Dissertation 101: A research and writing intervention for education graduate students

The vast breadth of information sources available in the field of education and the dearth of institutional resources for native graduate writers have left many graduate students overwhelmed, struggling to conduct an exhaustive review of the literature and to compose their literature reviews. To remedy this concern, collaboration between library and writing center faculty resulted in Dissertation 101, a seminar designed for graduate education students who are about to commence research for this high-stakes document. Bolstering the connections between academic librarians, writing center faculty, and graduate students has proven effective in refining the information seeking, evaluation, and synthesis skills of graduate education students. The seminar, now in its second year, is presented as a model intervention, a first step toward greater institutional accountability for graduate student writers. It would be ideal if education students embarked on their graduate careers with a strong grasp of information literacy concepts. However, as has become evident through the literature and our work with graduate education students in grou