ManagingFinishing your dissertation

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Managing/Finishing your dissertation

• Jacqueline Coyle-Shapiro
• London School of Economics Political Science

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Finishing your dissertation 1

• The tension between making it better and getting
  it done..We want to get it done and out to
  people who will read it. But NO object ever
  fully embodies its makers conception of what IT
  COULD HAVE BEEN
• Howard Becker

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Finishing your dissertation 2

• Perfectionists who cannot say this is good
  enough
• Letting go on work with its imperfections and
  deficienciesthat just have to be tolerated and
  perhaps never remedied or improved upon
• Dunleavy, 2003

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Finishing your dissertation 3

• There comes a point when the fear and loathing
  factor tends to replace your original enthusiasm
  and motivation
• Infallible sign that enough is enough and the
  time to enter the completion phase has arrived
  you have now accepted the criterion of good
  enough

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Getting a first draft 1

• Set a deadline to have a first draft even if some
  of the chapters are patchy, weak in
  argumentation.
• Produce one chapter at a time and bank it
• Recognise that a chapter banked early on might
  need radical alterations at a later stage

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Getting a final draft 1

• Magic moment when you can spread out all your
  chapters on the floor
• Now, the task is CONSOLIDATION versus producing
  new elements

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Getting a final draft 2

• Producing a stronger and more integrated final
  text
• Consistent themes that run throughout your thesis
• Enhancing linkages across the key elements of
  your dissertation
• Putting the value added of your thesis in SHARP
  FOCUS
• Ensuring that your final chapter has a clear
  character not tell em what youve told em!

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Finalizing your dissertation 1

• GET COMMENTS
• Dissertation Committee
• Fellow students
• USE COMMENTS
• Take those comments in the spirit they were
  intended - constructively

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Comments will

• will improve the content
• the framing of your dissertation,
• the clarity of how you express your ideas,
• the strength of your justifications,
• the coherency of your dissertation
• grammar, typos etc
• But will be time consuming!

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Submitting your dissertation 1

• Bring back the perfectionist!
• Ensure all is are dotted and ts crossed in the
  final draft
• Remember, the process of completing a PhD is an
  apprenticeship

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The key is to

• Manage the tension between striving for
  perfection and getting it done
• Recognise that perfectionism can lead to
  paralysis
• Remember, a perfect dissertation doesnt exist
  but there are plenty of nearly perfect ones!