Assessment Description Doctoral learners will undergo a shift in mindset from their past learning and professional experiences as they become independent researchers who can discuss and defend their r

College of Doctoral Studies

RES-815 Overview of Professional Biography:

Transcript of Video

The following is the transcript of the video located at  

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpIqYOoVEqfNwcONox8qaJGMwE2oF2D6D

Welcome to discussion of the module 2 professional biography exercise.

A professional biography presents a formal third person narrative summary of our professional position, acknowledgements, awards, or recognition that we received.

We could also include a summary of academic involvement, our current degree pursuit, and our long-term academic and professional interests.

Some of the reasons a professional bio is an important component of our doctoral work and academic portfolio, include its use for publications submissions, conference presentations, and institutional websites (among other uses).

Broadly, our finished professional biography should be approximately 150 to 200 words in length, expressing specific characteristics of our professional background, degree pursuit, and research goals.

Perhaps the easiest way to begin this exercise is to answer the questions provided in the directions in the form of a questionnaire.

The first question here asks for education background (and for purposes of this document we're going to include only graduate degrees we have earned to date); we're then going to include the summary of our current (or most recent) professional position and include a short summary of our responsibilities and general context within which are professional role is situated. Depending on the depth and breadth of our experience we want to highlight awards and achievements which can include (but not be limited to) community involvement and recognition, committees on which we have served (or are currently serving), governing boards and professional or academic groups or organizations of which we are a part.

We are also going to include our degree program and emphasis along with our intended research topic or prospective research focus. We can also include the prospective research methodology we are considering toward collecting data and completing dissertation.

The last set of questions we want to address includes a statement of our long-term research, and professional goals.

Transitioning this prewriting to a formal full-length professional bio is made easier with more depth of information we include in that initial round of questions we answered earlier.

A general format begins with our full name, followed by our most recent professional experience, including our occupation, professional awards, and any acknowledgments that we have earned to date.

Again, for purposes of this document we're going to focus on the most recent graduate degree that we've attained, a summary of our degree program and emphasis, along with our intended research topic, prospective research focus and perspective research methods were considering towards collecting data and completing our dissertation.

The professional biography exercise is one of the first steps we are taking towards adopting a mindset and disposition of a professional student, and emerging researcher.

This represents a formal conceptualization of where we are presently, and where ultimately we want to go.

Revisit your professional biography, update the information you include herein.

As our doctoral identity continues to take shape, so too will our professional and academic identities continue to grow.