​Best advice ever: Take some time off!
For most doctoral students, the need to complete their doctoral program is overshadowed by the passion they have for their project, which usually takes them for detours, writing frenzies, and/or derails them from their initial project. In this blog, I share 3 pragmatic reasons of why you should take some time off to be able to move forward.
It may appear illogical or contrary to purpose to take time off to move forward, but it is not. Let me prove my point here.
Doing a dissertation, writing a dissertation, working on a dissertation is a unique experience, unlike any other. No matter how many graduate classes you have taken, or if you are working with your favorite faculty, the whole process and dynamics are quite different. And sadly, nothing prepares you for dissertation, and most often, it is something you learn on your own. Most sadly, by the mistakes is how you make the most progress, but way of learning is quite emotionally taxing for you.
Therefore, here are 3 practical reasons to take time off to move forward.
1.     Financial reasons and savvy economics
Usually, a college class is around $3,600 per semester. When you are dissertating, it is likely that this is the only class you take. This means, you register and thus pay:
i.to write on your own,
ii.to read on your own,
iii.to think on your own, and
iv.to make a series of methodological, investigative, etc. decisions on your own.
Do you get the gist? On your own, but you pay. Why? What for? My advice: Have a plan.
While you must pay an institution to be registered for the dissertation process, that you do mostly on your own, you do not have to do it every single semester and there is no restriction that you cannot take 1 or 2 semesters off if you are not making progress. A doctoral program is intended to have a maximum of 6 to 10 years. You do not want to go this long, but the point here is 1 or 2 semesters off to gather your thought and reach your writing goals can save you money!
If you do not have a clear writing goal, fail to use your limited time with your advisor, Chair and/or committee members could lead you to spend money, but without any other outcome than saying you have been registered for multiple semesters, and not even defense a defense date has been set up
. 
What you are often NOT told is that you do not have to register every single semester for dissertation. You are not told that taking 1 or 2 semesters off will not change the time limit for your doctoral program (often 6 to 10 years). Nonetheless, in the fear that something bad may happen, could happen, might happen, students register semester after semester, and receive very little, if any feedback from their advisors, Chair, and committee members, but they accumulate more and more, debts. Consequently, registering for a dissertation class/course, but having not outcome at the end of the semester, not only is frustrating, but one of the worst forms of spending, thus wasting money.
 
Learn to be savvy; if you see that you have not made the progress you wanted one semester, do not register for the next one. Talk to your Chair and tell them that you need some time off. They may not like it at the beginning, but first, it will save money; second, you will not look bad in their eyes by trying to complete something for what you are not prepared to do, and third, did I say you will save money? Oh, yes, I did.
 
During your time off, 1 or 2 semesters, hire tutors, consultants, and someone like me, a methodologist. You will get your money’s worth no matter what. If you do not, stop paying and find someone else. You save time and money that way.
 
Usually, a consultation can go from $150 to $250 per session. Writing tutors can charge per page and/or word. Thus, saving $3,600 in one semester gives you the opportunity to have 10 to 12 consulting sessions with an expert and/or having multiple chapters edited in compliance with the latest APA version.
 
Meeting with your advisor while you are still confused may not take you anywhere.
 
Writing on your own, while you have paid $3,600 is not the best way you have to spend your money.
 
If you spend a full semester writing and getting nowhere, it’s best
i.to hit the brakes,
ii.learn what you are missing, and
iii.register when you have a realistic date to defend, propose and/or collect data.
 
Thus, be savvy on how you spend your limited financial resources, and attain realistic goals.
Hire professionals!!!
 
2.     Consult with experts
For a dissertation, you need a methodologist, a writing editor, a mentor on the doctoral dissertation process, and someone who can couch you on how to present your study, yourself to your entire dissertation committee, and likely a reader. Unfortunately, rarely, as you may have heard from other doing a dissertation, your Chair will do all these tasks, and he does, it may not be at the pace you wish he did. Most likely, you are on your own.
 
a.A methodologist will help you to make up your mind on what methodology, approach, and research design fit best your study, and how you can write that rational.
 
b.A writing editor will correct your grammar, syntax, language, and do for you the painful process of fitting your document to the latest APA style, every step of the way, word, line, and section.
 
c.A mentor is someone who can help you to make decisions, be someone you can lean on in moments of distress, and become a sounding board when you need one.
 
