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[abdme]

Except for ONE person?

And what's funny is that said person agrees with my argument, likes my approach, yada yada... what said person is complaining about is my writing style.  Everyone else on the committee has signed off on the document now prior to the defense, but one member of my committee wants syntax changes (I just don't know what they are just yet -- I've yet to see any revisions from this person).  I'm ok with doing this, mind you, but I also need to know what kind of changes said person wants.

I don't know what to do with this event; I've contacted my chair to seek out her advice, I've spoken with the party in question to see if I can't get a chapter worth of this person's revisions so I can see what this person would like to have done etc.  I defend soon (really soon :)), any advice on what to do here?

Ah, the dance of the Diss Defense...

--ABD

PS -- It's not an issue of pass or fail either -- again, said person is cool with my argument and my research... it's just a style thing... for one person (which is dandy, but, I want to make sure that I'm not in some kind of revision limbo post-defense forever!).

[crazybatlady]

Just a question to help clarify: has this reader signed the documents and agreed to a defense date?

Usually, when readers agree to a defense date, they are agreeing that the diss can be submitted to the graduate school before the deadline (some three weeks before graduation at my U)--which means you can't be expected to do major revisions and still defend this term. Has this reader agreed to your defense date?

cbl

[aristotelian]

If you think the comments are legitimate, then you might consider doing some serious revision, or at least making it clear during your defense that you would do so before submitting the final product.

However, if you think the comments are off base, you might think about replacing this person.  Writing style is pretty hard to change, and you want someone on your committee who is going to be able to write killer letters for you in the future.  You might not want someone who has misgivings about something so fundamental.

I ended up booting a guy on my committee about a month before I was going to defend.  He wanted me to rewrite an entire chapter that had been approved by the rest of the committee.  I went with someone else, who turned out to be a great source of both encouragement and critical feedback.

I would talk to your advisor about your concerns.