ABSTRACT
When current and former doctoral students discuss their expectations and experiences in doctoral programs, they offer useful suggestions and perceptions on the dissertation process. Being mindful both that each person's experience is unique, and that people typically experience some ambivalence in this highstakes endeavor, the range of individual experiences is potentially unchartable. The eighty-five suggestions in this chapter are offered, by students and graduates, to guide you - to help you to avoid problems that others have confronted, or at least to prepare you to avoid being taken by surprise. The suggestions are clustered around six issues:
dissertation topic selection; the dissertation committee; organization; writing; the university community; personal stance.
