uestion for all of you…… How are you structuring your dissertation prospectus? In my first go around I was structuring the prospectus by chapter. Each chapter had its own overview, lit review section, information on data and data collection, etc. There was also an intro and a final section on the significance of the project.
This time around with the newly improved and more tightly focused version of the project (yes, I really did completely scrap several months worth of work) that structure does not seem to fit.
Right now I have an “Introduction” to the project which sets up the research question or, rather, it provides the reader with the information needed to understand why I am asking the question.
From other examples and what certain books tells me the “Literature Review” should come next, but that just does not feel right. I think I need to talk about the theoretical concepts first and governing grammar of the project (once I completely decide what that will be). So, perhaps for me the “Theories and Methods” section will come second and the “Chapter Outlines” third.
Will it be odd to end with the “Literature Review”???? And if it is odd, do I care??? I am in a interdisciplinary department in which I get to do my very own highly specialized work, so can’t my prospectus be very unique???
Oh, it just feels so good. Five pages of the prospectus – DONE!
oday I am attempting to make some serious progress on my dissertation prospectus. The goal is to submit a draft by Friday. Parts of it are in order and other parts I just fear aren’t going to come together well.
Part V, the selected bibliography is compiled thanks to my trusty friend RefWorks. And I must say that it is HUGE.
Part I, the introduction/overview of the project is nearly complete. There are a couple of bumpy spots, but overall it is working out. Right now I am taking a break (and writing this entry) before I turn to some of the more challenging bits of the overview – here is where I really need to clearly describe how I conceptualize this work.
Part II, the literature review, and Part III, the methodological and theoretical perspectives- these parts are going to suck to write. Part IV – the chapter outlines and summaries – should be comparatively easy.
The first draft of the first proposal all those many months ago seemed so much easier to write. Then again it was way more messy and wrong.
nder ordinary circumstances I would be enjoying this holiday weekend a bit more, but I have a big deadline fast approaching and some serious conceptual blocks to work through sans advisor. But there is something about the fall and Thanksgiving makes me all nostalgic for the West Wing. I don’t know what it is, but there is something so very American about the West Wing that makes it feel Thanksgiving weekend appropriate. This afternoon I am watching episodes from season 4 while cleaning-up. I am about to watch my favorite episodes before getting to work.
o, it is Black Friday. This means many of you are either out shopping or assiduously avoiding shopping. Either way I am reminded that it is the start of the holiday season. I guess at some point I shall have to come up with my list of gifts for dissertation writers. Happy shopping, or sleeping, or eating left-overs, or writing!!!
ove, happiness, and health to all on this Thanksgiving.
Eat today! Write tomorrow!
ust when I thought I was going to keel over and die from all this work… sometimes talking it out makes it all better, and sometimes distraction helps, too. I love my advisor. He really is a fantastic guy. We have the type of advisor/advisee relationship that really works much of the time. We work on a very similar plane such that he is able to answer my questions before I’ve even said two words, and I am able to transition to the next thing just before he even feints in that direction. It is pretty cool.
I also totally love the fact that he appreciates aesthetics as much as I do. We ended up spending too much of our meeting time today discussing fonts, font sites, and stationary. He is not the only person in my life who shares my appreciation for such things, so it makes me wonder what it is about fonts, papers, pens, inks, markers, and other such reading and writing toys that holds an attraction for so many of the people in my life.
This love of aesthetics and presentation is also a major hang-up too. Do you know how long it takes me to figure out what font I want to use for a CV or an outline? How long I linger over the organization of a paper? And don’t even get me started on citations!!
Personalized license plate: PHDIVA
Sweet!
few months ago I began contemplating what I wanted to do next summer. I need to work on the dissertation – hopefully at that point I will be working on chapter 3 – and rumor has it there won’t be funds for teaching in the summer, so I don’t see much of a reason to be in CBus.
So long as I have my materials and library privileges I can work most anywhere. My advisor is wonderful, and I anticipate that he will be fine conducting our bi-monthly meetings via video chat. Ahh technology! When I took my exams one of my examiners grilled me over video chat as the rest of us huddled around the screen.
I just want to be able to work in a place where I know I can productive, where I have a history of awesome productivity. It is a place that forces me to work hard and to play hard. I wish I could live that life and be that version of me year round. But at least for one more summer it looks like I may get to fully embrace that me and rock the dissertation. So long as everything works out I will get to go home – not the place where I was born or grew-up, but to my real home.
apologize for the radio silence for the past few days. Between being ill, the internet going out at home, and several days of craziness – the notation on my “to do” list to write the blog managed to get overlooked or just buried in the list of a million things to do. Life has seriously gotten ramped up at chez dissertation and it has been causing much fretting and craziness and it is taking its toll.
As things stand with the dissertation, I am completely redrafting the dissertation proposal. While this makes me feel like I’ve just blown the last three months, it is for the better. I think back to a paper situation in which something similar happened, and in the end that turned out to be a damn fine paper, but man did it suck while it was going on.
My advisor is about to drop the hammer on Wednesday: get the proposal finished by the end of the term (yes, that will be a week and a half away); begin working on my job documents; draft a chapter per quarter for the next three quarters; research post-docs, positions, and fellowships for next year. That is only the stuff he is assigning.
Me, well, my own list… that is a bit longer:
- I need to finish and submit the article I am working on right now.
- This past weekend I went nuts and submitted almost all of the projects that have been lingering on my desktop. Actually, I have two more that I intend to send out – one today and one in the coming weeks. Right now I am just taking the scatter-shot approach: toss out five or six papers and see which one will get picked up by some journal. I figured I should just do this before the diss takes over every waking moment of my life.
- I am waiting on comments from my reviewers as I need to revise an article that is due to come out in February.
- There is a whole dossier I need to assemble at some point for a submission.
- Revise a paper for a conference in January
- Write my syllabus for Winter Quarter
- And there seems to be one other thing I am forgetting….
Right now all of this just makes me want to cry or throw-up. Plus, somewhere in here I would like to see the man-friend, but he too has a list equally as long of publications he needs to get out by the fall.