Selfie Check! Don't Submit Without It

by JoAnn Foley Markette, Ed.D.

Embarrassingly, I actually went to a job interview wearing two different shoes! How did it happen?

Rushing around to get dressed and nervous for one of my very first big-girl job interviews as a recent college graduate, I grabbed what I thought was my pair of reliable, dark blue pumps. Instead, I inadvertently snatched the right shoe from the intended pair and the left shoe from a black pair in the wrong place in my closet.

Because my adrenaline was running faster than my brain, not only did not I see the difference, I also did not feel the difference. They were almost the same... but not quite.

Fortunately, either my prospective employer didn't notice, or she simply wanted to spare me the humiliation by pointing out my error. It wasn't until I returned home that I realized my gaff, and boy oh boy, am I grateful I didn't look down at my feet right before walking into the interview office! That would have made an already stressful situation worse. Needless to say, I did not get that job, but I learned important lessons: slow down, prepare, and double-check myself.

Let me get a disclaimer out of the way right now: I'm still a work-in-process when it comes to double-checking and have even recently hung my head in silent shame when I noticed a misspelling or missing word in an already-sent email or text. Ugh, the pain! However, improvement starts with awareness.

Sometimes, doctoral students get to that wonderful place of being "done" with their prospectus, proposal, or any one of the important milestones of the dissertation process but are not aware how to check their document for errors before submitting. While I will never know if my shoe oversight cost me that job, I do know that overlooking easy grammatical or formatting fixes may cost doctoral students time, which almost always means money.

Know that even if you don't see any errors or feel that any are in your document, it never hurts to double-check. Don't make my mistake!

The video below demonstrates exactly how to

• Clear Track Changes

• Fix the Navigation Bar - Missing or Wrong Headings

• Update the Table of Contents

• Add a Wet Signature (if this is for you, CONGRATULATIONS, because you are almost done!)

After checking out the pointers here, go ahead and put your best foot forward!

APA citation:

Markette, N. & Markette., J. [Dr. Markette] (2022, January 26). How to FIX it BEFORE you SUBMIT it || Microsoft Hacks 2022 Hacks for Doctoral Dissertations. [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/TA8EQNeCUMY

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