To find an Advisor's Students
- Search by advisor in ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, which provides full text of most dissertations submitted since 1997 and many from years previous to 1997.
- See the Graduate School Survival Guide. Reading dissertations, especially their literature reviews and bibliographies, can be helpful.
Researching an Advisor
According to Marie desJardins, author of How to Succeed in Graduate School: A Guide for Students and Advisors, the "ideal advisor will be in the area you're interested in working in, will actively be doing high-quality research, and be involved in and respected by the research community." DesJardins also suggests that students "talk to other graduate students and recent graduates. Ask them how their relationships with their advisors are/were, how quickly the advisor's students graduate, and how successful (well recognized, high quality) their research is." Her full essay appeared in Crossroads (Part I and Part II); access is limited to users on campus network or off-campus through the Virtual Private Network.
To find out whether a potential advisor, such as the author of an article or book, is actively doing quality research and is involved in and respected by the research community:
- Use Web of Science to see how much their work is cited and by whom. Use
to obtain article text or call numbers. - Read articles to find out what research they have published, in which journals, and how other researchers are using it. Use Journal Citation Reports to evaluate a journal's impact in a field.