Workshop: Effective Thesis Writing and Individual Development Plans

Thursday, January 8th, 2 - 5 pm, Sedona Room, Santa Clara Marriott

Individual Development Plans

An Individual Development Plan (IDP) is a tool that students and faculty mentors can use to plan and manage the process of earning a degree.

By working together on an IDP, students and mentors can plan not only the work needed to get a project done, but also can identify professional development needs during the project.

INDIVIDUAL DEVLOPMENT PLAN

Example:

Goal / Deadline / Specific Skills Needed / Strategies or Approaches Needed to Build Skills
Graduate from my degree program / June 2015 / ·  Communications Skills
·  Professionalism
·  Management and Interpersonal & Citizenship Skills
·  Research Skills
·  Scientific Knowledge
·  Critical Thinking
·  Teamwork
·  Global Awareness / ·  Join a research group
·  Complete coursework to build scientific knowledge
·  Attend workshops on time and project management
·  Carry out an independent research project
·  Complete a thesis
Your turn:
Goal / Deadline / Specific Skills Needed / Strategies or approaches needed to build skills or close the gap in my skills

Individual Development Plans for a Writing Project

The development, implementation and revision of an IDP requires a series of interactive, coordinated meetings between students and mentors that require the full attention and commitment of both parties.

Steps / Students / Mentors
Step 1 / Conduct a writing self-assessment / Become familiar with available campus-based writing resources
Step 2 / Survey known thesis/report requirements (deadlines, style sheets, content) with mentor / Discuss known thesis/report requirements (deadlines, style sheets, content) with student
Step 3 / Write a draft IDP, share draft IDP with mentor, and revise (after discussing with mentor) until you both agree it is a good plan / Discuss draft IDP with student, review revisions, until you both agree it is a good plan. Identify or share resources student might need to build scientific writing skill set.
Step 4 / Do the work described in the IDP in the time you agreed-upon – put the plan in action! Check in with your mentor as agreed-upon in one-on-one meetings. Revise the IDP as needed. / Review student’s work and progress against the IDP on the agreed-upon schedule. Meet with student in regularly scheduled one-on-one meetings. Revise the IDP as needed.

INDIVIDUAL DEVLOPMENT PLAN

Writing Project Worksheet

Use this worksheet to break up your large writing project into manageable goals.

Name of Project:

Project milestones
(Goals) / Specific Skills or Deliverables Needed / Strategies and Resources to build skills needed to complete the task: where will you go, who/what will help you? / Deadlines / Completion Status

Scientific Writing Self-Assessment

In the context of an IDP or project plan, you should think about whether you’ve ever written a similar report or long-style scientific thesis before. If you have not, you should figure out what the format, content and style of such a document might be. Your campus may also have formatting requirements and style sheets with which you must comply. You might ask your mentors for examples of reports or theses of the type they are expecting from you. Where will you go to find out the answers to these questions?

To really succeed at a big writing assignment, you should also assess your scientific writing skills, think about your strengths, and identify areas that need development. The overall aim is to ask peers, mentors, family and friends what they see as your strengths and your development needs in your scientific writing. As you pull their feedback together, listen and be self-critical, but remember to give yourself credit for what you’re doing well!

Formal assessment tools can be helpful; check with your mentor or a campus-writing center for help. During this workshop we’ll do a quick, informal peer-assessment of your writing sample.

Here is a writing self-assessment worksheet (from Northwestern University as an example)

Assessing Intentions

·  Why am I writing?

·  Who are my readers? What key characteristics are important?

·  What is my main point?

·  What do I want readers to do/believe as a result of reading this?

·  What general strategy am I taking?

Assessing Writing

Focus

·  Where do I make central points or questions clear to readers?

·  How is each section/paragraph related to the central point?

Development

·  Will readers understand/believe points or do I need additional definitions, evidence, or reasoning?

·  Where might the readers raise questions or challenges? Have I addressed them?

Organization

·  What is the general pattern of organization?

·  How are ideas grouped?

·  At any point does the organization become unclear?

Style and Mechanics

·  Is the tone appropriate for my purpose/audience?

·  What sentences seem most effective?

·  What sentences could use most work?

·  Are there persistent grammatical/mechanical problems or questions?

Performing a Writing Self-­‐Assessment by The Writing Place at Northwestern University is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-­‐NonCommercial-­‐ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-­‐nc-­‐sa/3.0/. 2012.

Treasure hunt for verbs and their subjects. Are your verbs full of action? Are they close to their subject? Try to write in an active voice. Active: Mary ate ice cream. Passive: The ice cream was eaten by Mary.

Write down all of the verbs in your writing sample, then find their subjects.

Verbs / Subjects

Resources for Taking Charge of your Career by Communicating and Managing Your Time and Project

1. Independent Development Plan (IDP) Resources

·  Building an Independent Development Plan: A Guide for Undergraduate Students from SACNAS (http://sacnas.org/about/stories/sacnas-news/summer-2013/building-your-IDP)

·  Science Careers myIDP (http://myidp.sciencecareers.org/)

·  Science Careers article: Improve your Productivity in Graduate School

· 

2. Project Management Resources

·  from PMI Educational Foundation: Project Management Skills for Life (downloadable for free with registration:

http://www.pmi.org/pmief/learningzone/Com-lifeskills.asp)

“...a guide that provides an introduction to the basics of project management as well as tools and techniques to help develop skills to become a great project manager leading successful projects. A basic understanding of project management concepts will help your team effectively create a plan, organize activities and train individuals to complete simple to very complex projects.”

·  Science Careers articles: Project Management for Scientists (Part I)
http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2002_05_31/nodoi.7969639087689908393

& Project Management for Scientists (Part 2)

http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_magazine/previous_issues/articles/2002_06_14/nodoi.14574432916945155484

3. Mentoring Resources

·  “A Shared Vision of Mentoring from Different Perspectives,” American Society for Cell Biology, article from November 2011 Newsletter (http://www.ascb.org/files/1111WICB.pdf)

Resources for Taking Charge of your Science Writing

·  Gopan & Swan, “The Science of Science Writing.” 1990, American Scientist.

·  Duke Graduate School, Scientific Writing Resource

·  Northwestern University, Performing a Writing Self-Assessment

Resources for getting your project done (from participants):

Mendeley-free! citation manager, http://www.mendeley.com

R- free! Software for statistically analyzing your data, http://www.r-project.org

Find an alternative to SigmaPlot here: http://alternativeto.net/software/sigmaplot/

CSUPERB, 2015, Developed by Choong-Min Kang, Koni Stone, Susan Baxter and Diana Chu. Presented by Choong-Min Kang and Koni Stone