- > DTPs evolve through time. I wouldn’t expect a first year doctoral student to know exactly what they want to answer. But I still ask them to write a DTP.
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- > I would characterize four types of DTP: 1. A pre-comprehensive exams’ DTP. In this case, the student is still doing coursework and hasn’t written his/her doctoral exams. At this point, I would expect DTPs to be still draft forms of research questions, methods and expected outcomes. 2. A post-comprehensive exams’, pre-proposal defense DTP. At this stage, I would expect the student to know his/her/their field well enough that he would have a very clear outline of what he/she/they plan to do and within what time frame. I would expect that my students would use their DTP to formulate their proposal. 3. A post-proposal defense, fieldwork-focused DTP. At this stage, I would expect that the trainee would be incorporating results from what he/she/they have found in their research. It’s likely that by this point, one or more of their papers would be submitted to a journal. 4. A pre-doctoral defense DTP. At this stage, I would expect the student to have dominated every single element of his doctoral research, and therefore his/her/their DTP would be an extended version of their thesis’ abstract.
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- > If you liked this blog post, you may also be interested in my Resources for Graduate Students page, and on my reading notes of books I’ve read on how to do a doctoral degree.
