• Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Good places to start

Memoirs of a SLACer

sociological views on life and the liberal arts

Feeds:
Posts
Comments
« More on the ASA’s meet market
Maximizing your potential »

The cohesion problem

June 4, 2009 by John

If nothing else, the process of writing a dissertation has given me a new appreciation for those who write books.  Although I don’t have the production of journal articles down to a science, I’ve gotten pretty good at writing coherent papers between five and 20 pages in length.  My dissertation has been like writing six of those papers and hoping that they magically coalesce into something cohesive in the end.

While I can’t be sure without writing a book for comparison, I think that the biggest reason for my frustration has been that going on the job market ABD prevented me from completing my analysis before I began writing.  Instead, I did some analyses and wrote a chapter based on them, then did some more analyses and wrote a chapter based on them, etc.  As a result, when I started writing a chapter I had no idea how it fit into the larger whole other than the fact that it came from the same dataset as my other chapters eventually would.  Working in this way, it was impossible to create a simple outline of my entire dissertation, much less something like this.

Despite the cohesion problem, my dissertation is nearly complete and my advisor recently told me that neither of us would be embarrased by the finished product.  I’ve always been an advocate for the idea that as long as you have a job lined up, a good dissertation is a done dissertation, so this reassurance (back-handed compliment?) was all I needed to hear.  Thankfully, I have not gotten to the point of being sick of my data, as publications based on my dissertation will likely require substantial revisions.  At least I won’t have to worry about whether or not they fit into any sort of larger work!

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Tumblr
  • More
  • Email
  • Pinterest
  • Reddit

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Posted in Dissertation Netherworld | Tagged ABD, Dissertation Writing, The Cohesion Problem |

  • Pages

    • About
    • Contact
    • Good places to start
  • Previous Posts

    June 2009
    M T W T F S S
    1234567
    891011121314
    15161718192021
    22232425262728
    2930  
    « May   Jul »
  • Categories

  • Blogs I Read

    • Conditionally Accepted
    • Crooked Timber
    • Female Science Professor
    • Historiann
    • orgtheory.net
    • scatterplot
    • Small Pond Science
    • Soc'ing Out Loud
    • Sociology in Focus
    • Sociology Source
    • Sociology Toolbox
    • Tenured Radical
    • The Society Pages
    • whatisthewhat
  • Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

  • Meta

    • Register
    • Log in
    • Entries feed
    • Comments feed
    • WordPress.com
  • Site Meter

    Site Meter

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

WPThemes.


Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Memoirs of a SLACer
    • Join 117 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Memoirs of a SLACer
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Copy shortlink
    • Report this content
    • View post in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
%d bloggers like this: