Open letter to graduate students who are thinking about asking me to serve on their committees.

Dear potential advisee,

Working with graduate students on their theses and projects is one of the things I like most about my job.  Like all faculty here, however, I have a four-course load and many other responsibilities – running the magazine program, serving on committees, and my own research and journalistic work.  So I ask graduate students to respect my time by following a few guidelines.

First, think about whether my background and expertise is a good match for your thesis or project.  My main areas of interest, in terms of content, are journalism history, magazines, criticism, the arts and popular culture.  Methodologically, I am a historian.  I have published some research involving surveys and content analysis, but I have always relied on a co-author to run the nuts and bolts of that – SPSS, coding, etc.  I have a sense of what makes good research questions, but would urge you to find another faculty member to advise you on methodology if you choose quantitative measures.

Once I’ve agreed to serve on your committee, please make certain every draft of anything you send me – be it a proposal or a thesis or a single article in a larger project – includes the following:

• Cover note making clear what sort of feedback you are looking for and how quickly you need that feedback – that is, do you have a deadline to meet.  Please give me at least a week to respond.
• Please name your file so that it is easily identifiable: yourlastnamethesis, or yourlastnameproject, or yourlastnamecontent (like smithhiphopcritics).
• Always include a title page that includes a title, your name and contact information, whether it is a thesis or project, completion deadline, and a list of all your committee members, with your primary advisor listed first. 
• The second page should be a table of contents that lists the major headings with page numbers (for example: introduction p. 3, literature review p. 7, research questions p. 15, theory p. 16, methodology, p. 20, results p. 25, analysis p. 50, conclusion p. 60, endnotes p. 75).
• Careful copy editing.  I will point out if I think the grammar and punctuation needs work.  But I will not copy edit your manuscript for you.

Graduate students looking for an advisor often wonder, Is this guy doing to be difficult?  I would turn that question around:  How difficult do you want me to be?  If I am too easy, you might wind up with a piece of work that represents little learning, little of value in terms of new knowledge created, and will not pass the graduate committee’s high standards.  My goal is to challenge you to do your best work, and to create something of lasting value, something you will be proud of that will easily pass the graduate committee. 

This is your work.  If you are eager to give it your best effort, then I am happy to do what I can to help.

Best wishes,

Scott Fosdick, Ph.D.

sfosdick@casa.sjsu.edu

P.S.  The best way to contact me is by e-mail.  Please make appointments by e-mail for meetings; if you come to my office hours without an appointment, you might have to wait in line.