Posted by alexandra_k on January 25, 2019, at 22:59:03
In reply to Re: procrastination, posted by alexandra_k on January 25, 2019, at 22:40:15
and now i feel bad because i said it only required maybe a few days...
because the thing is it's about looking after my supervisor - saying whatever it is that she wants me to say, because she's required to sign it off.
so she's enjoying the power she thinks she has.
but she wants me to have a breakdown about how much work needs to be done.
only it's really not a lot of work.
the first examiner did their job really well. with respect to showing my supervisor how to supervise a thesis. with respect to starting off with questions about the nature of the project. the scope of the project. to find a project around the right size so the depth / breadth was good for the size it was going to be. then questions about readings again for depth / breadth. then into more questions / critiques for each of the chapters. then sentences that were problematic. bits that needed reference / to be toned down. typos.
of course that doesn't mean that my whole project is crap and i have to start over. that doesn't mean my project is at the wrong focus. that doesn't mean that my reading wasn't sufficient.
these are the sorts of questions that would come up in an oral defense -- that the universtiy is too cheap to fund. but these are the standard questions that my supervisor should have been asking of me along the way... she didn't.. but i know how these things go... i can defend my thesis along these lines... my thesis doesn't need altering along these lines...
but my supervisor thinks i should take these on board and cry in teh corner.
she has become my worst enemy. she turned out to be a total flake. i can't carry her through this. she is paid to help me. or at least to not get in my way i would have thought... i can't sit with her crying in the corner about it. sorry. go find some other elephant who you can find to induce guilt...
while you collect your paycheck every week.
no sympathy.
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the larger questions most often missed the point. intentionally mischaracterised me. it's a common bully sort of tactic in philosophy discussion time. i think the idea, really, is that it is an invitation to clarify a point that may be missed by a less careful reader. Sometimes an invitation to spell out some of the ramifications or consequences for something that seems actually important or interesting that others may have missed. The short answer, then, would be for me in a oral defence to defent it. To say 'read the intro again where I say what the point of that was' or whatever.
Also with the 'link things better because I"m lost' remark. The point of a written introduction (rather than spoken) is that the reader can re-read it to themselves at their very own pace as many times as they need to. I encourage the reader to put a f*ck*ng bookmark in the introduction if they find themselves gettting lost.
I know many theses are very litle content with very much repetition at the start and end of every chapter and very much repetition between all of the bits. I think the reader may be a little smarter than this, however, and I implore the reader to try and follow along and book mark the intro if you need to.
I do think science has made me smarter.
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More references. Sure. That bit is colloquial. Sure. Typos here there and everywehre. Sure.
I didn't just work on it for 27 weeks. They made me work on it for 2 more weeks after submitting (conned me into it, honestly, with the promise it wouldn't hold up the grading). So that's 30 weeks right there.
And I didn't work normal working days. Iniitally I wasn't thinking of it as 'weeks' I was thinking of 120 points as 1200 hours of work. And thinking the hours junior doctors work and labour law violations and so I worked f*ck*ng long hours to get it done...
I've laboured on it for more focused hours than any MPhil they have passed before, I bet.
It is at the point where more time makes it differnt and not better. Just shuffling typos around.
It's more about working my way into... Probably 1 or 2 days on it.
And my supervisor will have a cow about that.
But if I listen to my supervisor and do what she wants... I'll still be her MPhil student 10 years from now throwing another years worth of money at the University while she laments my stupidity and slowness while collecting up her paycheck every week.
SO I guess I'll just let her have a cry in the corner. And she can console herslef with her paycheck.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1102325
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20181106/msgs/1102976.html