Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
As for me, I’m over-writing “Lazy Sunday” as it’s anything but for me. I expect to be up to the early am hours tomorrow getting the first draft of my thesis into a shape I’m happy to submit to my supervisor. So while everyone else is more than welcome to post on their weekend doings, I thought I’d share some photographic insights for the benefit of any other research students out there - Mark’s tips on how to finish a PhD dissertation!
#1: Use the tried and true yellow post-it note method for the citations and references you need.
#2: The dietetics of thesis completion are as important as the dialectics. Stock up on a nutritionally varied range of stimulants.
#3: While prayer and/or meditation may be important aids to writing, ensure that candles are not lit next to piles of books but remain symbols only.
#4: Be organised. File away books which were relevant to sections you’re finished with, but keep them close to hand in case they’re required.
#5: Keep an orderly desk!
#6: Keep your Amy Winehouse cds close in case of emergencies, and to remind you that rehab may be necessary after the destruction of your health and social life which is a necessary condition of finishing your thesis.
#7: Turn those intertubes off! And actually finish writing the chapter you’re working on.
Obviously the books mean no dinner parties until the stacks have done their duty, Mark
Heh!
That’s right, tigtog! See rule #6!
Ok, Mark should be pulling the ethernet cable out of his desktop about now!
Where are the ciggies?
Looks a lot my coffee table at the moment, except that I’ve probably got less books (70 or so?) and more photocopies on and around it. And I’ve never learned the knack of stacks.
Great snacks Mark. We luv all that stuff.
We also get Robert Timms’ fair trade coffee w/ the other. Try some hommous, celery & carrot sticks too. Dash of Tabasco.
Tabasco in beer like Corona is refreshing too, better yet, chilli beer…:)
And black coffee w/ ice stirred into it.
I also have a small Apple & Plum Fusion V8 sometimes to fill the gap. Also cashews, sliced banana, and mandarin. And organic tahini & organic jam on toast. My wife likes dry roasted almonds. We luv sesame seed bars too.
Here’s a song for you to play in the background:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLJ_QVfT_wM&feature=related
(Echoes (newish version): Pink Floyd)
All credit due to you…I didn’t have the patience to go beyond writing 2 essays & completing the research for my honours dissertation.
Well, bugger me backwards: San Pelle in a can! And where are the Kopiko sweeties that are the godsend of any late-night crammer?
Darlene, I can assure you the cigs will not be too far away.
I wonder if all that stuff is good for your teeth.
Still one can do without teeth. When I was young lots of people a couple of years older than I, but not in our family, had all their teeth pulled out and false ones made before they were 21.
Where are the chocolate covered coffee beans?
2200 words tonight and counting - and yet to try any of the stimulants beyond the cans of chinotto! Have indeed moved the phd-ing to the desktop and pulled out the ethernet cable - am popping out to the dining room for snacks!
Go, Mark.
A friend described the doing of a PhD as “applying the blowtorch of self-doubt to your belly”. Cruel but apt. Looks like you’ve covered the reading part. Nice snacks. Go, Mark.
Mark, I’m going to keep this post close every time I get above myself about voluntarily signing up for an MPhil…
Love the photos - although there’s considerable order in those book piles, I reckon.
Good luck, Mark - and thanks for the insight into your library, diet and essay tactics!
The story of my weekend was dominated by a game of football (round ball) Friday night where I fell head first and was knocked unconscious for a couple of seconds. Apart from now looking like I’ve gone 3 rounds with Iron Mike, I feel like I’m recovering from a two-day binge without any of the four recommended drinks that might have brought it on. I think I need to borrow that book of yours “Remapping Memory”.
Actually the “Trailbars” muesli bar is about the healthiest you can find in supermarkets. They are the ones I use for emergencies and my diet is better than good.
Go Mark!!!
What do you write on the post-its?
Nasking [5]:
Agree on celery and carrot sticks. Good quality dried dates too [Iraqi if you can get them?]; real brain-food. Don’t know about the chilli beer though.
