I have worked diligently on writing, looking up page numbers in articles, and verifying citations for just over 36 hours since Friday morning. A tad over 12 hours a day. And here I was excoriating myself for not getting started earlier in the day(s).
Every 5-10 minutes I am stopping myself from writing a paragraph that isn’t necessary, so imagine how bad it could be.
Finishing the literature review (lit review) I have to do in preparation for my comprehensive exams (comps). I finished it last week. The final product is 171 pages, and I cite 663 unique sources (articles, books, etc.) No wonder it took forever…
For anyone playing along at home, this was my first major hoop to get through on this degree process. My advisor and the 4 other people on my committee are currently reading the Lit Review. Its purpose is to show that I know the background stuff I need to know in order to be let loose to work on a dissertation. Each committee member is formulating a question to ask me in the comprehensive exam. In a few weeks, I’ll take that exam. Each day for five days I will be emailed one question about my Lit Review. I will have four hours from the time the email was sent to write a response and send it back.
Then, my response to each question is read by the person who formulated that question and one other committee member. They think of further comments/questions to ask at my comps defense, which will be held a few weeks later (target: 23 June). I get to explain my answers and further discuss things with the committee, and as long as I demonstrate I know what I’m talking about, I will pass.
I’m combining the comps defense and the proposal defense into one meeting (that’s the current plan, anyway.) The proposal is a document in which I lay out my plan of exactly what I want to do in my dissertation study. Who I will study, how I will gather data, how I will analyze that data, the theoretical framework, etc. I’m writing this document now. I’ll provide it to the committee before the defense so they can read it. At the defense I’ll also give a presentation about my plan. They will ask questions, challenge parts of it, and make suggestions. Hopefully, there will be few enough things to change that they will approve it.
I hope to be able to submit an approved proposal to several award competitions for doctoral research, and the deadlines are July 1. If huge changes need to be made, it will be very difficult if not impossible to make them and get the thing approved in time to enter the competitions. Fingers crossed!
And now I’m off to a meeting with my advisor about my initial outline for my proposal.
