I am currently outlining some planned dissertation revisions. In the process of reading and re-reading this document and trying to figure out if there are any number of discrete cohesive parts than can be repackaged as journal articles, I have come across some segments of my writing that have left me puzzled.
What the hell did I mean by this sentence? What in the world was I trying to say here?
And even:
No way! Did I actually write this crappy paragraph?
As such, I totally related to Jason Pickavance's recent IHE piece. He writes of receiving comments from his advisor on a draft of one of his dissertation chapters: "As always, he provided copious comments — advice on improving the coherence of my argument, smoothing out some ungainly syntax, and choosing more appropriate words... I have learned a great deal about how to think and write from his comments." However, one particular word his advisor had written in the margin brought him us short: drivel. Pickavance writes:
I knew that drivel meant nonsense, but shame prompted me to consult a dictionary. I learned that its meaning was a metaphorical extension of its more literal definition: to let saliva dribble from the mouth. Nothing more vividly represents brazen stupidity than the image of someone drooling. There is something intrinsically repulsive about the act of drooling and as I thought about how that metaphor might apply to my writing, I literally gave a small shudder. Ouch! Was my prose the equivalent of drivel? Analogous to an unconscious trickle of spit?
My particular experience is not based on advisor comments. (I am happy to say that neither my advisor nor any of my dissertation readers ever wrote that word on the pages of my dissertation!) But the one-year-post-dissertation-defense Me has often had that same reaction to her own writing. This reaction to reading my dissertation has often left me feeling oddly bifurcated. On the one hand is the Me holding her nose, not believing I could have written such nonsense let alone been awarded a Ph.D. because of it. On the other hand is the indignant Me, protesting about how hard I worked and how it should be clear even to any halfway intelligent person what I meant to say even if I didn't totally succeed in saying it just so correctly or clearly.
But in the end, in order to move ahead with revisions, I have had to admit that Yes--there was a valuable thought in this sentence, a meaningful point in that paragraph, but also that Yes--its value and meaning is for nothing if I cannot go back and critically think about what I was trying to say and then figure out a way to say it much, much better than I did.
Pickavance reports coming to a similar conclusion:
Yes. My advisor was right. What I had written was drivel. The passage didn’t meaningfully contribute to the argument. In fact, it didn’t seem to be saying much of anything... The passage represented writing on auto-pilot, requiring little to no consciousness on my part. I might as well have been slobbering onto the page. Somewhere behind all the nonsense, I had an idea, but what it was I could not say. Responding to the simple, severe remark felt something like going through the stages of grief. I moved from denial (“surely it’s not that bad�) through anger (“what nerve!�) and toward acceptance (“yup, it’s bad�).
"Grief" and "mourning" are perfect words to describe this process of dissertation re-visioning. Not only must I overcome sadness at the idea that Some Dissertation Parts Must Die, but hesitancy at the realization that I must be the one to actually kill them off. Yet overcome this, I must, otherwise I will not be able to move on to a point where I am ready to submit articles to journal editors and reviewers.
So it is back to the drawing board as I re-read, re-see, and re-write. And as I do this, I will be strong as I try to accurately and objectively critique my own work. In order to help with this task I think I'll institute a new margin note to myself, inspired by Jason's advisor:
"Yvette: SAY it, don't SPRAY it!"
Posted by perry032 at October 7, 2007 08:06 PM | TrackBackGood thoughts. i think this is why it's good to take a break from the dissertation topic. Then when you revisit it, you can revise your own work without feeling too bad that you're killing off stuff you wrote before. No emotional attachment to it a few months down the line.
Obviously the better the dissertation is written the easier to revise, but a good committee will know that the audience and writing in a dissertation differ from a published article. No point in delaying an acceptable dissertation's finish to make it something (an article or book) it shouldn't be.
Posted by: Evan at October 7, 2007 09:05 PMToday I had my master's comps. Yesterday, I read every paper I had written in grad school so far. I would be nodding, nodding, thinking, this is pretty good. Inevitably, though, in almost every paper, there would be a paragraph which, upon reading, actually made me wince. I was wincing! Good luck killing the unweildy parts. Even those wince-worthy paragraphs still have a special place in my heart.
Posted by: Melissa Kizina at October 9, 2007 09:58 PMThanks for this post. I am just about to start writing--once I get this research done. And I've been thinking and talking a lot with folks about the process. A couple months ago, my adviser wrote "yuck" on an article draft without any explanation and without much substantive commentary. And I'm still annoyed about it, even if I can guess about what she's getting at. I'm not convinced it is constructive critique because it tells me nothing about what's wrong with the paragraph, only that she doesn't like it. After reading your post, I'm reminded to keep an open mind to her commentary on my future writings. Thanks for the reminder that this is, in part, a process of grief and mourning. Or as one of my friends says it's like giving birth, only the labor lasts forever!
Posted by: la rebelde at November 3, 2007 07:08 PM