My Dear Friends,
How did you do it? I mean... how were you able to cope with pre-set deadlines and still turn in something that was (more or less) decent? Or you didn't (I mean, what you turned in wasn't great)?
I know that my dissertation won't be perfect, I know that I could have dedicated much more time to perfecting it but for various reasons I have to live, spend time with my sons, husband, family... etc. Life is important too.
How do I finish and accept that it's OK not to have addressed every problem, not to have followed every suggestion from well-meaning readers, not to have written and analyzed all that I wanted to have written and analyzed?
Most importantly, how to convince my committee that it's OK, that they can push me hard and that I've trying to do my best, but that it's also good that I get done? (On time for commencement)
I know that it will all work out in the end... it's just that these last days before "the big day," the "due date" are so terrifying!!!
How does one survive finishing and defending a Ph.D. dissertation? Is that one of the reasons why you quit, Scriv, knowing that in the end it all feels at the same time so relevant and such a waste of time and such a power struggle between us the students and our committee members, "the authorities"?
I'm just trying to breathe... calm down, keep going. I don't feel like pulling four all-nighters in a row, though, before my Friday deadline.
I'm actually surprised at how low my motivation is at this point. I thought that by this week I'd be energized, ready to finish and to work day and night with a vengeance, but that's not how I feel. AT. ALL. I feel sleepy, worried, stressed out, I want to procrastinate, but don't because I know I can't anymore.
I DON'T feel guilty for taking time off to celebrate my son's sixth birthday with family (and DO feel guilty because the dissertation didn't allow me to put up the usual big party for him on his birth-day -- I still want to do it later in the month), for "wasting" several hours last week here buying our bed and other things for the house. Is that a sign that I'm not a good scholar? I don't really care if it is ;-)
So... tell me... how do I deal with the fear that my advisor will be once more totally blinded by "mechanical errors" that he sees in every sentence without paying what I imagine would be exorbitant fees to these online dissertation editors... (I googled them up today, but didn't even want to find out how much it cost...). Am I too proud to not even want to have a perfect stranger dissect my words even though that might mean that my dissertation director would be pleased? I don't even have any money for this... BUT I'd pay someone I know or that is referred to me by someone I know and trust, quite willingly. I really don't want a stranger, faceless person to do this...
My advisor has TOLD me, repeatedly, that I need someone to revise this. HOWEVER, I won't finish writing the last bits until later in the week and how in the world can I have someone revise what I've written the day or night before it's due?
How did you deal with that? Several of you have told me that your own dissertations had the same kinds of problems that my advisor is telling I have -- Did you all finish way ahead of time so you could have someone revise your English? Who did that? I'm NOT on campus. I CANNOT go to the Writing Center and have someone help me.
Well, anyway, any stories about the last week before you turned your "finished" dissertation to your committee and what followed before the defense and after, will be appreciated. I KNOW I am not alone, but I want you to tell me that.
Please?
Thankfully Yours,
Lilian, the desperate-dissertating-mommy-blogger :-)
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9 comments:
Hmmm...I never expected my dissertation to be perfect. I just expected it to be "good enough." I figured that it would be perfect (okay, better) when it was time to publish. In my field-- unlike yours, I bet-- one typically breaks the dissertation into three papers that are published in academic journals. I had already published one of my chapters, so it was set, and I just had good drafts of the other two. I actually finalized them and submitted them for publication several months after defending. Honestly, nobody-- me included-- will ever look at my dissertation again. I know that this is hard when you feel like this is the culmination of so much work and the crowning glory of a long battle. But good enough is good enough. That's what you're aiming for. Of course, I don't know your field, dissertation, or advisors, so I can't really say what "good enough" is. But it's not perfection, that's for sure. Hugs, hon. You can do it!
Ps-- Re-reading your entry, I realize that I'm not very helpful. I suppose that our fields are just too different. No one was dissecting my writing. No one, in fact, was giving me hugely detailed feedback at all. Sorry I can't offer better wisdom. But I am cheering you on!
I knew my dissertation wasn't perfect, but I also knew that it was DONE. As one of my co-chairs once told me:
"There are two types of dissertation: bad dissertations, and those that are never written."
Strive for bad, Lilian. You can worry about the mechanical stuff after the defense. Right now, it's just about the ideas. Get them out there, make sure they're solid, and be passionate about them.
You can do this. You CAN, and you MUST.
what Tracy said. I had a deadline that was absolutely firm because I had a job about to start that required me to be finished (it was a job with my own university, which wouldn't hire their own ABDs, though they would others...). So I just pushed through it. But I'm lucky (I think) to have been in a department that didn't require a defense. And I got my director's signature a month before I was done, because she was in town then and wouldn't be when I was actually ready to file.
Tracy's right: strive for bad. Strive for DONE.
Keep going, Lilian! If you can do this with everything you do, then you help me know I can. I need you to do this, too! ;)
Trust Tracy and Libby-- they've been there and they KNOW! I'll say extra prayers for you if you think that will help-- can't hurt, can it? ;)
Lilian querida, força amiga...não tenho idéia de como isso possa ser feito, até porque estou anos-luz disso, mas sei que vc vai conseguir!!!! E como disse Prisca, vc conseguir vai ser a minha maior motivação daqui há alguns anos quando for minha vez!!!
Orações de apoio é o máximo que posso dar...estão feitas.
beijinho,
Keiko
I had a deadline that I had to keep to (a postdoc position). Still, close to the end I informed my advosor that I'd have to decline it and push my defense back in order to complete my analyses. Luckily for me he helped me see the error of my ways. I ended up deleting a whole chapter/reserch question/analysis from my dissertation.
Oh, I cried and journalled. How can I let go of this idea? It is what makes my dissertation "my own." Blah blah blah.
You know what? More than a year out and now I HONESTLY CANNOT REMEMBER WHAT THE CAHPTER WAS GOING TO BE ABOUT. Not a clue.
So you just have to let go and move on. It sounds inane, but really it is as simple as that.
I do have a couple of specific pieces of advice. First, make sure that your tiredness and lack of motivation is not due to a physical cause. In the middle of my final stretch I discovered that I was dangerously anemic. A couple weeks of iron pills 3 times a day and I started to feel better.
Second, can't your writing center help over the internet/email? Even if they do not advertise this kind of assistance, ask them point-blank. Keep in mind that centers like this must demonstrate that they have a clientel (spl?) that needs them in order to continue to receive funding. You'd actually be doing them a favor by having them help you in creative ways!
Good luck--I KNOW YOU CAN DO IT!!!
I just wrote you a whole long comment and Blogger seems to have eaten it, dammit. Crap.
I basically explained that your guess was not really why I quit my diss and explained more clearly my reasons, which boiled down to: (a) I wasn't going to get a job anyway, in part because my wife refused to relocate, and (b) my wife was so obsessed with her job and so entirely absent, that I was teaching full time, taking care of all the housekeeping, and entirely responsible for taking care of the kids. I realized that if I pushed hard and put my kids into a lot more daycare, then I could probably do it, but I wasn't willing to make those sacrifices, especially given that I would never get a job anyway.
As far as finding an editor goes, I can't do anything at all about editing your dissertation before Friday of this week. However, I'm freelancing these days and always looking for work, so if you would like, I'd be willing to talk to you about helping you to work on those mechanics and whatnot. I have not edited a dissertation before, but I've done lots of editing.
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