rivka

The day after my last fit of self-loathing about my slow progress on my dissertation, I had a clinic day in which almost no one showed up. I worked at my laptop like a madwoman, and by the end of the day I had made ten more tables and a figure, edited the method section, and made some light improvements to the results section I'd just finished. I e-mailed these things to my advisor, who praised me ("I was pleased to see these documents from you") for the first time in a long time. Now, I think, I don't do anything more on any of the completed sections until I receive comments from him - unless I decide to add some more analyses or something else that qualifies as new construction.

Next is my discussion section. Next and last, actually, because once I have a draft of that, there won't be any new sections to write. Abstract, Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion, References, Tables & Figures. That's it. There aren't any more parts. I can even generate the front matter (title page, approval page, table of contents) automatically, using a Word template I downloaded from the Graduate College. Okay, so the whole thing will need revisions, and it will need to be vigorously gone over with a fine-tooth formatting comb. But once I've drafted the discussion section, I'll have the Really Big Pile of Paper. It just seems like it must all be easier after that.

(Actually, the pile's not likely to be all that big. The final length, including tables and figures and references but not including front matter, will probably be about 100 pages. I hope that's not considered too short.)

I've been setting myself daily tasks, small and unintimidating ones. Yesterday's task was to spend 30 minutes making a list, longhand, of things that belong in the discussion. I did that, and afterward ideas kept pinging around in my head and I spent the first part of the evening trying a couple new analyses (they didn't pan out), re-doing one of the figures, and reading up on how to express logistic regression equations. Today's task was to re-read my introduction and note down points that relate to my results. I did that, and also made some marginal comments about things in the introduction that need to be changed or shifted or improved. And then I made a list of possible subsections for the discussion. And then I went to the library and copied some sections of a book I'd scanned, and liked, about dissertation writing. And now, hours later, dissertation thoughts continue to ping around in my head. Obviously, work begets work, as avoidance begat avoidance. I'm going to continue setting myself daily tasks, in hopes that it will keep up the positive feedback loop.

Soon I need to send off my degree application, which means that I need to have a title for my dissertation. I've been using a temporary working title - "Disability as a risk factor for child abuse" - for almost five years now, and I never really thought about what I would call the real thing. My working title describes my topic better than it describes my study.

"The effects of child disability on parental endorsement of physical discipline."
"Endorsement of potentially abusive discipline by parents of disabled and nondisabled children."
"Disability and family factors affecting parental endorsement of physical discipline."
"The role of child disability and family factors in parents' performance on an analog task of abuse potential."

i think I like the first one best, but I don't like it very much. Obviously this is going to take some work.