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ellaminnow
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« Reply #1290 on: March 13, 2010, 09:32:09 AM » |
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It's wonderful when you can provide feedback on a colleague's work while simultaneously receiving insight from it. I am fortunate to have two very bright colleagues in slightly related departments with whom I share ideas. We will occasionally meet for lunch and commiserate on discuss our work. Every now and then we'll critique each other's writing/presentations and it is soooo beneficial. I can't get this kind of candid and supportive feedback from my committee.
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Some people wear their heart up on their sleeve. I wear mine underneath my right pant leg, strapped to my boot.
~Ani DiFranco
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pisces
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« Reply #1291 on: March 13, 2010, 03:47:22 PM » |
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ms_pnw, I think we are on the same schedule.
"Progress" for everyone!
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ms_pnw
Junior member
Posts: 52
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« Reply #1292 on: March 15, 2010, 11:09:58 AM » |
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3 final chapters sent in, lots of work done. my home life feels a bit tense but i know that when i get this monster out the door, things will get better. I need to attack my big problem section but don't have the will today, so I'll work on a few needling but not significant issues. oh.. to be dr. even unemployed dr. beats unemployed abd.
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marigolds
looks far too young to be a
Distinguished Senior Member
Posts: 7,355
i had fun once and it was awful
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« Reply #1293 on: March 15, 2010, 11:50:12 AM » |
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Ugh. How do you move from the thinking/researching/writing s*** stuff for your own benefit to actually writing something somebody else would want to could read? Yuck. I have 38K words in my diss project, and they're all TOTAL CRAP.
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"You and your mom are hillbillies. This is a house of learned doctors."
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reesespeanutbutter
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« Reply #1294 on: March 15, 2010, 05:47:09 PM » |
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Ugh. How do you move from the thinking/researching/writing s*** stuff for your own benefit to actually writing something somebody else would want to could read? Yuck. I have 38K words in my diss project, and they're all TOTAL CRAP.
I'm quite certain this is not true, but I do very much understand this feeling!!! Hope it gets better! oh.. to be dr. even unemployed dr. beats unemployed abd.
Agreed! |
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The only reason people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory.
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ms_pnw
Junior member
Posts: 52
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« Reply #1295 on: March 16, 2010, 09:29:08 AM » |
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sheesh, i just reread two chapters that i thought needed only some formatting help and now i think they are both awful. two comm. members have read them and given only minor suggestions but I can't help but worry that comm. member #3 and the outside reviewer will think they are crap. i'm going to set them and those worries aside for the rest of the morning and work on chapters that i know have problems but i'm totally stuck in that thought pattern of being a total fraud. this is no fun.
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synecdoche
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« Reply #1296 on: March 16, 2010, 09:40:31 AM » |
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ms_pnw, I know the feeling all too well. "Impostor syndrome" can be brutal. My advisor and second reader like my work but occasionally I catch myself thinking that they're just pushing me through to get me out of their hair and that they'll let the job market sort me out, or else blame my spectacular failure on the external examiner who will, inevitably, hate my work. These are totally unrealistic worries, as I'm sure you know. If you're like me, and it sounds like you are, you're holding yourself to an unrealistic standard. I'm always comparing my work to the books on my topic that I read, most of which are produced by really, really good scholars who have many more years of experience than I do and have a great deal more feedback on their work before it ever sees print. You and I will both get there, too, but the dissertation is just an apprentice work. It's never going to be perfect. It just needs to be good enough. Keeping that mantra in my head helps a lot, sometimes.
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stanwyck
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« Reply #1297 on: March 16, 2010, 12:52:24 PM » |
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Last week, I had to spend several days locked in a room discussing my dissertation with 20+ Ph.D. candidates, all from disciplines other than my own. I spent a good part of a week feeling frustrated, but two days after I returned home, I realized that some of the feedback exactly solved the problem I was having with my third chapter. I'm not sure someone in my own discipline would have latched onto the piece that turned things around, so my bit of helpful advice for the day is this: if you're going to form a dissertation writing/support group, make sure it has someone from outside your discipline, even if it doesn't seem immediately useful. You'd be surprised what those anthropologists can come up with.
