Too Much of an (at least in principle) Good Thing

I'm a little sick to my stomach right now. Not from anything I ate, mind you, but from way too much of something someone is sorely lacking right now. I almost feel guilty by writing this because of her, but it's my experience, what can I do.

I feel "sick" because just like eating too much sweet and/or fatty yummy things, too much of a good thing is generally not good for you, right?

Right now I'm suffering from an acute case of excess-feedback poisoning. And all I can tell you is that it's more than nauseating, it's just... oh well, I don't really have words to express this.

I knew it would come to this, having the committee members that I have and thankfully, I've developed a much thicker skin in a way I never thought was possible when I wrote posts like these.

I have "written my wrongs" before, I know my weaknesses, but today it's all come down to this, again,

I just don't write well [in academese], I have a hard time even having my own ideas and not relying on other people's, but I'm a good researcher and I've accomplished a whole lot.

And I have two weeks to figure out how to please these folks (diss. due to committee on March 14). They'll pass me anyway, I know, but I do want this dissertation to read well and not be just "good research materials and results" with a really crappy presentation.

Thankfully, my confidence is NOT undermined by the excess of feedback, by the constructive, if hard to swallow criticism right now, which by itself is already reason to celebrate, but feeling OK about it doesn't mean I'll be able to use it in my favor, that I'll be able to implement so many suggestions, criticisms, admonitions, corrections, etc.

Well, let me just tell you straightforwardly what's going on. After I didn't hear back from Dr. Mentor (my former advisor) for several days I decided to approach Dr. Contrarian and seek her feedback on the chapter that I'm about to submit to the committee. She's been annotating my drafts electronically and sending them back to me so I can work on them right away.

She does give me way too much feedback, though. And not the kind of feedback that Dr. Published (my advisor) gives -- Dr. Mentor is so sweet he's been humorously talking to me about how we can revise my chapters so they can pass the scrutiny of the "mechanical errors police" :) -- her feedback is thoughtful dialog with almost every idea, telling me what the problem with my writing and my argument is, etc. The biggest problem in her opinion is my use of the works of others. And I've heard that from all of them... in different ways, but it's my weakest point. I cite other people's works too much... Dr. Contrarian got to the crux of the question today when she said (of things I wrote between Thursday and Friday -- oh, I worked 32 hours last week!!! and produced about 10 pages only) that I'm trying to place pieces of a puzzle together.... And it's true, since those parts she had the most problems with are "first draft" sections, full of citations and trying to make sense of what various sources are saying about the subject I am addressing. Yeah. I knew all along that I shouldn't have left anything to write at the very end of this journey since first drafts need tons of rewriting to become smoother... But that's how it is, particularly with "professional procrastinators" like me...

OK, gotta go to bed now. And tomorrow morning I have to come here and start figuring out what to do with all the excess feedback that I have right now. I can't just toss, it, can I? I can't address all of it either, so I'll have to find a balance between the two. That won't be easy, to say the least. Wish me luck... positive thoughts, prayers, etc. appreciated.