Thursday, October 16, 2008

Avoiding Shame

I just emailed my advisor. Finally. The last time I spoke with him was last December after my exam. The first email I drafted was dated September 8. Sheesh. Avoidance at it's best. I'm now committed to sending him at least monthly updates, so I can't avoid any more.

One really good and really terrifying piece of advisor advice from Writing Your Dissertation in 15 Minutes a Day: Meet with your advisor "even if you've written nothing--in fact, particularly if you've written nothing." It does seem like the best time to let your advisor do her job and advise you, but it also feels terrible to go admit to being stuck.

I've also just started reading the first section of A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, adapted from Booth, Colomb, and Williams's The Craft of Research. So far it's a great reminder of how to dig into a topic and take an argument through the "so what" stage.

Any other recommendations of writing on writing a dissertation?

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