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marigolds
looks far too young to be a
Distinguished Senior Member
Posts: 7,355
i had fun once and it was awful
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« Reply #1298 on: March 16, 2010, 06:18:31 PM » |
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Last week, I had to spend several days locked in a room discussing my dissertation with 20+ Ph.D. candidates, all from disciplines other than my own. I spent a good part of a week feeling frustrated, but two days after I returned home, I realized that some of the feedback exactly solved the problem I was having with my third chapter. I'm not sure someone in my own discipline would have latched onto the piece that turned things around, so my bit of helpful advice for the day is this: if you're going to form a dissertation writing/support group, make sure it has someone from outside your discipline, even if it doesn't seem immediately useful. You'd be surprised what those anthropologists can come up with.
This actually sounds awesome. But why did you have to spend several days locked in a room discussing your discipline with 20 other PhDs from other disciplines? |
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"You and your mom are hillbillies. This is a house of learned doctors."
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stanwyck
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« Reply #1299 on: March 16, 2010, 08:14:57 PM » |
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Last week, I had to spend several days locked in a room discussing my dissertation with 20+ Ph.D. candidates, all from disciplines other than my own. I spent a good part of a week feeling frustrated, but two days after I returned home, I realized that some of the feedback exactly solved the problem I was having with my third chapter. I'm not sure someone in my own discipline would have latched onto the piece that turned things around, so my bit of helpful advice for the day is this: if you're going to form a dissertation writing/support group, make sure it has someone from outside your discipline, even if it doesn't seem immediately useful. You'd be surprised what those anthropologists can come up with.
This actually sounds awesome. But why did you have to spend several days locked in a room discussing your discipline with 20 other PhDs from other disciplines? It was a mandatory follow-up workshop attached to a dissertation research fellowship. |
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minorleaguer
Senior member
Posts: 351
Only .5 posts per day?!?!
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« Reply #1300 on: March 17, 2010, 07:57:35 AM » |
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I've always been told that the danger of writing book reviews, presenting at conferences, and working on other side projects is that they would slow down my progress on the dissertation. It was not until the last two months that this actually held true for me. But oh boy, I'm in the midst of about a 3-4 stretch where my pace on the dissertation has slowed way down because of work on side projects intended to fill out my CV. I really hope this pays off.
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How long until 1,000?
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ellaminnow
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« Reply #1301 on: March 18, 2010, 11:32:14 AM » |
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Is anyone on this thread writing a dissertation using narrative inquiry? It would be great to hear about your experiences using this methodology in a dissertation. I'm curious if others have had difficulties getting their committee to see the value of narrative in research. My committee is expecting the standard five chapter dissertation (with a straightforward review of the literature) but they support the idea of using this approach. They're response to my proposal was, something along the lines of "Okay, give it a shot, kid - but no hanky panky, now." FWIW - all of my committee members except one use some form of qualitative research or another, so it wasn't too much of a stretch to sell narrative inquiry to them.
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Some people wear their heart up on their sleeve. I wear mine underneath my right pant leg, strapped to my boot.
~Ani DiFranco
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ms_pnw
Junior member
Posts: 52
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« Reply #1302 on: March 18, 2010, 11:43:26 AM » |
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got feedback today that one section is awkward, another reader called it unreadable, another called it well-put.
sheesh.
yup, I'm using some narrative analysis. quite a bit actually. my committee wasn't too wary, well actually my advisor gets a bit skittish at times. she'll say she loves it, but isn't sure if it'll "hold up." I ended up writing a long methods section that borders on defensive, but at least it preempts some criticism. I've had no pressure to do 5 chapters though, that'd be hard. I basically have the traditional first three chapters: intro, lit review, methods. Then 6 narrative chapters of various lengths.
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pisces
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« Reply #1303 on: March 21, 2010, 09:29:29 AM » |
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How is everyone's writing coming? I've got a big week ahead of me where I need to make a lot of progress.
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disambiguate
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« Reply #1304 on: March 21, 2010, 08:59:15 PM » |
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I turned in a complete draft this week. Yay... I suppose.
I finished my first draft last summer and 3/4 of my committee was ready to send it to defense. This is my third full draft since then, ignoring the many tweaks and minor revisions between complete drafts.
That one holdout member (chair no less) has made some very useful comments that have improved the document, but it's way past time to be done with this thing now.
A year ago I decided to write the dissertation my committee wanted rather than the one I wanted. That was a huge step in being able to actually get the thing done, but I'd like to get back to my own agenda.
Anyhow, keep up the writing folks!
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