Applied Ecopsychology: benefits from reconnecting with Nature.

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Michael J. Cohen, Ed.D.
Lead Faculty
Akamai University Applied Ecopsychology Institute

Snippings Concerning The Academic Game:

Browse through these comments by the Dean and others regarding projects, dissertations and papers.

Campball, Ballou and Slade, or Slade eleventh edition, FORM AND STYLE is a required manual for all graduate students with Center Directors/Instructors to select the preferred style (Psychology) in regard to the specific discipline.

Just found what appears to be thorough sites describing different
kinds of qualitative research. Even if you feel miles away from this
point in your studies, bookmark it for when the time is right.

Dan Shelton suggests: http://www.qualitativeresearch.uga.edu/QualPage/index.htm

http://writing.colostate.edu/references/research/observe/index.cfm

This link has some interesting articles-Ginna

http://www.green-innovations.asn.au/#research-help

Hello All,

For those of you needing APA 5th help on citations look into these sites. My university library clued me in on these:

http://citationmachine.net/document.getElementById("L5115905559318624884").target = "newwindow";

http://www.easybib.com/document.getElementById("L2374651345320329957").target = "newwindow";

http://www.easybib.com/ and http://citationmachine.net/

If not, try just doing a search for easy bib and citation machine...and waaa-laaa!
Mary :)

Mary Risinger <maryrisinger@sbcglobal.net>

Here's a structure for you defense or dissertation essay:

· What is the topic?

· Why is it significant?

· What is my thesis or purpose statement?

· What organizational plan will best support my purpose

present relevant background or contextual material

define terms or concepts when necessary

explain the focus of the paper and your specific purpose

reveal your plan of organization

Body

Use your outline and prospectus as flexible guides
Build your essay around points you want to make (i.e., don't let your sources organize your paper)
Integrate your sources into your discussion
Summarize, analyze, explain, and evaluate published work rather than merely reporting it
Move up and down the "ladder of abstraction" from generalization to varying levels of detail back to generalization

Conclusion

If the argument or point of your paper is complex, you may need to summarize the argument for your reader.
If prior to your conclusion you have not yet explained the significance of your findings or if you are proceeding inductively, use the end of your paper to add your points up, to explain their significance.
Move from a detailed to a general level of consideration that returns the topic to the context provided by the introduction.
Perhaps suggest what about this topic needs further research.

Revising the final draft

Check overall organization: logical flow of introduction, coherence and depth of discussion in body, effectiveness of conclusion.
Paragraph level concerns: topic sentences, sequence of ideas within paragraphs, use of details to support generalizations, summary sentences where necessary, use of transitions within and between paragraphs.
Sentence level concerns: sentence structure, word choices, punctuation, spelling.

<http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/Documentation.html>Documentation: consistent use of one system, citation of all material not considered common knowledge, appropriate use of endnotes or footnotes, accuracy of list of works cited

A recommended source for studies available online.
http://scholar.google.com

References:
Creswell, J. W. (1998). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among the five traditions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Merriam, S. B. (1998). Qualitative Research and case study applications in education. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Academia is not the only game in town, but it is the game you choose to play for a while to obtain your degree and its vast advantages in making headway in our society, where headway is sorely needed. Academia respects your empirical evidence from your experiences only when it is presented in conjunction with and as a contribution to the experiences of others in the academic pool of knowledge. Phenomenological experience is acceptable evidence and knowledge.

Cohen's observation is that the whole society, including academia, suffers its problems because it is out of touch with and steeped in conquering Nature. Thus, Nature disconnected findings may add to, rather than help solve this problem in that they tend to reinforce the separation. Their hidden message often is "We do not need to reconnect with Nature to find the answers we need." As you may recognize, our need to genuinely reconnect with authentic natural attraction energies is not an "establisment" opinion and your degree, like accreditation, is a function of the establishment. It is extremely worthwhile to learn to play this game well and be so recognized. In that way you empower yourself to help improve the game.

Your thesis or dissertation is about 20% of the total IGE degree program's time and energy and it comes after Certification via ECO 800. This page is built to help you produce a valuable dissertation based on 9-leg thinking.

Be sure you are aware of the option offered by the Certified Master Practioner track for certification or a degree.

Information to consider incorporating in your course papers in preparation for your thesis. Pay special attention to the section on Standards

Dissertation Methods, Proceedures and Standards

Suggestions from the Ecopsychology Dean, Dr. Janet LeValley

Being an effective scholar requires you to be able to articulate your findings and your experience in a theoretically-grounded way. It asks you to carry the ideas of your teacher further (not merely regurgitate them), contributing something original to the field. It demands of you that you meet certain competency levels so that others will respect what you have to say. You have chosen to get a degree in the field which will indicate to others that you are informed of a wider context than your own experience (however crucial and wonderful your experience). A thesis or dissertation is a recognized indicator of that competence, and it is, therefore, important to do it right (meaning, to do it in a way that other scholars will respect and be able to cooperate with).

This website is meant to:
1. direct your search for theoretical grounding
2. provide resources to guide your research and writing
3. Provide some direction to your Literature Review
4. Operationally define thesis/dissertation/project-in-lieu-of thesis

Happy Spring, fellow ABD's!!! It is really popping out all over here.The Forsythia is blooming and because of all the rain we have flocks of tiny butterflies everywhere. The Jays are back nesting in the rafters - of at least building in the rafters. It was even 660 degrees yesterday. I thought I'd share where I am with my dissertation project and connect with what's going on with you.

