I wish I had known about this fantastic book early in my dissertation process. I came across it in chapter 4, and it rescued me. It gave me a clear idea of what I needed to work on and helped me refine my chapter 3 drastically. It is very informative, structured, detailed, and has a road map for you. Honestly, this book became the best resource I had, and I cannot emphasize enough how vital it was for me to finish my dissertation. Highly recommended.
This is an excellent resource for doctoral dissertation students wanting a step-by-step formula to help them on their qualitative dissertation journey. The book is easy to navigate, informative, and easy to read. New to this edition is a chapter on ethics and rigor: the clarity of discussion and depth of information on trustworthiness, rigor, ethics, the Belmont Report, and the challenges amid and after the COVID-19 pandemic, is exceptional.
I had the privilege of having Dr. Bloomberg as my dissertation chair, and I can testify that this book is truly a roadmap to completing your dissertation. This updated edition provides student-friendly tables and figures with examples to support your dissertation journey. The companion website also provides resource templates that will save time and guide you through every step of completing your qualitative dissertation from beginning to end.
I cannot recommend this book enough. Dr. Bloomberg's writing style is accessible, practical, and organized, as well as inspirational and motivating. This book provided conceptual guidance to me as well as hands-on checklists and examples to ensure my research methods and writing were aligned, clear, and concise. This updated fifth edition continues Dr. Bloomberg's focus on relevance and applicability with information guiding research post-pandemic, as well as continuing to push the envelope of cutting-edge qualitative design. This should be on the shelf of every qualitative researcher—student or practitioner!
I would have been lost in the process and given up my doctoral journey if had not found this book. This straightforward, comprehensive, well written road map helps researchers, both naïve and experienced, to reach their destination in a timely manner. The author uses scholarly language that is not overly complicated, and there are templates, checklists, reflexive questions to guide and model each step of the dissertation process. In the fifth edition includes more focus on reflexivity, positionality, inclusion, ethics and trustworthiness. A ‘must have’ for doctoral students.
This book should be included in every qualitative methods course. It is unique in its approach. Students need samples together with explanations, which this book accomplishes well. The book does not oversimplify either. It complements whatever texts may be used with it because it serves a unique purpose that the others do not.
I applaud the author for taking on the challenge of describing the conceptual/theoretical model. This piece of information alone will meaningfully improve doctoral students’ ability to progress forward with writing their dissertations. The conceptual/ theoretical model is one of the most misunderstood aspects of the dissertation, and yet the most important aspect of the dissertation because it anchors the study. But the single most impressive aspect of Completing Your Qualitative Dissertation is that the authors make sense of writing a qualitative dissertation in a way that will likely enhance the active and inactive students’ ability to complete their dissertation.
I have used previous editions of Completing Your Qualitative Dissertation and, while they have been excellent, I find the third edition to be the best resource for students that I’ve seen. The chapters are practical and applied, using a real life example throughout. There are even sections in each chapter that address frequent errors that students make. The third edition also provides a detailed description of various qualitative genres, making it easier for students to locate their own work within the book. This book will be required reading for each of my doctoral students, long before they start thinking about their dissertations.
I will continue to use Completing Your Qualitative Dissertation until I find a better text, and that just does not seem likely. The authors’ writing is straightforward; they write as academics, from an academic bent, yet write practically for doctoral candidates who need guidance, a "road map" of how to complete their dissertation.
An excellent resource for doctoral students! The authors take the fear of writing a dissertation, and break down each component into manageable tasks that once completed will help students deliver a scholarly research project: a project that they will be proud to defend!
Students interested and/or committed in engaging in qualitative research would find Completing Your Qualitative Dissertation to be extremely informative and easy to read. The organization and presentation of the content are both visually appealing and the content is presented in a very student friendly manner. The organization of the chapters including the chapter objectives, chapter summaries and checklists are also helpful for faculty in terms on developing syllabi and pacing of course materials. The charts and diagrams are also very helpful and beneficial. Students need resources and tools to help with the thinking, collecting and analysis of rich qualitative data—of which can be found in almost every chapter of this text.This book does not lecture students but provides helpful tools to the assist in the collection of rich qualitative data. In addition, in many instances the students are actually able to see the tools and suggestions provided in the text in “action.” When reading this text, the students are not left with figuring out next steps and how, this book provides a very clear road map.
This third edition is a valuable guide for doctoral students. Theoretical and often abstract elements of the dissertation process are translated into clear and practical steps that students can take and instructors can share on the road toward successful completion of the dissertation.
”I would definitely recommend the Bloomberg and Volpe text to students preparing a thesis or a dissertation because it provides such clear, practical guidelines and examples. It is the best guide I have read.
In this third edition, I appreciated even more the intention the authors give to demystifying both the process of doctoral research and the rationale for the dissertation as a culminating product. It is heartening to have experienced researchers and teachers provide such clarifying and encouraging support to novices, particularly those whose progress through the complicated journey of becoming a qualitative researcher has become stymied and who are thereby feeling demoralized or despairing of ever completing their research work. The challenges of providing good research advisement stood out for me in reading this revision, so even though Completing Your Qualitative Dissertation is primarily designed for a graduate student audience, I have already recommended the third edition to my faculty colleagues within counselor education who are looking for a way to better transition excellent clinicians into excellent qualitative researchers for the counseling profession.
Completing Your Qualitative Dissertation is well written and clear. There is an enjoyable mix of scholarly and informal tone that should engage students well. Figures and tables are useful and are appropriate and well placed or referenced within the manuscript. I especially like the use of related examples and included resources. I also like that the authors enumerate common student errors or mistakes in each chapter.
This book is a ‘must have’ for all doctoral students from their acceptance into a program until they upload their finished dissertation to their institutional library. Forget Agatha Christie; they should keep this on their bed side table until it is dog-eared and they have graduated.
Written with a clarity, this book serves as a "how to" guide to write the first three chapters of a dissertation, regardless of method.
This book not only provides excellent guidance on writing a qualitative dissertation, it also includes information and discussion of how to plan, design, and conduct a qualitative research study (i.e., it is helpful for qualitative methodology and methods, not just writing).
Excellent, easy-to-use resource on developing, or supporting the development of a qualitative dissertation. The appendix with the rubric for chapter development is great. I circulate it often to students and other key stakeholders.
This book not only provides excellent guidance on writing a qualitative dissertation, it also includes information and discussion of how to plan, design, and conduct a qualitative research study (i.e., it is helpful for qualitative methodology and methods, not just writing).
I will continue to use Completing Your Qualitative Dissertation until I find a better text, and that just does not seem likely. The authors’ writing is straightforward; they write as academics, from an academic bent, yet write practically for doctoral candidates who need guidance, a "road map" of how to complete their dissertation.
