Today I realized that I have never written a PhD thesis before. It might sound obvious and banal but fact is that most of the things I/we do in life are repeats of something previous. Or adaptations of something we have tried before. I have written quite a few articles, I have made many (feels like 1000) projects during my regular student years and I have conducted numerous empirical studies. But I have never written a thesis before. This is illustrated by my ignorance to where there should be references, how to refer back and forth between chapters and sections and who in fact my audience is. Again I really miss my (few but fruitful) Friday meetings in Irvine where two of us would discuss thesis related problems like this. Things that you don't really think you could ask your advisor (because you rather want to ask him 'important' questions) and things that you don't know because, well, it is the first time you write a PhD thesis.
Part of me can't help being a bit annoyed of how much I need to write down and how long it is supposed to be. Much of my writings are repeats from my publications, rephrased and elaborated. I know that some of my Danish friends would just say that I could make a paper based thesis because on the surface I have enough publications; but for reasons not relevant here, I have chosen not to do that; I am writing a monography. This brings me to the observation that writing a thesis requires persistence. I persistently write page after page about the things I have done, the things I have observed and what it all means until I can't stand looking at the screen anymore. But moreover writing a thesis needs elements of courage because you are doing something you haven’t tried before. If I have doubts about how to phrase things, how to structure it or just a simple thing as how I should refer to myself ('I did this and this, I think this' or 'this and this was done and apparently this and this'), I just have to build up the courage and decide on something. Not nothing but something. So I guess those are then biggest skills needed for writing a thesis: persistence and courage. I Think I have enough of both.
Posted by Louise at June 6, 2004 10:02 PM