d.A reader is someone you always need. He is someone outside your field who can read your work, so he can tell you whether that you are making any sense. Often, you reach a point when you write for yourself and to yourself only. You often reach a point where no one else can tell what you are writing about. This is because you reach too deep into your passion, so you lose contact with reality, and thus, the potential for readers to lose you is higher.
Consequently, spend part and/or all the money you would spend for a semester in school in outside help, especially when you are not going anywhere. Thus, my recommendation is hire consultants. Your work must always be your own work, and no one should write your dissertation for you, but it is ok to ask for help and have others to consult with. Another piece of advice, hire multiple people. Once you make a contract with one, you may not be able to get out of that contract or they may ask you to pay in advice; the result is that you may have more questions than 1 person can answer or have more needs than one person can fulfill and there is more than one chapter in a dissertation.
Ideally, hire 3 different competent professionals. If possible, ask for samples of their work, and consult personal references. Do not trust what you find on the Internet about them. If possible, interview them, as if you were human resources staff, hiring a new employee. It’s your money, and it’s your time, do take care of it.
3.Protect your image and care for your Chair and committee members.
The personal relationship that you may develop or have to be drawn towards committee members and/or a Chair is often quite strong. Nonetheless, you should never lose sight of the fact that you may want to ask them for a letter of recommendation later on. Also, you need them to see you in your best light as often as possible to believe in your project. They are potentially future colleagues, and you need to be careful not to appear too vulnerable. Having expert consultants will help you to process how you communicate with them, set up realistic goals, and how you communicate your expectations. Not showing all your weaknesses may be a positive strategy, if you want them to write a glowing letter of recommendation in the near future. Saying that you are resourceful sounds better than telling how low you start on your project in a letter of recommendation.
 
Therefore, using consultants you may do faster and more reliable decisions that speed up your progress. Consultants are accountable to you, and they can share with you directly what you need to do. You do not need hide anything from them, they will give you what you asked for, and you are not bound to them in the long term. You can hire them as you can hire others. A Chair may not as easy to change, if possible at all. Consequently, take time off when you are not making the progress you want and hire help.
 
 
 

