, addressing reasons that might explain variations in how students are mentored in higher education. Finally, we end with some thoughts on what faculty and departments can do to address the inadequate mentoring of graduate students of color.


1972 ◽  
Vol 5 (04) ◽  
pp. 432-435
Author(s):  
William C. Yoels

As any recent Ph.D. recipient can attest, the writing of a doctoral dissertation is at times a process fraught with uncertainty and anxiety over the “meaning” of one's work and its implications for the growth of knowledge in the discipline. The dissertation usually marks the first opportunity for a graduate student to exercise a great deal of independence and autonomy on a research project of one's own choosing; and the successful defense of the completed dissertation represents the final phase in a socialization process designed to initiate the newcomer into the sacred “holies” of academic folkways and mores.From its inception in 1861, when Yale became the first American university to grant the Ph.D. degree, the doctoral degree was viewed as a “research degree” and the writing of a dissertation was justified in terms of making an “original contribution” to the scholar's own discipline. A casual glance through several recent graduate school catalogues indicates that the official rhetoric concerning the dissertation continues to stress the notion of an “original contribution.”


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