The Dissertation Chic

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WE OFFER THE FOLLOWING CONSULTING SERVICES:

• Topic Selection: Help you identify a topic that is interesting, makes a contribution to your field, is appropriate in scope for a dissertation/thesis-level project, and if relevant manageable within a prescribed time frame.

• Concept Papers and Proposal Writing: Provide guidance and direction to you as you develop and write your concept paper and/or proposal. Help you develop hypotheses that will be testable within the scope of the study or a solid overview of the dissertation/thesis and the chapters that will be written as relevant.

• Literature Reviews and Problem Statements: Guide you to develop an approach to review the literature, including searching, selecting, summarizing, critically evaluating, and conceptualizing it into a coherent framework. Help you present the literature in a way that tells a clear story and provides a solid background for research questions or a central argument. Work with you to establish a sound conceptual basis for the project, based on existing research findings or knowledge. Provide sound guidance to you as you develop your problem statement.

• Methodology: Assist you with developing measurable and appropriate research (or evaluation) questions and hypotheses. Help you design a methodologically sound study, including identifying participants, sampling methods, appropriate measures and data collection plans and procedures, and guide the writing of the Methods Section.

• Data Collection and Management: Guide you in navigating human subjects approval. Help you understand and solve problems or address issues that arise in collecting data or identifying source material. Assist in setting up a database for data entry, guiding data entry and inspection/cleaning.

• Instrument Development and Evaluation: Help with all aspects of scale development, including appropriately wording items, analysis of psychometric properties of the measure, and identifying and discarding weak items.

• Quantitative Data Analysis: These services are described on our Statistics page.

• Qualitative Data Analysis: Provide you with guidance designing qualitative studies, data coding and analysis, including studies using a mixed-methodology. Guide you to conduct effective interviews, identify a theoretical orientation for qualitative data analysis, enhance the credibility and reliability of your research findings, interpret your findings, and write your results and conclusions. Common approaches to data analysis we suggest are grounded theory, phenomenology, ethnography, and narrative.

• Discussion: Assist you to interpret your findings in light of hypotheses and existing literature, proposing alternative explanations, limitations, and future implications.

• Developmental Editing: Provide an in-depth review of your writing and edit your manuscript for content, style, tone, clarity, level of detail, organization, grammar and punctuation. Edit to ensure that study concepts are adequately developed, tables and figures are used appropriately, and that the story you want to tell comes across clearly. Guide you to rewrite awkward passages and cue you as to where new written material is needed. Offer comments and suggestions to make sure that your document follows a clear path from your thesis statement to your conclusion. Guide you with the use of APA style or other writing-style requirements and the use of appropriate citation style. Developmental editing is conducted in close consultation with you and may require more than one round of editing, as clients may need to add additional materials and make clarifications with the consultant.

• Committee Members: Help you integrate feedback from committee members so that you appropriately address their concerns and ideas. Help you proactively communicate with committee member and problem-solve any issues with them that may arise.

• Oral Defense Meetings: Help you prepare for oral-defense meetings (both proposal meetings and final defense meetings).

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