I have finished my book proposal (hold a good thought for us - the agent is sending it out to pubishers this week) and am back to work on the dissertation paper. It's tremendously time-consuming, but most interesting. I'm beginning to see it as a long series of smaller papers. I've written a rough draft of the Introduction which includes the need for the project, a definition of the problem it addresses, the goal of the project and a brief bio. Now I'm going on to begin writing up my literature review section. Each of these little sections is like a separate paper - just that they are related and tie together. So right now I am beginhing to write the History of Work section of the literature review.
Because of the academic nature of the paper, I find it is more time consumming than writing for the public - which is time consuming too, of course. I need to be so much more precise. Thank goodness I'm not obsessive compulsive! I'd be at this for the next 100 years.
I have copies of multiple dissertations sitting all over my office and soon every book in my library will be on my desk, I fear. :)
The APA formate has been a real struggle for me. I bought an easy guide to the book - not so easy. I bought the APA software template and have since noticed that as far as I can tell none of the dissertations laying around my office have followed this guide! Eeek.
But in case anyone else has been struggling with the APA format issue, I've had two breakthroughs I can share. 1st a dear friend of mine in the classics department at UCLA advised me to just go ahead nd write and deal with format later. This has been a great relief which I hope proves to be a wise decision. At least it has me moving along more quickly. Second I found what appears to be a great service - a dissertation formating service for $1 a page!!!!!! For anyone who's trying to earn a living while doing their dissertation, this seems like a really good buy! Both my friend and my mother did their dissertations before computers and after they finished writing theirs, they took it to a "typing service" (I remember them) that specialized in dissertations, alwlays women, it seems, who did all this formatting. So such a service is probably just the modern version of an old stand by. Here's the link, if you're interested.
http://www.editorsforstudents.com/dissertations.html

For another $2 a page they will do proofreading for $2 a page and editing for $4/pg. I feel confident I will pass on the editing, but I'll see about the proofreading. It might be a good investment, although probably too costly.

Hope all is well with your lives and your projects. Hope to hear from you.

Blessings of Spring.

Sarah

Well, I hope I don't sound like I'm complaining because I'm really not. This is truly an adventure to be able to lay out the tenents of one's project in a way that will be clear to other professionals is exciting.

FAQ

When do I start my dissertation research?

You no doubt have been juggling around the ideas for your research thesis/dissertation/project-in-lieu of throughout your program. (see Official work on your project, however, begins only after you have completed all coursework, passed both the written and oral components of the Admission to Candidacy Exam, and have discussed your ideas with your committee (or at least your committee chair), and have an approved proposal.

What is the difference between a thesis, a dissertation, and a project in lieu of thesis or dissertation?

A thesis is a lengthy scholarly analytic paper written during a Master's degree program. A dissertation is a very lengthy scholarly analytic paper that makes an original contribution to your field, written during a doctorate program. A project-in-lieu-of thesis or dissertation is a unique application (such as a book, a program, an agency, a video, etc) accompanied by a document. A thesis, a dissertation, and the document accompanying a project-in-lieu-of must meet certain uniform standards.

"I support you doing a project-in-lieu-of-dissertation. Nevertheless, there is a certain protocol that must be followed. There is the handbook and then there is the professional packaging for it. This packaging must follow APA guidelines. Your handbook does not have to follow APA guidelines because it is considered to be your project, while the thesis needs to contextualize and justify that project. In no way did I think you are doing a research project. None of my comments had to do with a research project. But you are doing a professional paper within the field of eco-psychology as a way of presenting your project. Writing a handbook or a book or a manual filled with marvelous activities does not earn you a graduate degree. Otherwise lots more people would have graduate degrees. You must professionally present that project, which is as significant as the project itself. Part of that presentation is showing how to use your manual and why your project is useful. Case studies are your best bet for doing so. Your clients are indeed part of your formal project because they provide a way for you to illustrate how you put your project into practice. It is not necessary for you to statistically support your activities, nor do your case studies have to be of the depth they would be if this were a research investigation. You are not dealing with an hypothesis here but your are still dealing with organizing questions, theories, where your stuff fits into the literature, and why your stuff and not something else. All professional papers, projects and presentations have similar packaging. That is so we can control quality and readability. You can do it. I have faith in you. And I am here if you get stuck. Also Mardi and others are good resources."

What kind of Standards?

You must adhere carefully to a set of guidelines recognized and preferred in your field. Eco-Psychology is generally considered to be a part of the field of Applied Psychology. Therefore, it is best for you to use APA (American Psychological Association) Guidelines. You may buy a book to help you do so, or you may decide to use a software package that makes it easier. In addition to your title page (under the Australian System, we do not list Approval Signatures), copyright information, Acknowledgements, Abstract, Table of Contents, Tables and Charts (if any), Glossary (if needed), Preface (if you so choose),

You must also have an Introductory Section that makes clear the topic and its parameters, and both personal (when appropriate) and professional motivation and bias for this inquiry.

You must have a Section for a Literature Review. this Section is vital, as it places your inquiry into a theoretical persepctive and affiliates your inquiry with other relevant scholarly inquiries. Note I said "scholarly inquiries". This is no time to quote Mother Goose or Captain Kirk or your Uncle Joe Moe or even yourself (you may of course quote anyone but you need to be certain your arguments do not need any non-scholarly resources for their primary support). It is crucial, in this section, that you reach out to a broad knowledge of your field. Merely quoting your teacher does not count. Your teacher is quite wonderful but there are other voices to be heard now. Be sure you do not dismiss voices who say something different that your own and your teacher's. You are learning to play with the big kids now and this means you must learn to consider all evidence, identify the conflicts, analyze and summarize.

