next »

[history_grrrl]

I think this might be just a vent, but I'm not sure. Here goes:

I'm somehow finding time, while doing new preps and writing conference papers, to work on revising my diss for publication. I've revised the first chapter and am now cleaning up the notes, meaning I'm combining them when they're in the same paragraph, checking my files to see if they're correct, and dumping a ton of excess crap that doesn't need to be in there. I am absolutely astonished at how much extra citing I did while working on the diss; for instance, I'd make some claim and then cite, literally, every piece of information I had that supported (or in many cases, was related to) the claim. Let's say I'd cite eight instances of something when surely three would have sufficed.

It's very satisfying to get rid of this junk and watch the Word file get shorter and the number of notes shrink drastically. But I can't help wondering:

WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?!

I'm fairly compulsive, generally speaking, and I guess that, as a grad student, I must have been particularly concerned about covering my tracks. I also know that, often, it was this sheer volume of evidence that brought me to clarity about a number of things that might not have been so noticeable. And yet. And yet. I can't believe nobody told me, "Hey, you're overdoing it big time, and you're gonna pay for that later."

I guess I'm just wondering if others have been through this mill, and whether anyone has suggestions for dealing with the incredibly time-consuming tedium of this process. (Right now I'm going to take a break, possibly to mop floors, which seems like an enjoyable alternative right now.)

[rodentmind]

Oh, it does burn.

Make sure you save a copy of the original huge thing. You might need some of that later (?).

[the_honey_badger]

Oh, it does burn.

Make sure you save a copy of the original huge thing. You might need some of that later (?).

might? trust me on this...*will* need something later.
(says she who just finished the final copy edit of her book...)

[rodentmind]

Good going, Yankeedan.

[deleteplease]

Do you have a publisher in mind? You definitely need to clean up the chapter you will use for a
proposal, but I wouldn't do the whole work until I had a contract. The reason is that some publishers
(and some national traditons of scholarship) want obsessive detail (I know of one which would probably want ten sources from feach of I've different languages to support the claim that the sun rises in the east) and others prefer very minimal documentation. Even journals vary -- I just finished a long essay for place X, with 150+ footnotes, and am now writing an essay for place Y, where 20-30 notes and a 40 item works cited list is normally at the extreme high end of what is tolerated (I've written for both before). I'm now trying to force myself to do things my editor at X would consider "unsupported generalizations". (this two places are at the extreme ends of my field with respect to style of scholarship -- most presses and journals are in the middle).

It's really important to know your audience and keep them in mind as you write -- and will save you a great deal of time and revision in the end. Even as you revise, it might be worth taking as a model a book from the press with which you would most like to publish.

[wanna_writemore]

I always have gazillions of citations when I write.  I often move sentences or sections around, and lots of footnotes means I don't have to go looking back at the original notes/photocopies to figure out which citation to put in the new version.

[larryc]

God bless my advisor, who ended our first meeting over my dissertation proposal by telling me "Now do not write me a dissertation. Write a book that you yourself would enjoy reading."

(I do like Meden's advice to find a publisher before you get too far!)

[history_grrrl]

Thanks, people. I do have a publisher in mind, and I'll definitely take a look at a couple of their books. I'm doing the cleanup partly because of a recent experience of checking all of the citations for a journal article, which was quite daunting (and also humbling, since I found mistakes!).

Strangely, my committee agreed that I had written a book, not a dissertation -- and I'm not actually revising the text too much. But oh, those notes! But now that I think of it, they were a lot worse before one of my committee members made me get rid of the lengthy discursive spiels. At least that stuff is already gone. Whew.

[rodentmind]

If your diss will be available online, you should take care of that stuff now (prior to publishing on the page).