Faculty Participants: Dr. Ellen McCallum joins on zoom
Graduate Student Participants: Michael Stokes & Seohyun (Sen) Kim

All prospective students are welcome and encouraged to join this workshop as well!

This workshop’s first part focuses on the writing processes and strategies involved in drafting and editing your Comprehensive Exams Responses during the specific week you have set to ‘take your comps’. In this sense, the first part of this session is a protraction of the ‘Comprehensive Exam Process Workshop’ held on November 11, 2022. That workshop focused on the entirety of the comps process (forming a committee, writing & defending the comps proposal, tips for studying for the exam), whereas this workshop will tackle the actual writing of the responses. The short and intense Comps period of condensed focus and high productivity, which most students plan in the months of March and April, can yield fruitful essays that might be integrated into the dissertation proposal and/or first chapter of the dissertation. As we transition into this workshop’s second part, we will discuss starting, persevering, and completing the first dissertation chapter. We will focus on how to brainstorm different chapters, in what orders to write, how to productively and strategically use your comps responses, and different writing practices and processes. Our faculty participant Ellen McCallum will be joining us via zoom, but the workshop itself will be held in person. If any student wishes to also attend on zoom, please reach out to the workshop coordinator Mashya Boon (boonmash@msu.edu) in advance.