You absolutely must demonstrate that you know the difference between personal belief and academic evidence. Your personal belief is nothing to base a thesis or dissertation on. You must have a Methodology Section that tells what you did and how you did it and whom you did it to and why, what questions guided you and how you conducted this inquiry. You need to have a section for your data, if you collected data, and you need to discuss your findings in a section.

Your work needs to be theoretically-grounded. Anyone can say anything,
but what distinguishes a manuscript for a doctorate is that what you say
needs to plug in, somehow, to the rest of the research and theory in your
field or in affiliated relevant fields. You cannot simply re-invent the
wheel. You must build on what is there, in order to be a scholar. And
believe me, there is plenty there to build upon. For example, developmental
and psychological theories of Karen Horney and Carl Rogers and Adler,
regarding the ideal/true/idealized self and how we become separated and
alienated/dissociated from it and cooperate in the construction of a false
self which we come to believe is the real us, bear a great deal of relevance
to your account. The developmental theory of Jean Piaget, regarding the
stages of intellectual reorganization from body-oriented to magical-oriented
to the two upper logical stages, and how we continue to hold these old
organizations (pre-logical) in us, even as we emphasize and even become
egocentric about our new logical stages ----- all this bears relevance to
the account you have given. My own research on the Tibetan Buddhist
developmental constructs of Pure Mind and Rational Mind (and how the former is an obstacle to the latter even while it is required), also bears
relevance to your account. Get into the psychology journals and the
eco-psychology literature. Your opinion is worthless, in scholarly
projects, except as it is based on evidence and rooted in academic theory.
And the theories I mentioned are the tip of the iceberg. You must devour
the academic literature, to see what research and other scholars have to
say. You need to consider those you agree with and those you do not agree
with, and everyone inbetween. You must listen to their argumemts and
consider their findings and evaluate their theories and analyze their
methodology, and then you must decide where the concrete agreements are
(this becomes your theoretical base) and what the advantage is of what you
have to offer (this becomes your scholarly argument for your dissertation
project). Until you do so, you have nothing to say that academia will
listen to.

Any statement you make in a dissertation (or in the scholarly writings
that accompany your project as a project-in-lieu-of dissertation), that is
part of your argument (or part of the logic you are presenting to enable a
new perspective in the reader) must be based on evidence, scientific or
phenomenological evidence. The only way you can except some statements from that requirement is when you overtly state them as underlying assumptions. This must be done in the Introduction and in the Methodology sections.

Many students have a strongly Judeo-Christian influenced set of assumptions. They speak consistently, for example, of the Creator. However, the assumption of "A Creator" blinds you
to how you will alienate those of your audience whose religious beliefs do
not suggest "A Creator". Suggesting that "A Creator" is a synonymous concept with higher power, Nature, intelligence, God, Source, the One, unity, etc is not effective if you then choose to base your arguments on the "entityness" of a being who "created" everything and set it in place and who "loves us", etc. You see, this is a strong Christian bias. For example, my friend believes in a Higher Power but he would certainly balk at the idea that Higher Power created anything. For exampler: I am Mahayana Buddhist and my views of "creation" are very very different
from your own. We Buddhists honor Mind as a synonym for energy, but we certainly do not have a god presence nor do we believe that a God created the world. We believe the world is illusion, an imperfect projection of unenlightened mind and we try to become conscious of the illusion so that we can have a clearer mind, so that Pure Mind (our inner Buddha nature) is able to project without obstacle. In this way, we help others while improving our own clarity. It is not at all correct to use Buddha as a synonym for "The Creator" or "Presence" or most of the other words you claimed as synonymous. This is not to diminish your beliefs in any way, nor to argue their validity in your cosmology and in your life, nor to uphold my own faith.

I am giving you this feedback so you will know that these concepts are not at all synonymous to more than half of the population in this planet, and so you cannot assume their ressonance as truth nor their gentleness of contact with your reader. That is not appropriate, since this is a scholarly work.

It is important that you put your heart into your work and that you used the phenomenology of your own experience to create a powerful context for your project, the activities that can connect your reader to Nature and therefore to the sacred within themselves. I suggest, however, that you can choose a less ethnocentric terminology, at least for the scholarly portion.

The alternative is to
write the book in whatever terminology you like, targeting whatever narrow
audience you like, and then write a separate manual with the book, which
will be your scholarly contribution. To be scholarly does not mean it needs
to be stilted. Your writing is nice. Just try not to be religious, in your
terminology, when you can just as easily choose a word that will include,
rather than exclude. And then keep your metaphors consistent. I found it
very jangly to keep hopping back and forth, mentally, continuously
re-interpreting the attributes of a Christian God and Creator to support the
arguments in favor of natural intelligence and being in touch with your
inner knowing, etc. In other words, you require your reader to negotiate
through your thoughts, whose metaphors are quite alien, in many cases, with a map written in a language that few know and landmarks from the
psychological landscape posing as religious iconography. I am asking that
you write it in a trade language, something we can all hear and visualize
similarly in response to. Be sure to operationally define, carefully, any
term like "web loves", or anything that is part of your training language
but not part of the rest of the world's language (particularly the world of
scholarly inquiry).
If you separate the book (as project) from the manuscript (as scholarly
commentary), then you may choose to enact thse modifications only on the
scholarly manuscript and not on the book (in which case they need to be
separate).

8. When you have a modifying phrase preceeding a statement, there needs to be a comma. This sentence I just completed is an example of that.

9. You must provide in-text citations every single time you use a quote or
someone else's idea. Also, please use original sources whenever possible
(and it is usually possible).