SkepticLawyer [11]:
MPhil? Go for it!
Yes, the orderliness of the books troubled me too …. to each their own.
Alex on The Bus [6]:
Where did you come across the Kopiko caries-makers?
Mark:
Good luck. Expect constructive criticism …. mind you, if the criticism goes beyond being constructive - just mutter something about knowing a deranged old codger up in the Central Queensland bush whose reaction to overly-harsh criticism of your thesis is likely to be unpredictable. [Now, where did I put that broken pick-handle with the 4″ nails?]
Anyway. Good luck!
Thanks, folks! Another 1000 words done!
Man, tell me you haven’t written that whole thesis on that laptop with no external keyboard and monitor. Can you still walk?
No, I was using it for notetaking and piling all the books up on the dining room table because the laptop is easier to disconnect from the intertubes. Doing most of the writing on the desktop on my desk in the study with a computer chair! 4000 words now but the writing machine is running down and requires fueling…
6000 words written tonight, and I didn’t open a Red Bull! So I’ve decided not to resort to stimulants other than fruit, muesli bars and fizzy beverages previously consumed, and go to bed and resume work in the am hours, since I’m happy with the way it’s all coming together.
So this is what I have to look forward to!
Well, you never know, Cliff, chocolate might be cheaper in Canada!
6000 words tonight. Impressive! I assume it doesn’t mean 69,000 words to go!
Nope!
You forgot rule 8: back up back up back up
saint, that’s rule number one!
I had the questionable fortune to be completing my Doctoral thesis at a time when pseudoephedrine-based medications could still be purchased over the counter, with no questions asked about why I needed pills for a cold in January in Brisbane!
Looking at your photos Mark is like a glimpse into my future. I have to submit in June, next year. I’ve been working on it part time for a few years, am I now waking up in the middle of the night, with both ideas and panic.
After sleeping it’s good to have some organic oats cooked up into porridge w/ some milk or soya milk w/ chopped banana & chopped dried apricots for brekky…then take a walk, even take gorgeous photos…:)…get stuck back into writing afterwards…and then take a break w/ a decent dvd…Eight Men Out, directed by John Sayles for instance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWWmkgsri0Q
Mark, as a matter of curiosity why is your supervisor asking you to submit a first draft of the complete thesis, rather than one chapter at a time as was the case with my supervisors, and which considerably minimised the stress levels in my case?
Goodness me, Mark - I had boxes and boxes of system cards containing copious notes from hundreds of secondary sources and a filing cabinet full of archival material in folders arranged chronologically, by subject and by theme.And cards in pencil written from files in the archives. Having so many books on my desk at one time would confuse me. Catch was, the thesis took a year longer than it should have, and then I spent another year after I got a piece of paper adapting it for publication. Mind you, its great to be on this last stretch, ain’t it? Glad to see you’re not falling for the trap of rewriting the same chapter over and over again until its “perfect” before you move onto the next one.Didn’t have computers in those days.(Well, I didn’t - back then I was still a technophobe.) It was all-handwritten and I had to pay to get it typed.
As for stimulants - strong black coffee, chocolate. preferably dark, and lots of Drum tobacco, the latter being a memory aid the anti-smoking brigade won’t recognise.Music - hardly any. I find it useful for inspiring poetry but not history.
Now to the weekend - Saturday morning. Finished reading John Sugden’s biography of the young Nelson. (I’m particularly interested in Donald Traill who sailed with Nelson in the West Indies on the Albemarle.)Anyway, its a great book. The section on the raid on Santa Cruz, Teneriffe, Canary Islands in 1797 read like a thriller.On LP. Note-taking from Jensen’s The Founding of A Nation. Night, watched The Bill. Began Don Jordon and Micharl Walsh’s White Cargo: The Forgotten History of BHritain’s White Slaves in America before I went to sleep. Despite the lurid title it seems a very food narrative history. A reminder of the debate about convictism as slavery in Australian history.
