Albatross Update

I just finished a rewrite of my dissertation introduction (which, of course, explains the boost in postings here through the day! ha), in which I incorporated a number of the suggestions my chair made way back... about a month ago?

They were very good comments, but I needed a few weeks away from the thing to be able to see the big picture properly, and to be able properly to understand what he was getting at. I remember at the time taking copious notes in our discussion, and thinking that only parts of it made much sense at all! I knew HE was making sense, it's just that I was wiped intellectually and couldn't make any at the time.

Tomorrow, I need to write the conclusion after spending some of the evening working through his comments and sorting out some things (and much of the week scouring the literature for fun sorts of things that didn't fit in the substantive chapters but that are still fun). I was pretty good throughout writing the thing (over four years since taking comps) about keeping my thesis in focus as THE BIG PICTURE. But once the substantive chapters are done, it's hard to get out of "focus on the thesis" mode and into -- okay, you've argued your thesis, but what the hell does it mean to your subdiscipline? The discipline of political science more broadly? Life? And how is it distinguished from all those other disciplines? And why should anyone care? Etc. And that's where a good dissertation chair is critical.

So anyway, the conclusion is tomorrow's task. And I don't think it will take all that long. But then, I never do.

[Posted at 00:28 CST on 07/06/02] [Link]