10. Be very very careful with your use of terms like, "proof" and "truth".
In academia, we do not believe anything can be proven nor do we believe
there is a single truth. Rather, we find evidence that supports or fails to
support our hypotheses (never proving because the next study may come along and make a fool of our "proof" due to issues of validity or reliability or problems with extraneous variables). Truth is relative, to an Academic and, therefore, you will get no academic respect if you claim to know "Truth" nor if you direct your reader to find it. Proofs and claims of truth are personal, while science and scholarly work depends upon reptition of testing and evidence. Again, this is where religion differs from scholarly inquiry.
Your truth hinges on your faith and on your personal experience, while
scholarly inquiry is constructed on a broader population base and on a
predominance of the available evidence. Both faith and academic knowledge are important and have, I think, an important role to play. Faith is personally redeeming and inspiring and uplifting and can (and often does) flourish without one iota of hard evidence, and that is an admirable thing. Being a scholar, however, draws on a different part of who you are. It does not denounce your faith but merely circumvents it to ask for something more far-reaching.

In the case of a project, as opposed to a dissertation, you can
write whatever you want to write in your book, and then write a scholarly
presentation of what brought you to write this book, how this book will be
useful for its targeted audience, what it contributes, specifically, what
questions guided the writing of it, etc. You will still need the sections
mentioned in the support website. If you are doing a project-in-lieu-of thesis or dissertation, the data and discussion section(s) may or may not be needed, depending on the nature of your project.

You must also have a Conclusion Section (yes, even if you feel you already said everything to be said on the subject). This section summarizes your contribution to the field, any suggestions you want to make, any last-minute words of wisdom (preferably ones that will stick with your Reading Audience.

Finally, you absolutely must have a Section for References. This is where you list all information for works cited in-text. You do not list books you once read nor any source from which you did not need a citation. (Citations are required when you quote someone, quote someone who quoted someone, borrowed or adapted an idea, made a suggestion for the reader for more information in a specific place, etc). If you did a good Literature Review, you will have a healthy Reference Section. If you only have a handful of references, go back and do a literature review again.

The whole manucript needs to be grammatically correct, spelled properly, articulately-stated, efficiently-stated, formatted properly, be logically-consistent (this is no time to get carried away with the sound of your own voice; make sure what come before supports what comes after), and be on the right weight and color of paper (check with Greenwich Registrar).

What kind of binding should I use for my manuscript?

The copies of your manuscript that go to your committee members may be bound or unbound, as they each prefer. However, once everything receives final approval, you must send your official manuscript to the university for archiving, and you must send it unbound.

How do I get my manuscript approved?

First you will get your own approval. Are you satisfied that it is your best? Okay, then it is time to get Dr. Cohen's approval. Once he approves it, you must send your manuscript to your Dean (Dr. LeValley) and your secondary committee member or other Reader. Once they agree that it is in good enough shape to proceed, you will arrange a recorded conference call for the purpose of doing an Oral Defense. This is when your Committee will challenge your ideas, your analysis, your methodology, your logic, your citations, your findings, your conclusion, and all kinds of details. It is your responsibility to argue, when you think it is appropriate to do so in support of your work, and to listen carefully to suggestions and criticisms so you can make any required changes. If the changes are substantial, it will need to be re-submitted to your committee for approval. If the changes are minor, Dr. Cohen will approve it. Then, Dr. LeValley will look at your records and give her stamp of final approval and will notify the Registrar and Program Coordinator and Committee and you that it's all done and approved. Then you must submit to the university your official unbound copy. The Registrar will be working with you at this point. When she says you're cool (fees paid up, manuscript in, records complete, grades turned in), then you go celebrate!

1. Check APA regulations. With relation to the Appendices, you first indicate that the References section comes first. You later indicate that the References come last. Which is it supposed to be?

2. Format is not a section. Format means that APA regulations are to be applied to the entire paper. So do not make Format a section preceeding Table of Contents. Check the APA standards and follow them religiously.

3. In the Introduction Section, you must tell your topic and your interest in and qualifications for this topic (that you were a nurse for x number of years and that you noticed blah, blah, blah regarding stress and burn-out in nurses and then you studied nature centered approaches to wellness and this led you to suspect that blah, blah, blah), and the research questions (one or two or three inter-related ones) that will guide your approach to this topic, including your thesis (your central statement that is motivating your project manual and your case studies regarding it), and you must make explicit the underlying assumptions upon which your investigation or project rests, and you must define whatever key concepts (stress, nurse, nursing environment, nature-centered, NSTP) are necessary to the understanding of your thesis and its exploration. Do not use the dictionary for your definitions. You must look into the literature for your definitions. They must be academic definitions or operational definitions. For example, the Oxford Dictionary defines Psychology as "the scientific study of the human mind and its functions". But this definition isn't particularly helpful to an academic who goes into more depth in defining psychology as "the scientific study of human behavior and mental processes" and then further includes various perspectives such as behaviorist, cognitive, transpersonal, humanist, psychoanalytic, developmental, etc, each of which emphasizes certain aspects of that definition a bit differently. For a behaviorist, the mental processes part is of less interest than the measurable behavior. For the psychoanalytic psychologist, the mental processes part is everything, nearly, and more specifically the hidden conflicts and deep motivations that drive behavior. For the transpersonal psychologist, human behavior and mental processes gain a deeper meaning by considering such things as self-actualization, higher power, past-life influence, etc. So you can see that if I am an academic, I need a definition that lays out very specifically where I am coming from, what is included and what is emphasized, where I am standing and what I see from there, what my assumptions are. I must provide a definition that indicates how something might be measured. That is what you must do. What is a nurse, for the purposes of this study? Is it only RNs or also nurse's aides or LVNs or LPNs or ????? I think we can all agree that an emergency room nurse is likely to experience stress, but what about a school nurse or a flight nurse or a psychiatric nurse or a private nurse or a nurse consultant on Hollywood movies? So what kind of nurses are you talking about exactly? Are you referring to fulltime nurses or part time nurses or once in a blue moon nurses or retired nurses or nursing students or what?? And what is stress? Specifically what definitions of stress pertain to nurses and the nursing environment? Look to the literature and then pin it down for purposes of your study. And what is a nursing environment? Is it a hospital or a school office or an airplane or a recruiting office or an eye clinic or a fertility clinic or an abortion clinic or what??? You are unlikely to have the time and resources to test your handbook on all nurses everywhere. By nurse, are you referring to nurses working in the USA or other countries as well? What age group? Women nurses only or also men? What ethnicity? Urban or rural? You cannot cover it all, so definitions, for purposes of your study --- operational definitions that will enable you to measure something and will be reflected in your methodology ---- are critical. What makes you think nurses are nature-disconnected? What does that mean? How might this be measured, for purposes of your case studies? Okay, you get the idea?

