ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses one of the most important aspects of the dissertation process—working with students’ advisor. It discusses the role of an advisor and how to select, facilitate productive meetings with, and maintain a positive relationship with students’ advisor. In some programs, though, major and dissertation advisors are selected after graduate education has begun, perhaps in the student’s first or second semester of study. Students should be sure to have a clear sense of the topics they want to talk about prior to each and every meeting. This helps both students and their advisor focus on the key issues they want to have addressed and makes it easy to bring the conversation back to the matter at hand when it has gone off on a tangent. Email can be a useful method of communicating with dissertation advisors, particularly about brief and narrow topics or for getting answers to simple questions.
