Spring Break

One of the benefits of working at a University is things like spring break. Oh, and summer break. This year because of furloughs we have almost the whole week off, and since there are some things that we need to work on anyway on my team, the one day we'll be working we really need. (Summer break is a different story - we're actually at work, but it's a nice time to work on longer term, strategic projects without as many distractions.

My goal for this spring break is to have a first draft done of my dissertation proposal. A colleague and I were discussing my proposal, and I said that because I wasn't doing it the traditional "5 chapter format" (that is, Introduction, Literature Review, Methodology, Findings, Analysis), I had no idea how to write my proposal. He asked why I wasn't doing that format, and I replied that I didn't know. He suggested that if it was going to help me to get it done, I should just go ahead and use that format. It was like a revelation.

So now I've gotten back into thinking about making my proposal the first three chapters. I won't act like it's a piece of cake, but I definitely have a handle on most of my lit review and methodology. The introduction will get re-written anyway, so putting something together that works for the proposal isn't a big deal because I can always edit later. The truth of the matter is I could always write it in the 5 chapters and then go back later to edit it into a chronological format (which was my original plan but I kept getting stuck by the need to weave in literature and methodology).

So that's my plan. I'll try to take breaks and report the progress.

Oh, and I still have some photos of food and house stuff to upload. I feel like instead of symbol and substance, this blog should be called research and renovation, or dissertation and fine dining. ;)