3. In the Introduction Section, the questions you have listed are way too broad. I imagine you could write several extremely lengthy doctoral dissertations on each one of those questions! So what is your particular focus, your specific chosen thesis and then what are the research questions that will guide you to address that thesis? If you have to tell me your dissertation in just one sentence, I imagine it might go something like this (Note: This is just my suggestion of one possible thesis question and the research questions that might proceed from it) ----" Is a nature-oriented approach to stress-relief useful/helpful in addressing stress symptoms in nurses and stress consequences in their work place." Okay, now if we take this as the thesis that will define your dissertation, then what are the reasonable research questions that will guide you? Well, one might be, "Is nursing a stressful job?" Another might be "What are the stress symptoms that nurses typically experience?" Another question might be "What are the typical consequences that arise in response to nursing stress and nursing stress symptoms?" And last, I would include, "What causes me to suspect that nature-oriented stress-relief might provide a solution?" Now you see, Teresa, that these questions create the underlying foundation for our central thesis ---- that a nature-oriented approach to stress relief may be useful/helpful in addressing stress symptoms in nurses and stress consequences in their work place. So what are some of your underlying assumptions? Well, obviously you are assuming that a solution to stress symptoms and their workplace consequences is in fact possible. You are assuming that nurses or the nursing profession might accept a nature-oriented solution if indeed it were found to be effective. You are assuming that nurses are cut-off from nature, in their lifestyle and work environment, and that therefore re-connecting with nature might be of some value. So of course now each of these assumptions must be detailed and discussed, with some support for this idea. Which brings me to my next point: Support.

4. Remember how I explained to you in our last phone call that you must take a non-dogmatic, non-cultish, scientific, empirical evidential approach to your topic, and remember I mentioned that this involves a consideration of pros and cons, the literature for and against. So.........you have proposed to do exactly the opposite in your literature review. Mike does not need any more students to prove how brilliant the NSTP is and how faithful dedication to it will get you to heaven and earn you your very own eco-harp to play. NSTP works and that is enough. Now, what you must do is to summarize the literature on your guiding research questions, and the literature that details any nature-oriented approaches to stress-relief (especially for nurses or other helping professionals or in other nursing-similar environments), and the literature on NSTP as applied to stress-relief, etc. The object of the game is not to support your belief in NSTP but to justify, through a BALANCED consideration of the literature, your thesis and your methodology and your project.

5. Your Methodology Section looks good, but needs to include details about your manual: how you selected and compiled the activities it contains; how you tested the instruction and activities (if indeed you did so); how you imagine these activities to be in line with NSTP or other nature-centered approaches to stress reduction; etc.

6. Findings Section is fine.

7. Get rid of your Chapters designation. Use APA standards only.

8. Your Discussion Section should involve a discussion of your Findings only. It should not involve a discussion of the chapters in your manual. See item 5 above. The discussion of your findings is basically a consideration of your case study experiences in terms of how they fit in with or fail to fit in with your anticipated findings, based on your literature review and based on your experience with NSTP or other nature-centered stress relief tools. What worked and what didn't work? What might need to be tweaked a bit for future application in nursing stress relief? What was learned from these case studies over-all? etc.

9. Your Conclusion outline is fine as is.

10. I am assuming that item C in your Appendices outline is your actual handbook. If so, your appendices section is fine. If not, add it in.

11. What the hell is "selected references"? The section should be entitled "References" and it must include every single source from which you quoted and every single source from which you used ideas or definitions or statistics or other information (each of which of course must be properly cited in-text as well).

12. Good luck. Any questions, just ask.

13. If you want to be helpful to your classmates, you might consider saving this email (including your draft proposal and my response to it) and making it available to people who are nearing the point where you are. Think how helpful it would have been to you to have seen such a dialogue before you wrote and submitted your own proposal. It would save me repeating the same stuff over and over and I am certain many would bless you for offering such a sample.

Well, I have worked up quite an appetite from this email, so I am getting offline and eating some hot rice and curry and kotu. Puppy is barking, which means hubby has returned with supplies.

Hugs,
Dr. Janet

Critiques to learn from.

These result from the oral defense of the dissertation. Improvements are made and the Diploma attained

If it helps you learn from the discoveries of others, here are a sample commentarys on Dissertations that needed improvement, made the improvements and graduated with honors. You may also benefit from searching the web concerning thesis and dissertation tips.

