Doctoral students prepping for comps should scan abstracts, methodology, and results from the top 15-20 papers per course, then repeatedly condense their notes until they can synthesize and compare findings across studies like contrasting Smith 2018 with Jones 2022.
Now, if you have the traditional path, well, then you've got to go through pretty much every class and the literature from every class. What I like to see people do is, okay, go through a quick read— abstract, maybe methodology, results— of the top 15 or 20 papers for each course. I know this is a lot of work. You make a pass through every course. Now start condensing it down and condense it down again. So you're going through iteration after iteration of it so that you actually understand And it becomes part of you. And you can now say, Smith 2018 said this, but that's different than Jones 2022. And you get— you're able to synthesize the material because that's what they're looking for. I've also worked with a number of people to prepare for their comprehensive exams. If you're interested, become a member of our Dissertation Help Group.
