Constant Dissertation Reorganization

Although it is not always reflected in the writing here, I am a ridiculously organized and economic writer.  When I am writing semi-formally, I value extremely tight organization and highly economic use of words.  In my view, the best writing conveys a point as efficiently as possible through the interaction of a judicious choice of words and meticulous organization.  In spending a week away from work to bang on the dissertation, I've yet actually to finish the chapter I took off to finish.  In fact, I've yet to write any on it.  Instead, I've done quite a bit of research, and tonight I just finished reorganizing the chapter.  I'll likely spend Sunday banging out the 5-10 pages that will complete the chapter.  And the whole thing will be quite strong thanks to the time spent on conceptual reorganization.

The reorganization just came to me tonight, and it solves a problem with which I've been struggling all along in my dissertation, which is that it's just too damn broad and tries to do too many things.  Quite narrowly, the dissertation examines constitutional jurisprudence in the area of police powers.  I demonstrate a long, stable history of police powers jurisprudence (rejecting the conception of "substantive due process" and Oliver Wendell Holmes' famous dissent along the way -- no small feat actually) and then show a sharp break with that tradition in the middle of the 20th century.  Thus, police powers jurisprudence is my dependent variable, if you will.  

Any research project should be structured to demonstrate what causes a change in the dependent variable (i.e. should examine the independent variable(s)).  I contend the independent variable in this case -- what drove the revolutionary change in constitutional interpretation -- was the influence of Progressive legal theorists writing in law journals some 20-30 years before those changes showed up in law.  It's fairly easy to demonstrate.  But what I've struggled with is the link between the Progressive legal theorists and the broader Progressive intellectual movement.  In effect, what I've struggled with is having a dissertation within my dissertation that investigates my Independent Variable (Progressive legal activism and writing) as a Dependent Variable (i.e. the "cause" of the Progressive Legal Activism was the broader intellectual movement known as Progressivism, which has been ill-defined in the literature because few thinkers have approached the problem philosophically).  I've decided not to attempt to write a "dissertation within a dissertation" (which would have been the chapter I'm now going to finish this weekend), but instead to use the literature in a way as to suggest this as an area of future research and not try to make the argument myself (only to illustrate it in a rudimentary way).  Thus, the new organization goes something like:

1) Literature Review
2) Traditional Police Powers Jurisprudence
3) Who Were the Progressives?
4) Progressive Legal Theory and the Decline of Traditional Police Powers Jurisprudence
5) Conclusion

The title of Chapter 3 changes from "Progressive Historicism and the Attack on the Constitution" (which reflected the prior orientation of the chapter, and forced me to DEMONSTRATE rather than suggest the key elements of Progressive political philosophy).

This may all seem like pretty minor stuff, but it's like a very troubling, great weight has just been lifted tonight.  I've struggled with this problem for a long damn time.  This weekend, it will finally be solved.

<<<<   MAIN   >>>>