Steve Tippins explains why dissertation committees reject work: students use vague terms like "questionnaire" and "survey" without defining them. Precision in language early on saves months of revision and committee feedback.
I see people tripped up on this frequently by saying, "I'm gonna do a questionnaire," or, "I'm gonna do a survey," and not differentiating or explaining exactly what they mean by each term. And one of the things you find in this dissertation journey is being exact with your meanings and exacting with your words is something your committee is looking for. In other words, specificity is important. One of the reasons why committees or committee members have comments or even reject documents is not because the student isn't intelligent. It's not because they haven't done a good job. It's because they haven't explained things well. They haven't been specific with their wordings and their definitions. And if you can learn to do this early, you're going to save a lot of time going back and forth with committee members about becoming specific in your wording and how you're using words. Drop the word "help" in the comment below, and I'll send you the link to our free dissertation help community.