The second most common research question error is to have a question that is too broad, lacking specificity, clarity, and not foreseeing future demands. The formulation of a research question should not result in a question that seems like a career path when in a job interview nor should it be a long term project, and even less, seem like as a massive endeavor that makes it unbelievable.
A research question must be a statement that prevents the researcher from going, in any way, beyond the scope of what a dissertation or a thesis should be. That is a 1 to 2 year project, that is lead by 1 single researcher, who is a full time faculty juggling other demands, and which will read by a group of 3 to 4 other faculty. Also, the resources at the disposal of the researcher should be secured, ideally in writing with tentative agreements, and not oral promises. By all means, what a research question asks for to offer a satisfactory answer should not go beyond what a dissertation or thesis entails for a graduate student, often without external funding, often without a team of collaborators, and most commonly within a time constrain timetable. Moreover, a research question must be answered within a study (thesis or dissertation) to the best of its capacity. How disappointing it is to read a study to conclude at the end as a researcher or as a reader that nothing can be said. And while no study will answer all questions, a study should definitely answer at least one, and that is the research question. Otherwise, the research question should have been reformulated before it was offered to the reader. Therefore, to analyze and to avoid this type of error, I suggest to take into account three considerations that will be discussed in this posting.
First, a research question must be specific, clear, and attainable. Beginner researchers often have so much enthusiasm, passion for the topic, and often, are personally involved and committed with the participants of a study that they tend to overlook the limitations of their study from the very start. Rather, the beginner researchers should not confuse the articulation long term goals for a research question. A research question leads to a study as part of a larger concept, idea, career path, etc.
Moreover, a research question also should be a contribution to advancement of a field of study, help a population, bring awareness on a social concern, and accept above all, that a research question as part of a study that is proposed it is only a piece within the complex and vast fabric of life, society, a human experience, etc. Therefore, questions such as: “What is the experience of rape victims in college?” could be better served as in a qualitative study as, “What is the experience of female college students of color in public university who are raped during a date?” or “How do female college students of color in a public university cope with the experience of date rape?” or “What is like for first-year female college students of color in public university who experience date rape?
Other examples can be made, but the point is this: a research question must provide a feasible answer within a study. The claims made should be according to the information collected or being feasible to collect, because the inferences one can make are restricted to those who participate in a study and what they say and can say about a human experience, often one they have lived personally.
Thus, for a more assertive research question I suggest adding a location, pointing at a group, including demographic identification, locating a time, and including as much as possible specificity in the experience that the study aims at revealing or describing. These conditions will add a narrower focus and thus make the study and subsequent claims, interpretations, descriptions, etc., from the study more believable, assertive, and accurate.
Second, a research question must be a promise that a single researcher can handle. I recall one experience that brought me to this point. An eager and dedicated student once wanted to do an ethnographic study of church goes in relation disaster preparation. This study included church leaders’ response and their preparedness to help as well. This was a daunting task beyond the scope of a dissertation, not matter how skilled and engaged this doctoral student was.  
First of all, of all qualitative traditions and approaches, ethnography is one that demands the longest time, asks for massive investments from the researcher in terms of collection of data. Moreover, the question asked to both church goers’ and church leaders’ experiences required a multitask approach that is more than a single research question implies. Furthermore, if we talked about church, and this student referred to a protestant denomination, it meant that the research question was about a specific group. This identifier was not given in the initial research question. Even more, her study intended to use interviews, surveys, documentations, artifacts, and other elements, which are common in ethnography, but this also meant… much to consider, multiple source of data in order to articulate an answer as required in an ethnographic study. Even more, let us consider transcriptions alone. They require many hours of laborious work per hour of recording, then imagine going through multiple conversation for each one of the participants. Thus, not matter what, this study involved not a few weeks, not a few months, but a year of data collection at least. Have you read articles in the national Geographic magazine and read, how many years certain studies take, the tank you note to the organizations and patrons that funded the study, the amount or resources taken for the study, and another example the movie,  “Gorillas in the midst”??? These are examples of ethnography. How about this talented but single doctoral student trying to embark into such a massive ethnographic study?
As a dissertation project, it offered the awareness to a serious concerned, but to obtain the answer of such a massive question, and for a single student clearly… Well, it was ill advised to accept such a study as it was.
After multiple revisions, this student narrowed down the project, the question, and the scope of the study. The result was a 2 year dissertation project nevertheless, and multiple revisions after the defense. The lesson learned was this: ethnography is long as many other qualitative approaches, and the research question needs to be answered. For that… do not be afraid to make it as specific as possible, and to create two long lists as you develop and implement your study: One list is for the limitations of the study, and the other list about the delimitations of the study. A narrative for each list will save you time and prevent you from much trouble.   
Third, a research question must not underestimate the resources needed to find an answer. Often it is the case the researchers, not only beginners, underestimate resources for a study. Resources refers to: time, personal commitment, money, participants’ willingness to participate, compensation, attrition, faculty changes and moves, reading time, editing time and editor’s feedback, appointments, technical support and challenges, transcriptions, appointments, data loss, unexpected events. No one wants to sound negative, we are quite dreary of sounding bad or pessimistic, but life happens, and when we engage in a 1 year long, or a 2 year long project, we must accept that it is not all going to be as planned.  Therefore, all the resources we anticipate are often less than we will actually need.
Here is another example from my teaching experience. There was a student who wanted to carry out a study, but she needed to graduate within one year. As a dedicated student with excellent record, she embarked in a 1 year long process. 2 months into the project, it came as a revelation that she needed to meet with the editor of her dissertation more than once per week. Then, her reading time came to be over 20 hours per week, at the very least. Also, she needed at least 5 hours a day of writing time to produce something worth showing to the editor. Therefore, for her holding on to a relationship, having a full time job, volunteering at church, and having a leadership position in school were not all compatible with her dissertation goal. One by one each one of these items and demands were being crossed off from her life or negotiated and some simply cancelled. Eventually, she gave up everything, except working on her dissertation 12 hours a day, including Sundays. The result was a successful dissertation defense; however, it was not the best research project yet. Not the one, she wanted to have. However, she graduated on time as scheduled. The lesson learned was: do not underestimate the physical, emotional, and intellectual resources that a study may require from you. Do not underestimate the toll on you that a major research endeavor will ask from you to come to fruition.
I trust all can be done, but with the willingness to do what it needs to be done is something you and only you can answer.