random dissertation thoughts
- The whole thing is with my committee now!!!
- It really does help to keep telling myself that I don’t need to write the best dissertation ever, I just need to write a dissertation that is defendable. Every once in a while I have a twinge, thinking, “This should be more profound.” Part of that feeling is Will Banks’ fault. I read his dissertation over the summer and his is full of profound thoughts. But I’m doing pretty well reminding myself that any defendable dissertation = a Ph.D.
- Coming up with a title and chapter titles and subtitles is difficult. Lots of dissertations use pretty bland chapter titles (“Review of Literature,” “Conclusions”) and I’ll probably end up going that route. But other dissertations have very interesting titles and subtitles. All of the titles and subtitles I can think of are ridiculous, like “Fear and Loathing in the Literature” for my lit review and “The Midterm Debacle” for the title of the whole thing.
- There’s a chance that even if I defend this semester, a problem with my graduation paperwork may cause me to not officially graduate until spring. I just realized this weekend the check I wrote at the beginning of the semester for the “graduation fee” was never cashed. Not a good sign.
I like the Midterm Debacle. Perhaps you can add to it something like a
cycle of revision (The Midterm Debacle: A Cycle of Revision). Or else put
something with dissonance in the title.
i'm convinced that the profundity of my projects gets lost somewhere in the
transfer between brain and keyboard. However, in actuallity, i don't think
that's nec the case. Not saying that each thought of mine is as deep as
Jack Handy's, but i think the longer the amount of time you spend with a
project, and the more familiar you get with your and related ideas, the
less "profound" the ideas seem to you, the author. I don't know. I've
spent a lot of time thinking about this point of view, and it seems really
profound... j/k
Liz, this is *sooooo* great, having it all with the committee! Now there
might be a few revisions, but the hard part is over. Yea!
Amy, ooh, I like "The Midterm Debacle: A Cycle of Revision" or something
like that.
Yea! I can't wait to cross this threshold. I'm at the point where I've
assembled my committee to converse about how boring the dissertation is and
how I can fix it. They're pushing me to write cutting-edge literary
theory... I'm more into straight-up analysis and reader-response. I am
infamous for my creative titles, so feel free to share ideas.
Well, I'm incredibly honored that you read my dissertation, Liz, but it's
not that profound ... I'm blushing! And yes, the only good dissertation is
a <em>done</em> dissertation!
blogarama
