Get my PhD.

I got about half a page written. I continue to feel like this chapter doesn’t have to be so long or involved, but that I can condense it to provide sufficient historical context and to point the reader toward more in-depth sources, but doesn’t fill up 100 pages. I would like this section to be less than 10 pages of the lit review. I need to read some more dissertations. I’m checking out some today and this weekend from the library to review. I hope to get a better intellectual handle on what I know intuitively to be a good idea.

to try to get the most current materials in the area I’m studying. I found most of the ones I have already, and a few new ones. I only got the citations. Today during lunch I’ll try to get the articles online, and any I can’t find online, I’ll have to go to the library this weekend to get, probably on Friday.

Today I’ll print the lit review/historical context so I can see what it looks like on paper.

that have both been driving me nuts – lit review and historical context. I read some dissertations that had historical contexts in them, and they put part in the introduction, and the rest in the lit review. I can do that. I am doing that. I actually got past a hurdle and started working on the 20th century, which should be fairly short if I focus only on the major aspects. I decided I HAVE to work on it during my lunch hour to keep the momentum going, and to get some work done!

I’ve postponed progress on this thang for about a week. But I’m picking it up today. I’m printing a chapter, hole-punching it, and will put it in the notebook. I found another dissertation to use as a model for the lit review and historical context, and will be reviewing it today.

I’m trying to do something every day, like yesterday I printed off 2 chapters and the TOC, hole-punched and stapled, and put them into a binder. I want a hard copy JUST IN CASE something happens, like War of the Worlds wipes out all electronics. Today I’ll print my 178-page chapter (ack!) to hole-punch and put into the binder. Next Monday I’ll do another chapter, and so on until everything is printed and in the binder.

This weekend, the focus is the historical context. My goal is to get the 20th century done, and the dang thang emailed to my chair on Monday.

Conclusions and Recommendations chapter rough draft was emailed yesterday. Halelujah! I know that word is mispelled. Anyway, 2 more chapters to go: historical context and lit review. Both are at least half completed, so I’ve got to keep plugging along. I want to get the historical context chapter to my chair by Monday, 9-8-08. It’s a big goal with a number of action steps to make it happen, but it will happen. This I trust.

Whatever course work you do, have it apply to the dissertation. So if you have to write a paper, have it apply to what your topic will be. Of course, you need a topic first, but if you have even an idea of what it will be, focus on it.

Try to do lit review work in classes that will apply to your dissertation, which means all the older stuff that has been published you can start doing the lit review of it now.

Also, I am sure you know to collect all kinds of articles, books, etc., as you go along, and organize them into a workable personal library for yourself.

I may be telling what you already know, but I wish someone had told me at the beginning of my process. I had to learn all this on my own, and it was painful and time consuming. I had some lame committee chairs for the first years of my Ph.D. work.

I took two days of annual leave and got through to the next section of this difficult chapter. This weekend will be one lived in my little home office, chained to the computer except for a few hours of housework, laundry, and errands. Whatever is completed, I’m sending to my chair on Monday, and then moving on to the Recommendations chapter to complete and send in. Next, Lit Review. Ack, my nemisis. That will be sent in on the next Monday (25th), in whatever form it is. I HAVE to get stuff to my chair. Then the following week I’ll be doing the edits on the findings chapters that have already been reviewed by my chair.

I also have to figure out how I am going to pay tuition this semester.

to work on it, and broke through a block that kept me hogtied for a certain chapter. This weekend I am finishing the chapter to send in on Monday. I MEAN IT! Me, do you hear me? I mean it, dagnabit sumbucko!

a colleague finished her dissertation, sent it in with all the revisions, and she is an official doctor now. So it CAN be done! I’m hot on her heels.