Research Document Corrections:

Page 2
training for Costa Rican staff providing them additional tools
training for Costa Rican staff, providing them additional tools

Page 3
The data that was collected over a two-month period during the summer of 2001 by a combination of short questionnaires, participant observation, and interviews, which were conducted by the principle investigator. The second study (pole of CRROBS staff) was conducted in mid 2002

The data was collected
poll of CRROBS staff

CRROBS developed a survey, which

CRROBS, developed a survey which
The participant's honesty and accuracy were not in question given the subject matter and at no time

participants'
question, given the subject matter, and

Page 4
"participant observation demands
"Participant observation demands
Page 5
In an attempt to triangulate the data informal interviews
In an attempt to triangulate the data, informal interviews

determine how the participants experience in nature would affect the way
determine how the participants' experience in nature would affect the way

they lived their lives in the future. Meaning
they lived their lives in the future, meaning

if they seemed to connect with nature while in the rainforest how
if they seemed to connect with nature while in the rainforest, how

would that transcend their world once they returned?

Comment: I think "transcend" is not the word you want, unless you are speculating that their connection with nature would somehow move entirely out of their reality, and in some way above it, when they returned to their more normal daily lives. Since that is an ungrounded and unclear speculation, you might want to re-phrase that.
". Michael Cohen in a 1986 presentation discusses how our society
Comment: You need a proper citation here.

Page 6
they spend outside per week students generally
they spend outside per week, students generally
of being in touch with the ones natural world, and how
of being in touch with one's natural world, and how
describing it" (p.5). This belief held by Cohen

Comment: p.5 is not a proper citation.
Comment: drop the phrase, "held by Cohen" . Also, is it a belief or an observation? Beliefs are not generally productive in a dissertation. Observations are more productive.
Comment: I am concerned about all these quotes from Cohen. Quoting Cohen does not constitute a literature review and in no way is it adequate to support a research study. Cohen is simply one person, of many persons, and your study cannot hang on what he says or believes or observes.
Comment: Furthermore, the participant quotes which follow your statement, in an alleged offering of evidence for the reflecting of Cohen's stated belief, do not (so far as the reader can understand) illuminate this stated belief at all. The belief stated was about an experience of abandonment. The participant quotes were not.

Page 7
This same students' post survey answered the same question,
This same student's post survey answered the same question,

Page 10
He kind of check himself into the course
He kind of checked himself into the course
world unraveling away from him, it is nice to
world unraveling away from him. It is nice to
on the first night complaining
on the first night, complaining
of needing (emphasis mine) a drink".
of "needing (emphasis mine) a drink".

Page 11
This proves that the students were connecting
Comment: It is not the purpose of research, nor is in within the capacity of a researcher, to prove anything at all. Our data supports or fails to support a given hypothesis, but no matter how fabulous our data, we can never prove something because we can never identify and control all possible variables, all possible bias, nor can we do perfect methodology nor grasp a perfect theoretical framework, etc. Another researcher will always come along after us and his/her research data, and his/her interpretation of that data, will be a bit different.

Page 12
The project was successful in proving that student participants who were involved in Outward Bound courses

Comment: See above comment and learn it well

GENERAL Comments:
You stated a large number of purposes for this study. I identified the following:
1. The study was trying to investigate if students were connecting with nature while they were on their individual courses.
2. The study also investigated how students were connecting with nature and if as a result of this experience they had altered their views on how they fit into their natural world.
3. In addition, the study focused on the question as to whether or not a need existed within Outward Bound Costa Rica to provide additional training for Costa Rican staff providing them additional tools to conduct Reconnecting With Nature (RWN) activities.
4. The research was attempting to allow the researcher a look into how the participants construct their meanings in their every day lives.
5. The purpose of the study was to determine how the participants experience in nature would affect the way they lived their lives in the future.

I think your study actually focused on the first 2 purposes. Then you threw a quick addendum study into the conclusion section of your paper, relevant to the 3rd purpose. This seemed supplemental to me, both in purpose and in presentation. It is a different study. I think you should simply refer to it, perhaps in your conclusion, simply mentioning that you polled staff regarding their training needs in terms of supporting participants. I do not think you should tack this in as a part of your dissertation study, however, since it really does feel tacked on. Another way to handle it is simply to cite your poll. Your 4th purpose (above) is too broadly stated and only indirectly fulfilled. Perhaps you did not intend it as a purpose but as a statement of methodology. I will not ask you to remove this statement, but wanted to list it here so you can see how many times you stated an apparent purpose of the study. The 5th purpose stated was in no way a purpose of your study, nor was it in any way fulfilled. So why is it there? This is the purpose of a longitudinal study and cannot possibly be fulfilled within the bounds of your own study. You would need to track students over time and compare them to a control group. This is far outside the scope of your study and so this purpose absolutely needs to be removed from your research document.

Your bibliography needs much improvement. You have only 4 citations referenced and two of them are Mike Cohen. Furthermore, a research document has "References", not a "Bibliography". The purpose of a research document is to ground your own research in the research of others, to use the research of others to launch what you yourself decide to investigate. It is hoped that one's own research can fill in a gap somewhere, in previous research, or clarify a discrepancy in previous studies, or strengthen or weaken a theoretical argument or principle. Your bibliography basically makes your document useless. Since your research is interesting, why leave it floating around without theoretical context. You have no literature review. You have no theoretical context (Mike Cohen does not a theoretical context make).

Where is the survey you administered? Where is the table of results? Where is a discussion of the anomalous cases, cases in which nature-connecting experiences were not positive, or not apparent? Research studies are not opportunities to market a particular program, only. They are investigations in which both sides are presented, both in terms of theoretical context and in terms of one's own data. WHY does your study MATTER at all? The answer to that can only exist when your research is thoroughly grounded in previous research and in theory. This requires a thorough literature review and a rigorous analysis of your data.

