Categories: phd
Tags: procrastination, thesis, writing
Date: 04 October 2009 16:42:33
A few months ago, quite late in the day, I decided to add another mini-chapter to my thesis. Material (secondary data) which I'd originally intended to be background ended up being so interesting in its own right, and was influencing how I was analysing my interview and observation data, that my supervisors agreed with me that including it in its own chapter was a good idea. It is provisionally named chapter 2½ as I'd already got quite an extensive chapter plan and changing the numbers of the other chapters initially was going to be a bit of a pain, and I am probably going to sandwich it in between chapters 2 and 3. (I will remember to change the numbers at the end, but I'll wait till I have a full draft first as then I will be going through the whole damn thing).
The thing is this. The material's really interesting. I love writing. But for some reason at the moment it's just not happening. I have written more in this blog entry than I have on the chapter today, though I have been doing a ton of thinking on it, for which I will be very grateful when I finally get down to putting pen to paper (or should that be finger to keyboard? Actually I'll probably be doing both).
One good thing though. A friend of mine who already has her PhD included a similar-ish chapter in her thesis, which I have just read. She is someone I've always looked up to as really *up there* and slightly scary (as opposed to little me *down here* academically), and her work is really interesting. But reading the chapter, I felt like I just know I can write to at least that standard, that I'm not actually so far away after all. So that is a boost to my confidence anyway which is very welcome! (well, maybe it's a boost to my ego, but whatever, I'm not complaining).
But I've still got to write the thing. There's a very attractive-looking pile of ironing over there though .....