The PhD Seminar is an important and integral aspect of the preparation of PhD students in the Graduate Department of Nursing Science. The seminar provides a forum for PhD students to plan and discuss their progress through the literature review paper and dissertation development, to act as a venue for problem-solving and solution-sharing, and provide an opportunity for scholarly critique about one's own and peers' developing plans. Students become part of a community of scholars within the Faculty of Nursing. Students also have opportunities to practice and improve their presentation and seminar participation skills.

In this course, each student will begin development of the dissertation proposal with a particular focus on selecting an approach to the literature review, searching electronic databases, summarizing and critiquing literature, and beginning to write the literature review (for the required literature review paper and the dissertation). Students will articulate the research problem, rationale for the literature review, identify the research question(s), and begin articulating the rationale for the dissertation. Topics for discussion include philosophical, theoretical, substantive, ethical, and methodological issues in synthesizing and generating knowledge/evidence through the thesis work. Across both sessions, strategies for success in graduate school as an academic researcher will be shared and discussed. Each student will create a conference abstract describing their plans and progress on the literature review as well as a professional development plan.