Talk:All but dissertation

Biased last paragraph

The last paragraph copied below sounds very biased against the use of "ABD" status in resumes. I feel this is incredibly disparaging to the population of people who did not complete their PhD degrees and possibly hurting their chances to land a job, whether in or out of academia, if they choose to be honest about their PhD experience. Whoever wrote this has an agenda, and this paragraph should be cut entirely. Wikipedia can do better than this!

"Because the abbreviation "ABD" and others like it does not refer to any actual university degree, it is generally viewed in a negative light by most people who have completed doctoral degrees and by human resources personnel, especially if the person claiming "ABD" status first started their doctoral degree more than 3 years ago. "ABD" is often viewed as an attempt to claim unawarded partial credit for an undertaking that remains unfinished or was abandoned. Thus "ABD", far from being a positive addition to a CV, is often viewed as a warning sign, worse than writing nothing at all" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.101.107.205 (talk) 20:18, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Move?

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was move per form of request, but to uncapitalized version per later comment and WP:CAPS.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:37, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

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Doctor of Philosophy, All But Dissertation → All But Dissertation —

• More succint title. The page also refers to equivalent doctorates.   — Manticore 15:10, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
• Comment Should "but" be capitalized? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:56, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
• Shouldn't, and according to article's own text neither should "dissertation", even if this is acronymized as "ABD" in practice. But article should otherwise be renamed, to match article text. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ  Contribs. 08:09, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested edit

The article is apparently locked at this time, so I can't add this myself, but according to the Master of Philosophy articles (and also Drew University, which apparently practices this), some schools will grant M.Phil. status to ABD Ph.D. students. --67.83.26.49 (talk) 14:07, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

"Mostly unofficial" concern

As someone who has spent a fair amount of time on the academic job market, I definitely take issue with the idea that this term is mostly unofficial. Look at a handful of faculty job postings, and odds are that most of them will say that they prefer Ph.D.s but will "consider" A.B.D.s, getting across the point that this is a legitimate and (informally) official milestone for the doctoral student. 97.113.26.113 (talk) 10:32, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Fixing WP:UMD

I was trying to tweak the opening to fix WP:UMD but I can't figure out how. To be honest, part of the problem was that while I was doing what I thought would be just a tweak I ended up having to nuke the only two references (since neither actually supported the statements they were attached to). I tried to fix that but found I couldn't without violating WP:OR. So the core problem may be (the 2013 deletion discussion notwithstanding) that the whole thing fails WP:NOTE. But let's not go there yet.

The problem becomes obvious when you try to get the opening sentence to obey WP:UMD. Ignore for a second the "mostly unofficial" caveat (which merely makes the problem even more obvious, but the problem would exist even if that phrase didn't). WP:UMD suggests that instead of

"All but dissertation" (ABD) is a term identifying a stage in the process of obtaining a research doctorate..."

it should really be something like

"All but dissertation" (ABD) is a stage in the process of obtaining a research doctorate..."

The problem is, I'm not sure that can be done without sufficient WP:RS, and there don't seem to be any. Google searching does throw up a lot of talk *using* the phrase "All but dissertation", but there's nothing obvious that would constitute a WP:SOURCE *defining* and *describing* it. And even if we take what there is to be WP:RS, we still can't say

"All but dissertation" (ABD) is a stage in the process of obtaining a research doctorate..."

because for every person out there using ABD to mean what our article is saying, there's someone else effectively saying that ABD is just made up nonsense, or a euphemism for "And Failed" or "And Never Did The Very Thing That Makes A Doctorate A Doctorate".

Now, to pre-empt one possible reply, this is not just about fixing WP:UMD. There are definitely times when it makes sense to ignore that kind of recommendation and tolerate something like "X refers to..." or "Y is a term for..." and so on. But here the difficulty is a function of the concept itself, in particular the fact that those using it are *merely* using it, and no one of sufficient reliability is actually defining it. And if no one out there is defining, shouldn't we desist from what then would be defining, otherwise we're in WP:OR and WP:NAD territory? Sleety Dribble (talk) 10:23, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

fantasist

Is this a real, encyclopedic thing, or is it an attempt by people who fail (to complete) their doctorates to award themselves something all the same? The pretentious abbreviation and faux academic reverence suggest it's all a bit of a scam. The phrase "all but" misleadingly implies that a dissertation is a mere detail in a person's doctorate. It's actually central to it. You failed your PhD; get over it.

It is really a term used, as shown by the references. Whether it is "an attempt by people who fail (to complete) their doctorates to award themselves something all the same" or not does not affect its reality as a term used, both by students and universities. The third paragraph of the article (as it exists at the time of this writing) makes it clear that some authorities consider its use in contexts that imply it to be a qualification misleading. Robminchin (talk) 04:18, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

In practice, there are several ways that "ABD" is used; one is well accepted, the others not so much. For the first, as described in the entry, is as an indicator in a resume for one's academic achievement: "PhD ABD Sociology, UUSA 2019". This indicates a recent designation, and implies that this will be soon updated. For academic positions, the notion that a new hire is in the finishing stages of their dissertation and can complete their work by writing remotely. This is much more common in non-science and engineering disciplines which have a strong lab component that is hard to replicate far from their original lab.

The latter instances are controversial. If someone prints on their business card or professional social media (LinkdedIn, for example) as "Joe Q. Scholar, BA, MA, PhD ABD" (a form of credentiarrhea), their motives are suspect. The greater span between their time at school and their continued use of ABD pretty much seals the deal. The article is valid, because it describes an observable thing for which someone may need to look up to understand. kradak (talk) 14:41, 31 January 2020 (UTC)