State of the Dissertation
Objective: To complete the dissertation tomorrow so as to have it printed on Wednesday in preparation for the Thursday submission date.
Currently: 18,879 words. I will meet with my supervisor tomorrow to have one last glance at my conclusion and am in the process of adding a few more paragraphs to my introduction, so I'm perilously close to the word limit (20,000). This limit is enforced by docking marks for students who go over, although it is of course common for students to lie about the word count provided they're within about one or two thousand words; any more than that and the examiners start to notice.
My supervisor, it must be said, has been fantastic. He has always been happy, indeed eager, to read my work and has commented promptly (impressive considering the odd hours at which I have tended to send him drafts) and charitably... Maybe a bit too much so. His points have always been mostly about typographic errors, with some hints at further bibliography and the occasional request for clarification. Compare this, then, to the experience of some of my coursemates who have received drafts back so covered in red ink that they could barely read what it was they had written, with comments taking exception with everything from argument to word choice. I've had none of that, and I'm beginning to feel a bit nervous about it. Either my first drafts were indeed fantastic, which I seriously doubt, or perhaps he thinks this is just as good as it's going to get. If the external examiner savages it, I think I'll have my answer. On the other hand, if my supervisor hadn't been so gentle with me all along I probably would have had a nervous breakdown two months ago, so inasmuch as I've managed to finish the thing at all it's for the best.
Aside from any minor repairs or expansion that result from tomorrow's meeting, most of what I need to do now is fiddle with the formatting. I need to check all my footnotes and bibliography, do a final word count, then add an abstract of no more than 200 words and supply English translations for all of my quotations (neither the abstract nor the English translations count toward the word limit). Once I have that done I'll add the title page and table of contents, proofread it one last time, get it professionally printed and send it out into the world (i.e., give it to the CMS who will get it bound and send it to the examiners).
Many of my coursemates are panicking, even those who were mostly done long before I was; I'm actually feeling quite serene, mainly because I just want to be finished so badly that I don't even care how good it is. It can be said now, the hardest part is not the research -- that bit's actually fun, most of the time. But writing it up has been a completely miserable experience, perhaps more so for me than for others in my group because so much of mine has been fishing through Latin quotations from deposition documents that, after staring at them for a few hours, all looked the same. Our close personal bonds within the group have been both a source of relief, in that we've maintained active and fulfilling social lives, and a source of impediments. Distraction is the obvious problem, but we also reacted very strongly to how everyone else was feeling about the dissertation process; one person having a tough time could easily bring the rest of us down. The last few weeks have been especially difficult because our friends in the archaeology department submitted their dissertations much earlier in the month and have been free to have fun. Some of the overseas students have already gone home, leading to further distraction.
Happily, a good number of people will still be around following the official end of the course and ejection from university accommodation on Saturday; several friends living in town this next year will be opening their homes as medieval refugee camps until everyone has either gone home or gotten settled in their new lives. I was offered a hammock in the bikeshed at a friend's place, which sounded like a great idea until yesterday, when it suddenly got cold, so instead I'll be staying with a friend whose housemate is out of the country for a time.
Currently: 18,879 words. I will meet with my supervisor tomorrow to have one last glance at my conclusion and am in the process of adding a few more paragraphs to my introduction, so I'm perilously close to the word limit (20,000). This limit is enforced by docking marks for students who go over, although it is of course common for students to lie about the word count provided they're within about one or two thousand words; any more than that and the examiners start to notice.
My supervisor, it must be said, has been fantastic. He has always been happy, indeed eager, to read my work and has commented promptly (impressive considering the odd hours at which I have tended to send him drafts) and charitably... Maybe a bit too much so. His points have always been mostly about typographic errors, with some hints at further bibliography and the occasional request for clarification. Compare this, then, to the experience of some of my coursemates who have received drafts back so covered in red ink that they could barely read what it was they had written, with comments taking exception with everything from argument to word choice. I've had none of that, and I'm beginning to feel a bit nervous about it. Either my first drafts were indeed fantastic, which I seriously doubt, or perhaps he thinks this is just as good as it's going to get. If the external examiner savages it, I think I'll have my answer. On the other hand, if my supervisor hadn't been so gentle with me all along I probably would have had a nervous breakdown two months ago, so inasmuch as I've managed to finish the thing at all it's for the best.
Aside from any minor repairs or expansion that result from tomorrow's meeting, most of what I need to do now is fiddle with the formatting. I need to check all my footnotes and bibliography, do a final word count, then add an abstract of no more than 200 words and supply English translations for all of my quotations (neither the abstract nor the English translations count toward the word limit). Once I have that done I'll add the title page and table of contents, proofread it one last time, get it professionally printed and send it out into the world (i.e., give it to the CMS who will get it bound and send it to the examiners).
Many of my coursemates are panicking, even those who were mostly done long before I was; I'm actually feeling quite serene, mainly because I just want to be finished so badly that I don't even care how good it is. It can be said now, the hardest part is not the research -- that bit's actually fun, most of the time. But writing it up has been a completely miserable experience, perhaps more so for me than for others in my group because so much of mine has been fishing through Latin quotations from deposition documents that, after staring at them for a few hours, all looked the same. Our close personal bonds within the group have been both a source of relief, in that we've maintained active and fulfilling social lives, and a source of impediments. Distraction is the obvious problem, but we also reacted very strongly to how everyone else was feeling about the dissertation process; one person having a tough time could easily bring the rest of us down. The last few weeks have been especially difficult because our friends in the archaeology department submitted their dissertations much earlier in the month and have been free to have fun. Some of the overseas students have already gone home, leading to further distraction.
Happily, a good number of people will still be around following the official end of the course and ejection from university accommodation on Saturday; several friends living in town this next year will be opening their homes as medieval refugee camps until everyone has either gone home or gotten settled in their new lives. I was offered a hammock in the bikeshed at a friend's place, which sounded like a great idea until yesterday, when it suddenly got cold, so instead I'll be staying with a friend whose housemate is out of the country for a time.
posted by Ehren at
5:16 PM
1 Comments:
I recommend printing out an extra copy of your dissertation and then burning it. It's surprising how much better such a thing can make one feel.
I felt the same way at the end of mine- that serene hatred and apathy... unfortunately it has now been replaced with anxiety.
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Unknown, at 10:48 PM
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