One of the things Grad school does to otherwise normal people is make them use industry specific jargon, to the point that others may wonder if their beloved son/daughter/husband/wife/friend has taken to speaking in tongues. In order to help those subjected to the jargon understand what their loved one is saying, I’m providing a brief list of some of the more common terms you might hear during interactions with your grad student*. (And if you happen to be an academic and want a word added, just shoot me an e-mail or leave a comment.)
ABD: All But Dissertation. This means that the graduate student has completed all requirements for their degree except for their dissertation.
Cohort: If you hear your student refer to “their cohort” they’re talking about the other grad students that entered the program in the same year they did. It might be easiest to think about this as if they are referring to their graduating class- it’s the same idea, except every student completes the program in their own time, and so they will not share a graduation year per se. This is not the only way academics use the word cohort, but since we’re talking about first year grad students, this is all you probably need to know.
Comps: Comprehensive exams. Each program has their own format for these, but they’re generally stressful and take a very long time to study for. They are also usually one of the last steps before the student can obtain ABD status.
C.V.: Curriculum Vitae. A C.V. is an academic’s resume. Unlike professional resumes which are usually brief, an academic C.V. can be quite long. This is because a C.V. contains a list of courses taught, publications (of which there should be many, in highly esteemed journals), service to the discipline (committees chaired, journals edited) and grants received.
Dissertation: The last thing that stands between a grad student and their PhD. Dissertations are research projects based on a topic of interest of the student (usually). They generally take a good amount of time to complete (greater than 1 year – sometimes 2, or 3, or… well let’s not go there) and hopefully result in either several journal articles or a book.
I.R.B: Institutional Review Board. This is an independent panel created to review all projects that do research on humans. No research on human subjects can take place without their approval. Their job is to make sure that the research will do no harm to the subjects, be it mental, physical, or emotional. In other words, they suck all the fun out of research**
Professional Association or Organization: Most academics have professional organizations to which they belong and they are almost always referred to by their acronym. There are far too many to list here, so I’ll just group them all under the entry “professional association or organization.” Some are large, some are small and very specialized. In sociology, for instance, we have the ASA (American Sociological Association) which is the ‘big daddy’ of all associations. There are smaller regional associations and associations for nearly every kind of special interest (religion, humanism, social problems, etc). These associations provide opportunities for networking through listserves and more importantly, conferences. They also generally have journals that are outlets for academic research.
Revise and Resubmit: Also called an R & R, there is nothing restful or relaxing about it, other than the fact that it’s way better than getting rejected. When a researcher (i.e. your grad student) submits an article to a journal in hopes of publication it is “blind” reviewed by other academics. These reviewers (usually 3) will offer constructive criticism of the paper, and may recommend that it is either 1) flat out rejected, 2) be accepted on the condition that certain revisions are made 3) be accepted just as it is (which is very rare), or 3) that the paper be revised and resubmitted for another round of blind peer review. This process generally takes a long time and causes a great deal of stress.
Sampling: The process of getting participants for your research. There are many different ways to sample, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. This brings me to the next entry…
Snowballing: If your grad student mentions that they are snowballing or using a snowball sample, they are neither referring to the classic outdoor wintertime activity or some some kind of sexual practice. Basically, snowball sampling works like this: the researcher wants to research, oh I don’t know, let’s say middle class housewives who moonlight as strippers. This is the kind of thing that most middleclass housewives don’t advertise. There is no directory of housewife strippers – at least not that I know of. So how does the researcher get a large enough sample for a study? They find one to start with, and ask if they know of any other middle class housewife strippers who might want to participate, and then once those housewife strippers agree to participate, they ask them if they know any one else and so on and so on. It’s like a rolling a snowball on the ground until it gets big enough to be useful as say, the base of a snow man.
SPSS, STATA, SAS: These are acronyms for some of the more popular computer programs used for statistical analysis of data.
Thesis: A thesis is usually the last step before a grad student receives their master’s degree (the master’s degree comes before the PhD) It is (usually) a paper that is the result of an original research project. Your grad student will most likely have a thesis committee; a panel of faculty that guides them through the process of developing, conducting, and writing up the research. The thesis will need to be successfully defended (an oral presentation to a panel faculty) and must be accepted in order for the student to receive their master’s degree.
* These definitions are for general educational purposes only and are very loose – each program is different.
** just kidding. kind of. ¹
¹ have I mentioned that I’m rather sarcastic?
And I’m going to be the idiot that shoots to do my dissertation in about 6 months. Sigh.