Take your project exercise guidelines and make that entire document an appendix to your research project (if I understand correctly that these exercises were ones you used with the Outward Bound students in the study). That will greatly strengthen your research document. Without it, your research document leaves the reader wondering what exactly you did with your participants ----- participants in what exactly?

As for your other document, which you referred to as a Defense Document, I am wondering why some basic changes I already recommended are still not implemented? Have you been getting my emails? I have not received responses to the last couple of rather involved emails. I hope you received them as my critique represented a great deal of work that is lost if you did not receive them (the computer I sent them on is totally fried and they cannot be re-claimed). Anyway, Dissertation is still spelled wrong on your title page, and Greenwich is also still spelled wrong. Furthermore, I right away ran into other problems I have already spent time correcting (so I guess my emails must have fallen victim to the Klez virus and its victimization of my poor computer). For example, you define Sociology as the study of human behavior. This is absolutely inaccurate. Sociology is the study of social interaction, social values and norms, and social institutions, but definitely NOT the study of human behavior. Psychology is not the study of the human psyche (unless you include only Jungian analysts in your definitions of psychology, an error which might anger the behaviorists, the cognitive psychologists, the humanists, the developmentalists, those psychoanalytic theorists who are not Jungian, the functionalists, the symbolic interactionists, etc), but is rather the study of human behavior and mental processes. You need to re-write this part. Some other problems I noted again quickly are:

1. ones that surround us." (-Rozak Interview1998) (fix format and eliminate dash)
2. you need to be consistent in your citation format. Go through and change all citations to be consistent in format with APA standards.
3. development were almost inexistent terms (nonexistent terms)
4. these habits up even thought they (change to though)
5. delves into the human causes our environmental crises (insert "of" our)
6. Ginsberg quote on page 6 has no citation at all
7. model to change behavior on a real, (change "on" to "in")
8. Fromm has no citation at all
9. Shaef has no citation at all
10. craving for power."- (eliminate the dash)
11. (Chellis Glendinning "Technology, Trauma, and the Wild" 1999) [this is not even almost a proper citation.]
12. over 65% of the rainforests in Central America have been destroyed to create cattle pasture. Most of the beef produced in Central America is destined for fast food markets in developed countries. (what is your source for these statements? Where is your citation? )
13. " 1999) My project (insert a period after the citation's end of parenthesis)
14. focused in developing (change "in" to "on")
15. and indeed the world think. (world, think)
16. in Bocas del Torro, Panama on a (Panama, on a)
17. beach type (beach-type)
18. The Overworked American: "Since (You have no citation date)
19. conservation minded than their American counterparts (conservation-minded)
20. Are We Happy Yet? Points out that (Yet?, points out that)
21. community" -Allen D. Danner and Mary E. Gomes "The All-Consuming Self." (improper citation)
22. came, and, if they also wish to what they perceive as God (came and, if they also wish to, what they perceive as God
23. satisfy their hunger is in fact, plenty (is, in fact, plenty)
24. due to the relative uncomfortable atmosphere (relatively)
25. "The All Consuming Self," Allen D. Kanner and Mary E. Gomes (you need to cite in the proper format and include a publication date)
26. times." (Kraner, 1995) [Always place the period at the end of the parenthesis, not the end of the quote) [Also, is Kraner a different source than Kanner or is it a misspelling and failure to include Gomes? ]
27. tourist type trips, one (tourist-type trips, one)
28. Bound Course, the big difference comes in the way (change comma to period and capitalize T on "the. You have a run-on sentence here)
29. a life transcending change (a life transforming change. The change does not reach outside of one's life, so is not transcending).
30. To a certain extent, Outward Bound has traditionally been quite successful in this sense. Participants indicate, many times several years after their OB experience that their Outward Bound Course was perhaps the single most life changing event that has happened to them during their adolescence and beyond (Where is the evidence for this statement? Where is your reference and citation? Popular mythology and personal opinion, unsupported by empirical data, is not evidence.)
31. such activities post the course, (post-course)
32. support even post the course. (post-course)
33. "Shamanic Counseling and Ecopsychology" Leslie Grey, (no citation date)
34. turn empowers you and gives you energy and health." (why is there one quote mark? Does it need a citation or is it a typo?)
35. human context in the which to study (in which to study)
36. My project has taken ecopsychollogy principles (ecopsychology)
37. Your Bibliography needs to be "References", not bibliography, since it must include only those works specifically cited.
38. Go through your bibliography and make all formatting consistent. It currently isn't.
39. Fransisco, Cal. Sierra Books (Francisco, CA) make this change on others too
40. Leslie's video reference needs to have a date
41. Kanner's reference needs to have a date
42. Rozak's video needs a date
43. What happened to your missing references for Ginsberg, Fromm, Schaef, Kraner, and Schor, as well as the sources for statements showing no citation at all?
44. On all direct quotes in your text, you must provide page numbers

Okay, so where does this leave us, once corrections are noted and implemented?
Well, before I can answer that (don't worry, I'll answer it anyway), I need to know what you are trying to do?