Sunday- Read more of White Cargo. Note-taking from Jensen’s book on the American Revolution - its a very thick book - on LP - night, watched Wild China - not so disturbed about this episode, but these stories of potential animal extinctions are always depressing.Then Jane Austen. Loved the representation of life in Bath. Northanger Abbey is not one of my favourites, but really looking forward to next week’s Mansfield Park. Ah, to bed, to sleep, etc.
When I was rewriting my draft chapters, I’d cut up the hard copy into paragraph-sized pieces, number each paragraph, and create an Excel file in which I’d record a one-sentence summary of each numbered paragraph, which paragraph it followed from logically, which paragraph it flowed ito logically, whether there were any weak logical links, which other paragraphs it related to, whether it repeated any points made in other pars, whether I or my supervisors thought there was something wrong with it, etc. This made the rewriting and editing much simpler and more effective, and helped me to bring the whole damn thing down to 95,000 words rather than the 150,000+ which is was ballooning out to.
I read an incredibly stupid hagiography of failed academic (bad) Peter Saunders in the Saturday SMH, who is going back to England with his tail between his legs, having come here to champion the idea of a subservient service class delivered by the dotty libertarian economics of the CIS and (thankfully) failed.
Don’t let the door hit you in the arse Saunders.
DR, I heard (some of) Saunders on “Restoring the Balance” … err … “Counterpoint” this week, whilst in the car. He sounded like exactly the kind of right-wing hack you’d expect to get a gig with CIS. He doesn’t seem to be able to get over his perception that teh Grand Left Conspiracy had nobbled his academic career in the same way as it does with climate change deniers.
The pictures say it all Mark. You have no business teaching at University. And I’m not talking about Jacques fucking Derrida either.
.
Instant coffee Mark. Instant coffee. Dear oh dear.
Heh!
That, I understand from Mr Mark, can be blamed on an over-active smoke alarm going off every time he tries to make proper coffee in a pot!
David wrote:
Exactly. Michael Duffys SMH piece is this: Suppress gag reflex before clicking.
How they love a whinge - they’d all be mega successful and influential if those pesky facts would just get out of the way.
Wow, David Rubie. Despite the ideological background of Peter Saunders, you might at least want to respect the prodigousness of his academic output. Simply dismising an academic for being right wing is as bad as a right-winger dismissing left-wing academics purely on the basis of their ideology.
As long as the research output is rigorous, critical and somewhat innovative then it has my respect regardless of the ideological hue.
David R and David, I heard that Saunders Counterpoint thing. If you want to spew the transcript is here. I think they called the program I was a sociologist but I’m alright (all right?) now.
He said he was going back to England because he had a grandkid whose parents had the Guardian delivered through the letterbox. So he had to save the kid from the and presumably from the kid’s parents. Since one of them was his progeny and he failed there I’d say he’s got no chance.
They were all rather up themselves and mildly offensive if you bothered to take them seriously.
Antonio, you can do that, but Duffy and Comrie-Thompson interviewed Saunders so often it became very predictable and boring. And his whole perspective was highly ideologically loaded.
Anyway I guess this is not the thread to be discussing this on.
David, where is the evidence of Peter Saunders complaining about some left-winger knobbling his career? My understanding is that he was tenured Professor of Sociology at the University of Sussex and left for Australia in order to pursue a more conducive environment (in his opinion) for his research in private think tanks. On Counterpoint he told Duffy that he is returning to the UK for personal reasons (his first grandchild being born).
Would you bemoan Mark taking an academic job in a private Left-wing thinktank post-PhD as some kind of academic failure??? I certainly wouldn’t.
Mark, I’m saddened. Derrida in English translations? At the very least, please tell me that the Foucault is in French!
Antionio wrote:
Wouldn’t care either way.
