Showing posts with label thesis writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thesis writing. Show all posts

Sunday, February 05, 2012

Wishing for the cloths of heaven to end a thesis

My problem: in an ANT analysis finding a way forward when the knowledge known is always partial; fractional and biased.
I too am situated so how to tell of what to do?
In addition the world keeps spinning and what is advised will be more outdated then than even it is now.
What recommendations would i make?

"I have no comfortable knowing of what will be. Moving forward responsibly is to know that what is done, is done on imprecise knowledge. There is no comfort to be had, wrapped in the surety of any cloth of heaven, but to tread lightly(footnote to poem). Care, rather than the illusion of movements predicated on the logical choice of a rational chooser, provides a relational stance on which to move forward. And to move forward carefully, mindful that one’s own reality is not the only one there is."

He wishes for the cloths of heaven, William Butler Yeats

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.


And because my thesis is about how we are mediated by text, here is a translation of this poem into txtspk:

HAD I d hevNs' embroiderd cloths
Nrort w goldN & silvR lite
d blu & d dim & d drk cloths
Of nyt & lite & d half-lite
I wud spred d cloths undR yor fEt
bt I, bn poor, hav only my dreams
I hav spred my dreams undR yor fEt
Tred softly cuz U tred on my dreams

Saturday, August 01, 2009

A lol approach to thesis writing

A pleasant wet Saturday afternoon at Borders, nice comfy chairs, read the book...buy the book, seduction. I have been reading and lol(ing)the latest Janet Evanovich, finger lickn fifteen. In Borders was the How to write a book by said author, so here's some wisdoms that I take on board for the thesis.

Show up for work every day.
Write.
Dont try for perfection in the first instance, rewriting comes later.
(This is my third worst fault, my first two are not taking the first two pieces of advice seriously enough)

Don't fall into the trap of rewriting chapter one until it's perfect. And don't discard everything you write halfway through because you're sure it sucks. Writing stuff that sucks is part of the learning process!

Show dont tell, the impact in first person is stronger than it is when describing.
Instead of stating a situation flat out, you want to let the reader discover what you're trying to say by watching a character in action and by listening to his dialogue. Showing brings your characters to life.

(If I take this piece of wisdom, i escape my trap of having an inarticulate research participant, I just need to describe the scenario, it is its own story)
And some nuts and bolts advice on structure;
Map the story; tell it with small arcs, there should be ups and downs, there should be mini moments of suspense; use a storyboard so everything keeps progressing the plot.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

7 memes for (successful) PhD / thesis writing

Borrowing heavily on the writing of Irene Goodman (author of 7 steps for highly successful authors) as well as ideas from thesis authors I have known and have read...rather than from any personal experience of completion :)
and therefore with very limited credibility but with a lot of interest in completion and therefore reading about such things...

1. Dont give up.
Bruno Latour in Aramis also identifies this critical factor in the making of a project, to hold it together, one must not stop holding it together.
2. Write.
Got nothing to write about?...Put readings (which you write about in the notes section) into the endnote library, blog about writing it, rearrange the data collected- might be construed as data analysis if the words aren't too scary... make writing enjoyable, an hour of journal reading and entering same into endnote while at a cafe is one of my strategies for making writing pleasurable,
I also practice the writing style of authors I enjoy or who have the profound ideas... seems to help new understandings flow. However, this is the opposite to Irene Goodman's advice, hers is to find your authentic voice and stick with it. I'm not there, yet.
3. Schedule the thesis into your life. Mine takes up a lot of my life. Apparently highly effective authors are disciplined writers and will treat the writing as their work. Enjoyable or not, they will write. They will also have a life.
For some it works same time every day.
For others its the reading when the kids are awake (as its easier to pick up and put down) and writing when they are asleep.
I settle for what feels like all the time outside of the day job and sometimes inside of the day job. It actually isnt this. But its an omnipresence that I am happy with. If I didnt like it, this would be a serious problem.
4. Plan.
I have a few.
There is what I tell myself is pure fabrication that I write for the annual review.
Then there's the one that I am comfortable with, based in what Sherry Turkle calls a triumph of tinkering. Citing Claude Levi-Strauss on bricolage, she describes an arranging and rearranging "Bricoleurs approach problem solving by entering into a relationship with their work materials that has far more the flavor of a conversation than a monologue".
Where the writing of a composition comes first and then the plan; a softer style of bottom up rather than top down.
I do plan to finish, i have semi inflexible dates in my head, this years for data collecting, but its also got some writing, and some rewriting. Next year is for writing also, but its an analysis focus, in the absence of funding the year after is the end point as it will be the writing and the rewiriting. Tinkering and polishing. There is still an end insight I have heard stories of those who might polish and edit down to the blank page. I do not intend to be one of the,m. I am aware that I can get lost in wordsmithing and I take heart from Latour, "a good thesis is a finished one".
5. Want it.
Other factors in your life may have to move around this one, which comes first? The thesis or the job? The personal fitness or the thesis? The social life or the thesis? What do you still want at the end of the thesis? My family. I know my bottom line.
6. Stay with, and work, what works for you.
Supervisor, methodology, friends, subject and even the technology. Having the advantage of actor network theory is a convoluted double take, I can look out there with it, and i can also look in here with it; this is a retake on the first suggested strategy; it takes work to make it coalesce.
7. Here to there
Write to your audience. Terry Evans (co-author with Carey Denholm of Doctorates Downunder : keys to successful doctoral study in Australia and New Zealand. Camberwell, Victoria, ACER Press, 2006.) told me its an incredibly selfish undertaking writing for oneself, one's supervisor and one's markers. 3 readers guaranteed. They want to know that you can take it (and them) from here to there. New knowledge. coherently.

If you are/were writing a thesis what would be your 7 memes?

memes (a virus for the www?)
Memes; the word rhymes with dreams and is short for mimemes, from the word mimetic. Infectious ideas; a micropersuasion, spread from person to person.