Hello,
My name is Anna D’Orazio and I am a doctoral candidate at the University of Cincinnati. I am writing to solicit partners for a roundtable I am proposing for 4Cs 2027 tentatively titled "By Graduate Students for Graduate Students: A Roundtable on Approaches for Writing and Understanding the Dissertation."
Per the title, my vision for this roundtable is that it is led by graduate students for graduate students. The roundtable will act as a space for candid conversation on practical approaches for writing a book-length text for the first time. I anticipate presenters will address the challenges they faced and how they responded to those challenges; describe writing or thinking processes that worked (and maybe didn’t work) to finish the dissertation; strategies for overcoming writing blocks; how to understood the genre; approaches to handle the emotional weight of the dissertation; ways to stay motivated; among other possibilities.
The guiding questions for the roundtable are: As a current graduate student or as someone who has recently defended, what advice would you give to other graduate students about writing a dissertation as they plan their writing futures? What hope can you give them about this process? What transferable qualities can you suggest they take with them as they write their dissertation or other projects? What can you tell them that you wish someone might have told you?
I encourage any graduate student who has recently written a dissertation and defended or is in the dissertation process (like me!) to pose an idea/abstract. Tangentially, if there is enough interest from those who participate in the roundtable, I hope to turn our discussion into an edited collection in the future.
If interested, please fill out this formwith a very brief (100-200 words) abstract by Sunday, May 3 (or use: By Graduate Students for Graduate Students: 4Cs 2027 Proposed Roundtable Abstracts – Fill out form) I will be in touch by Friday, May 8 to begin drafting the proposal.
If you have questions or would like to pose a query, please email me at doraziaa
Take care,
Anna D’Orazio
Anna D’Orazio (she/her)
Doctoral Candidate, Rhetoric & Composition, University of Cincinnati
Academic Writing Center Graduate Assistant
President, English Graduate Student Association
Executive Board, Consortium of Doctoral Programs in Rhetoric and Composition