Antonio - you need to read the linked article, although the most relevent bit is this:
No mention at all that IQ as a test is regarded incredibly dubiously by most researchers, so his conclusion was tenuous at best. He’s a failure: couldn’t attract funding or grants via normal means, made unsupportable and ideological conclusions from his own academic work, could not supervise students worth a damn, fundamentally couldn’t do his job. He then quit before he was fired like most of the chip-on-shoulder types.
I’m only relaying his point of view - that a grand left wing conspiracy robbed him of a flourishing academic career, so he left for greener pastures (i.e. the job of telling right wingers what they want to hear).
Brian, there isn’t a thread for a bit of Saunders bashing but there should be one.
The wisest reflection I heard on the completion of a PhD?
That guilt is an inherent feature of relaxation.
Unless, I suppose, you enjoy ordering piles of books and alphabeticising photocopies. I too am struck by the neatness of your desk.
Mark:
Don’t keep us in suspense …. good or bad, how did you go today??
David Rubie [32], David [33], Antonio [37] and Brian [38]:
I heard Professor Peter Saunders on ABC Radio National “Counterpoint” - twice. He is certainly very intelligent, entertaining and well-spoken. It must be some measure of my anger that it has taken me more than a week to leave a comment on the Counterpoint website! He was free-and-easy with his glib comments about welfare recipients; his ignorance would be laughable …. except that impressionable inexperienced young officials might rely on his opinions and his prestige in their own implementation of government or corporate policy towards welfare recipients ….
Yes, dates are a good snack Graham Bell. And prunes. And pistachios. Which are also gorgeous blended w/ spinach, spaghetti sauce, lemon & red capsicum…& added to penne w/ a sprinkling of grated parmesan & tabasco.
Lemon juice in soda water perks me up. And lemon juice in cranberry herbal tea.
Way too much order on that desk!
Is there are celebratory bottle of whiskey close to the desk?
Yeah, about two metres away on the sideboard in the kitchen!
I’ve always liked to keep an orderly desk - at least since I got my first office job at age 16 -each to their own I guess, but I find it a very useful working tool.
Graham at 44, hold your horses, mate! I’ve just returned from a walk to wind down, having knocked off for the night at 1am. Having said that, I had a real collapse in my energy levels today and didn’t really get back into gear until about 9pm, leaving short of where I wanted to be. But that’s alright. All the heavy lifting has been done, and a few ends can be tied in a more leisurely fashion over the next few days - at any rate something resembling a complete draft has been duly emailed. But the thing is no means over, though a large hurdle has been leapt, and therefore the stress levels should return to manageable!
I had a bottle of wine in my filing cabinet for the last 6 months or so.
Good luck with the rest of it!
You probably don’t want to hear this but those loose ends drove me insane. If you want my advice I’d try to stay in panic mode as long as possible. It is truly amazing how quickly a thesis can be finished if one is sufficiently focussed!
Oh and rest assured that this does actually come to an end and the world seems sooooo much easier afterwards!
Ah, yes loose ends after the completion of the first draft. This ain’t gfoing to hearten you at all, Mark, but I had to go to Canberra from Atmidale for two weeks rooting around in the archives tirong them up. (The year befoire I’d been there for nine months.) Be wary of them. Thry can sometimes require more effort getting rid of them than the entire writing of the first draft.
Putting a celebratory bottle somewhere near the desk is an excellent idea. I think I may acquire one on my next pay day. That’s just the kind of incentive I need.
For some reason getting to work as a casual academic for 5+ years just doesn’t have the same ‘incentivating’ qualities.
Mark, as you know the first PhD in the family was your uncle’s, my younger brother’s. Something about grasses way back in the 1970s.
His son submitted his PhD a couple of years ago, something about the recovery of northern grasslands after drought.
I believe he is trying to find the month he needs to complete all the changes suggested by the examiners, which isn’t helped by the loss of some computer files.
All this makes me realise that (personally for me) I made the right decision back in 1979 when a lecturer tried to encourage me into a post-grad program.