Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Postcard from dissertation jail

Is it unreasonable to expect that each of my chapters will get read by at least one of my advisors before I give the complete dissertation to the rest of the committee?

Also, today I wanted to stab my eyes out with my pen.

On the bright side, my wonderful EGM made chickpea curry for dinner. Can't wait!

6 comments:

blank said...

You wouldn't think so, but sometimes, some advisors just don't seem to care.

Yay for the curry though!

Nina said...

It's not unreasonable, but probably not going to happen all the same ...
But I am sure the chapters will be good without someone reading them! You are the expert now, as long as you can defend your work, it will be fine.
Again: good luck!

The bean-mom said...

I'm sorry to say that it may well be unreasonable... My advisor didn't read mine before it was submitted (he was on vacation). But it turned out fine anyway!

EcoGeoFemme said...

Bean-mom, do you think it's actually unreasonable, i.e. that reading chapters in advance isn't the advisor's job, or just that many of them just don't get it done? I'm not being defensive, just asking. Both of my advisors have reputations for being slooooow at reviewing manuscripts, so don't think I have a good basis for judgment here.

makita said...

Your post sounds so familiar. In my case (a year ago, yeah!!) there was no other option. Every chapter had to be pre-cleared before I could submit it to the rest of the committee. It made for many, many sleepless nights, but it also pretty much guaranteed my graduation. Once (one of) your adviser(s) thinks it's good enough to move on, they'll make sure you pass the next step, otherwise it kinda reflects badly on him/her.

So, although the first round to get it past my adviser was absolutely torture, the second round, after my defense was much, much less stressful and extensive. It took me 8 days to wrap it up after defense.

makita said...

Your post sounds so familiar. In my case (a year ago, yeah!!) there was no other option. Every chapter had to be pre-cleared before I could submit it to the rest of the committee. It made for many, many sleepless nights, but it also pretty much guaranteed my graduation. Once (one of) your adviser(s) thinks it's good enough to move on, they'll make sure you pass the next step, otherwise it kinda reflects badly on him/her.

So, although the first round to get it past my adviser was absolutely torture, the second round, after my defense was much, much less stressful and extensive. It took me 8 days to wrap it up after defense.