If you are presenting a series of exercises that can be used with Outward Bound students, to connect them with Nature, and you wish to contextualize these exercises so that other people might use them appropriately, then what is the purpose of including your research report? Instead,
1. use your supplemental document as an introduction, stating clearly your objective and why the activities are needed. Expand your review of the literature, and include it so that this Introduction includes a good Literature Review.
2. Then present your chapter(s) of activities as your Methodology, and label it as such.
3. Then excerpt and cite parts of your research report that demonstrate how these activities impacted the participants. This becomes your Findings and Discussion section (you will combine sections here) and is labeled as such. This section would benefit greatly by presenting 2 or 3 cases of actual participant processes, to give the reader a better grasp on how it all comes together. Ie: Joe Blow (not his real name) is a 14 year old male from a middle class professional background, who presented with attitude challenges (surly, rebellious, history of authority defiance). After x number of weeks in the program, the following changes were noted. Joe Blow commented that.. After an additional x number of weeks in the program, Joe had the following to say.His counselor noted thatHis peers reacted to him more. His demeanor had changed in that.It appears this experience will have a lasting influence in that Joe was observed.or said..He felt the most important part of this process wasThis self-observation is congruent with a majority of cases I have encountered in this work.
4. Then you re-state in summary what you have just presented, along with the stuff you already wrote about recommendations for further research. That becomes your Conclusion section and is labeled as such.
5. Then you place your extended list of References, labeled as such. And voila! You have a complete document (at least you do so long as you re-work the title page and stick in a copyright notation in the appropriate spot, and include a table of contents. This whole integrated document is now called a Project in lieu of Dissertation.

If your project is the creation, implementation and initial efficacy testing of your particular approach to integrating nature-connecting vocabulary and experience into the Outward Bound program structure, then I suggest you create a document in which you do the following:
1. Use most of your supporting document as an introduction (because you did a nice job of that) and label it "Introduction"
2. State very clearly, as I did above, your intent in presenting this
3. Expand your review of the literature by noting other experiments done by others who tweaked the Outward Bound program in whatever ways, and note the results and issues. Include additional literature review of nature assisted education, that will contextualize what you yourself are doing. You can either include this in your Introduction section, or you can make a subsequent section labeled, Literature Review.
4. Create a section entitled, Methodology, and explain what criteria you used in inventing your nature-connecting exercises, and how to make use of your activities. Place the activities themselves in an Appendix section. Then insert into the methodology section the relevant parts of your research report, the parts that explain what you did and why (in terms of the survey).
5. Then pull out the parts of that research report in which you discuss the answers, your data. Label it as Findings and Discussion.
6. Then add a chapter labeled Conclusions, in which you excerpt the parts of your research report that summarize what you were testing, how you tested it, and what you found, along with your suggestions for further research.
7. Greatly enlarge your References section, and label it such. Fix all the formatting problems. Use APA format, preferably. Be consistent.
8. Now label this document a Dissertation, including copyright info appropriately.

If, on the other hand, your intention was to present me your research report as a project, then:
1. create a document that has an Introduction (your supplemental document with expanded literature review would be perfect),
2. Methodology (brief summary of what you did -- the survey and how you came up with the questions you did),
3. Discussion (a summary of your findings and a critique of what you should have done or would have done if you could or would do if you had it to do again, and what you learned from this project),
4. and a Conclusion (summarize what you just detailed, in particular what you learned and where this is now directing you).
5. Then, put a copy of your survey in an Appendix section,
6. and fix/improve your References section.
7. Then this document is submitted with your research report as it currently stands, if your research report has already been published, or with all suggested modifications, if it has not yet been published (submitted as 2 separate documents but in the same package).

I know this critique and these suggestions may seem a bit overwhelming, but a big part of the problem is that my last 2 or 3 emails apparently did not make it to you, so far as I can tell. I want you to know that your work is coming along very well and really is not far from being accepted, no matter which of the above directions you choose to move in. These may sound like very involved changes but trust me, they are not. Do not get so wrapped up in this that you think I do not like what you are doing. On the contrary, I am most impressed with what you are doing and that is why I am taking the time to help you to perfect it. You are very close. The most serious flaws really are the small literature review and the inconsistent citation formatting. Shifting things around to create one document or two is actually not very difficult because you have most of the writing done. Please respond to this email. I want to know what you think and whether you understand the basis of my suggestions. I also want to know how long you anticipate needing to complete this. I truly think you could do it in a week, if you had nothing else pressing to do. But I do not know your schedule. The reason I am asking you this is because I think we are extremely close to being able to set up your oral defense. So give this some thought. We can do your defense before the typos and formatting is fixed, but not before you have a handle on the restructuring and a clear picture of what your purpose is, as I detailed above.

I hope to hear from you soon.
Janet LeValley, Ph.D.
Dean, Applied Eco-Psychology

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COUNSELING, TEACHING AND HEALING WITH NATURE: Walk nature's socially and environmentally responsible path to rewarding relationships and livelihoods. Online courses, Ph.D., M.S., and B.A. degree programs, grants, scholarships, jobs, books and internships: http://www.ecopsych.com/

Theresa Sweeney and Mardi Berquest will help you if you need help. Check with your support group and the Co-op for updates and assistance, too.

FACULTY CONTACT INFORMATION

Michael J. Cohen, Ed.D.

Director, Project NatureConnect

P. O. Box 1605

Friday Harbor, WA 98250 USA

Tel: (360) 378-6313

Email: nature@pacificrim.net

Website: www.ecopsych.com

Communications should take place during daytime working hours in the

western time zone or by appointment.

For the faculty contact information, please refer to the Lead Faculty

Information section of the Program Overview. If unclear of contact

information, communicate immediately with the University Administration.

Project NatureConnect
Institute of Global Education
Special NGO consultant to United Nations Economic and Social Council.
P.O. Box 1605 Friday Harbor WA 98250
(360) 378-6313
nature@pacificrim.net
www.ecopsych.com