The doctoral Winchester plan
If you've ever seen the movie Shaun of the Dead, a humorous take on the surviving the zombie apocalypse, you are familiar with the Winchester plan. The Winchester is a local (to the protagonist) pub, and it key to surviving the zombie apocalypse - according to the protagonist, is taking a short skip-and-a-hop to the local pub (after doing a couple of short tasks) and waiting for help to arrive while imbibing their drink of choice. Surviving the zombie apocalypse is a breeze! Well, it's not that simple to survive the zombie apocalypse - as the protagonist finds out!
The past semester has been a little difficult (mostly due to over-committing on my part) and that has affected my own desired progress through my doctoral program. The classes and the seminars are done (yay!). The next step is the dissertation proposal (which is in draft form). In the past few days I've been thinking about my progress in all its wonderful variety which includes slow progress, lack of progress thereof, stopping to smell the roses the academic roses, academically procrastinating, and taking trips down academic rabbit holes that call to the academic sailors to their doom like attractive sirens. This has made me realize that, like Shaun - the protagonist of the movie (hey, it's a good movie, go see it if you haven't!), I too had my own Winchester plan to making it through my doctoral studies.
My plan did not include a pub, or waiting with a drink until someone came and conferred upon me the title of doctor. It did, however, include some misconceptions about the process. I think that conceptually I knew what the dissertation was about (basically a long, five part, [research] essay). I thought I had enough practice in all of the individual parts - the methods section, the literature review, the writing up of the findings, the APA format. Before I got into a doctoral program I had authored, and co-authored, and co-researched, papers which got published in peer reviewed academic journals. I thought that the dissertation would be more of the same.
This turned out to be a bit of a challenge because academic journals have a 6000-9000 word limit, so a lot get cut out and left on the cutting room floor. Or, you just choose what to put in from the start, knowing that you have a limited space to work with, so that you don't have to cut a lot. A dissertation on the other hand is (or seems to be) much more exhaustive. A demonstration of what you know rather than a simple demonstration of an argument that you are setting forth. Much like Shaun, I found out that my previous skill set - while it would help somewhat in thezombie dissertation apocalypse, I would find it hard, I would be more challenged than I thought I would be. Much like Shaun I am to make it to the end though, and I will end up in a pub after the dissertation is successfully defended to celebrate. Now I just need to find my way back to the path and avoid the zombies that drain my time and energy - and focus on the dissertation!
The past semester has been a little difficult (mostly due to over-committing on my part) and that has affected my own desired progress through my doctoral program. The classes and the seminars are done (yay!). The next step is the dissertation proposal (which is in draft form). In the past few days I've been thinking about my progress in all its wonderful variety which includes slow progress, lack of progress thereof, stopping to smell the roses the academic roses, academically procrastinating, and taking trips down academic rabbit holes that call to the academic sailors to their doom like attractive sirens. This has made me realize that, like Shaun - the protagonist of the movie (hey, it's a good movie, go see it if you haven't!), I too had my own Winchester plan to making it through my doctoral studies.
My plan did not include a pub, or waiting with a drink until someone came and conferred upon me the title of doctor. It did, however, include some misconceptions about the process. I think that conceptually I knew what the dissertation was about (basically a long, five part, [research] essay). I thought I had enough practice in all of the individual parts - the methods section, the literature review, the writing up of the findings, the APA format. Before I got into a doctoral program I had authored, and co-authored, and co-researched, papers which got published in peer reviewed academic journals. I thought that the dissertation would be more of the same.
This turned out to be a bit of a challenge because academic journals have a 6000-9000 word limit, so a lot get cut out and left on the cutting room floor. Or, you just choose what to put in from the start, knowing that you have a limited space to work with, so that you don't have to cut a lot. A dissertation on the other hand is (or seems to be) much more exhaustive. A demonstration of what you know rather than a simple demonstration of an argument that you are setting forth. Much like Shaun, I found out that my previous skill set - while it would help somewhat in the
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