Stage of effort	What to do
Select your topic	What is of particular interest to you? What context (community colleges, health education, adult literacy) lures you? What audience (prisoners, parents of children with autism, sales people) intrigues you? What have you wondered about? What is unclear? What do your colleagues talk about? What has the potential to be interesting enough to grow into a dissertation? What has the potential to be of concern to people a few years down the road, when you graduate?
Discuss your topic with peers and with Allison Rossett	Is this topic worthy of your attention? Does it matter to you? Does it matter to others? Will it matter to someone who edits a print or online journal? Can you do something with this topic in one semester? "Online motivation" is probably too big. "Motivating community college students to participate in online discussion groups" is much better. Rossett's role is to help you firm up, narrow, and focus so that you increase your chances of getting published and not torturing yourself in the writing process.
Identify a vehicle for publication	Consider print and online journals. The Technology Source is one possibility. Also consider writing for the elearningguild. Remember, these vehicles know their audience. You must understand it too, if you hope to get published.
Review the literature	Read online and print resources. Use Endnotes to begin a professional bibliography readily adapted to subsequent research and dissertation. Read up on how to search online.
Review related technology products and tools	What related tools and products exist in this area? Are they used? Are they successful? To what measurements can they point? How could they be better? For example, if you were looking at the ways special education teachers are using technology, you might want to review some of the dominant products used in this area.
Review publication guidelines	Most publications have pub guidelines. Look carefully. Editors don't want to edit. They want you to submit documents that need very little editing. Who reads this? Write for them. Mimic the manuscripts they publish. Obviously, don't imitate what they say. Instead note the tone, use of heads and sub heads, size of the review of literature, assumptions about audience, etc. Remember that format counts. You can purchase the APA Publication Manual from the bookstore or borrow it from the library. PsychWeb lists other sources for APA style guidelines. Here's another nifty tool for APA style.
Meet with Rossett. Bring an outline and selected publication possibilities	Between 2 and 4 PM on Wednesdays and 2 and 4 PM on Thursdays, Rossett (NE 283) and will be available for coaching. Rebecca Vaughan will also set some hours to help with the web sites and papers. Use those hours. Come by with your ideas, outlines, drafts and provocative questions. Other hours by appointment, of course.
Submit an outline to Rossett	This is not required but it surely is suggested.
Submit a draft to a peer.	Do this for each other. Provide feedback. You'll learn a lot and the papers will be better as a result of your efforts.
Submit final paper in a timely fashion, with submission letter for the editor	Need I say more? The papers are due, hard copy, on December 15th at 7PM.