Ph.D — Blog — Jenn Dumoulin

Semester Recap: Reflecting on my time with the Communication Graduate Students' Association

As per usual, the semester literally flew by and a lot happened over the past few months - from teaching to conferences, papers to publications, and other projects - and I think it’s important to take some time to reflect on the goals that I set for the past few months and what I accomplished.

A good place to start this reflection off is by taking a look back at my involvement with the Communication Graduate Students’ Association (CGSA). I have served on the CGSA for the past three years of my academic studies, first as Executive VP (2018-2019), then Co-President (2019-2020), and finally President (2020-2021). Having fondly remembered CGSA events during my Master’s degree and inspired by my extracurricular involvement at Queen’s University - and the community that existed among its faculty and students - I was excited to work towards creating a similar environment at the Department of Communication.

2020... Year in Review

Ah, 2020… it’s certainly been a year like no other. The pandemic has impacted many of us to an unprecedented and unexpected degree - personally, professionally, financially, psychologically - and I know that many people reading this are keen to see 2020 head out the door, but I think if we each took some time to reflect, we’d see that 2020 hasn’t been all bad news.

So, in the spirit of the New Year, I thought I’d take a moment and reflect on some of the big things that I’ve accomplished this year (and I hope that, if you haven’t done so already, this will inspire you to do the same).

End of Summer Update: Because It's Been a Minute

WOW! Is it almost the middle of September already? I can’t believe how quickly the summer went by. Before diving into some substantial content - I’ve been quiet for a while because I’ve been working on some big projects - I thought I’d take the time to give a bit of an update on what’s new and exciting.

Read on to hear about what’s been happening on the academic, professional and personal front, and to see what I have planned for the coming academic year!

How to Write a Dissertation: Just Keep Writing

“Wow! Time flies when you’re… sitting in front your desk for large chunks of time several days a week.” Does that sound… frustrated? Or pessimistic? It shouldn’t - sarcasm doesn’t travel well in text format. Let me re-phrase.

WOW! Times flies when you’ve been focused and diligently chipping away at the first chapter of your dissertation. That statement is true. Time flies and deadlines loom. It’s a fact of life. In just over two weeks, I’m aiming to submit a draft of the first chapter of my dissertation to my supervisor. And I couldn’t be happier!

I won’t say that it’s been easy getting here, but in the past month I’ve written more than 30 pages (and most of is decent, which is a HUGE win). I still have another 10-15 left, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel - and the week off that I plan to take before beginning Chapter 2. With that said, I thought I’d share some of the challenges and tips that I’ve used to overcome them along the way.

Ph.D, LifeJennifer DumoulinJune 12, 2020Dissertation, Wri, Ph, Academic

How to Write a Dissertation: Getting and Staying Organized

About a month ago, I blogged about how I was finally getting started on writing my dissertation and some of the challenges that I had overcome to get to that point - including writing my chapter outlines (or creating my roadmap) and establishing my timelines (or figuring out how long it would take me to hit each landmark).

While writing a dissertation or thesis comes with many challenges - everything from picking a topic to finding a supervisor, to doing a Boolean search or triple-checking your spelling, grammar or citations - early on in research and writing process, it’s important to get and stay organized. Having an organization system that you’re comfortable with is key. This applies to both researching and writing.

Everyone’s system will be a bit different, based on how we think, what tools we like to use, whether we like to read online or in print, and even how we envision the final presentation of our research. This post explores some of the tools that I’ve started using for this ginormous project

Ph.D, ResearchJennifer DumoulinMay 7, 2020Research Process, Writing, Organization, Dissertation

How to Write a Dissertation: Some Not-So-Preliminary Thoughts

As a Ph.D Candidate in the second semester of my fourth year of study with my admission scholarship quickly running out and my desire to finish my degree increasing exponentially, I’ve been working on developing a plan to write my dissertation. For the past 4-5 months, I’ve flip-flopped back and forth over which chapter to start with; I’ve also started reading for all of them and stopped, turning back to my data instead for inspiration. These months aren’t lost time by any means - among other things, I’ve come up with chapter titles, have a paper in progress because of a conference presentation that I did with my data set, and have figured out how I want to present my dissertation - but I recognize that continuing on without a solid plan won’t help me to make the progress that I want to make.

So… where to start?

Personal, Research, Ph.DJennifer DumoulinApril 8, 2020Research Process, research, Ph.D