#started out as a joke but ended up doing genuine research on our tumblr holidays good lord we have a million of them

[britomart]

i am just living from out of touch thursday to flat fuck friday to pacino saturday to bruce springsteen slutty baseball shorts sunday to gay sex monday to turner tuesday to willem wednesday to blursday to friday i’m in love friday to saturday chilling nobody @ me today i’m chillin to bobby sunday to tyler durden's limp wrist monday to tim roth tuesday to what oh girlie please wednesday to travolta thursday to fuck him on the field friday to al pacino gay ass hand on hip saturday to columbo sunday to just another manic monday monday to sweet fat of the hog tuesday to what’s this a squirrel wednesday to i’m out of touch? you’re out of touch! this whole thursday is out of touch!!! thursday to fuck him on the forest floor friday to sad pacino saturday to evan mock sunday to bruce springsteen’s ass on dash monday to snoopy tuesday to wednessaday to thuresdogsday to faramir friday to neutral pacino saturday to robert de niro in heat sunday to manwhore monday to  “what did he say?” “what did he say – badda-beep, badda-bap, badda-boop, badda-beep – he wants us to send michael to hear proposition” tuesday to warren let me know da wednesday to lord foog the 2st thursday to snoopy friday to happy pacino saturday to ethanphobia sunday to megan monday to robert pattinson matching the tablecloth tuesday to homer it’s wednesday wednesday to out of touch tom thursday to snoopy friday to alfredo pacino saturday to sonny death sunday to  el muchacho monday to end of my rope tuesday to wings wednesday to out of touch columbo thursday to off my fucking nut friday to misinfo saturday to pacino saturday: part ii (1974) dir. francis ford coppola to cover me monday to hey tommy tuesday to hole wednesday to three rat thursday to freddy friday to sifunkel saturday to pacino saturday for the american mutuals to ₕᵢ ₘₒₘₘᵧ monday tuck him in tuesday to willem wednesday for jasper’s fancam and jasper’s fancam only to out of touch thursday (take your pick of fancam) to it’s almost pacino saturday friday to pacino saturday saturday to tom on his knees sunday to to de niro’s pussy poppin platforms monday to trapper tuesday to

[academiceve]

Dissertation Writing: My Experience, Tips + Tricks

This is a long awaited post that I have procrastinated writing. I would like to start with a dissclaimer that there are two types of students in their final year of college/university who will be writing their dissertations - those who care and those who do not. If you’re reading this post and researching advice for writing a dissertation it means that you care (at least enough to not fail it). I am sharing advice that I have learned last year, as I had 9 months to write my dissertation and ended up doing it pretty well. 

Before I begin, I would like you to pay attention to other advice posts on Tumblr that I found useful last year - HERE, HERE and HERE. 

1. START EARLY. The summer BEFORE your final year at university is the most crucial reading period for your dissertation. I’m not joking. You will have to read  A LOT of research articles, maybe even books, while trying to figure out your topic and then your methodology, etc. so you need to start reading ASAP. I made sure I looked at (at least) 2 research articles every day and once I found something useful, I would archive the necessary articles in RefWorks or Zotero. I also maintained a running Word Doc with links and APA citations for references that I used. You can use extensions like Zotero/RefWorks to make a reference list of all of your readings. They also help you reference authors/texts while writing your sections. 

2. DEDICATE A NOTEBOOK. I dedicated a SEPARATE notebook for ALL of my dissertation notes! I would include information learned during the dissertation lectures, meetings with my advisor, research notes, any questions I had and then when I started data collection (because I did an experiment). Yours might be different but it’s a great idea to store all of the necessary information in one place and have access to it whenever you need it. 

3. HAVE A SEPARATE FOLDER. In the same fashion, I bought a separate acordion file folder like THIS ONE to store the dissertation handbook, printed research articles, etc. in one place. As long as it is A4 size and doesn’t have annoying handles it will work fine. 

4. FIGURE OUT DEADLINES. Pay attention to your dissertation handbook/syllabus (depending on your school) for important deadlines. I liked color coding my lectures and assignments in my planner, so I assigned a color for all tasks/events/assignments/presentations, etc. regarding my dissertation and wrote them down in my planner. I also use a monthly printable calendar, that’s pinned next to my desk, for a monthly overview of important things I need to remember to do. THESE are great, I also used THESE. 

5. SET MEETINGS. During the first week of lectures, schedule a meeting with your advisor to discuss your summer research and topic. Your advisor will be the most important person regarding your dissertation work, as they will be able to offer you advise, challenge you to think of better arguments regarding your topic, scold you when you will be procrastinating, praise you for when you will be doing well and most importantly read your drafts. And trust me, you will have a lot of drafts. That first meeting is crucial to start off work well, as your advisor may have more than one student to supervise. You want to make a good + lasting impression. 

6. WORK IN SECTIONS. If you’re worried about writing a big + long paper, this will help you out the most. Our professors emphasized working on sections before putting the whole paper together and this tip helped us keep sane. We started working on writing our literature review first, which included all of our references that we collected + read throughout the summer. We then moved onto writing an introduction, followed by methodology. These three sections were the most important for us to pass our research proposal and the course for the fall semester. During the spring semester, we worked on data collection and results, discussion and conclusion sections (in that order). Yes, work in sections is very detailed, but during the spring semester it was nice to know that I have already written half of my dissertation and needed to finish writing it. 

7. EDITING, EDITING + MORE EDITING. I have mentioned earlier that writing your dissertation will include of A LOT of drafts. I had at least 30 (I’m not joking). When finishing writing a draft take a break before editing your writing. You will constantly be thinking of ways to improve your paragraphs and arguments, so don’t worry about it not being perfect the first time around. For extra writing help, check out THIS and THIS blog post. 

8. PROPOSAL. Don’t worry too much about it, as by now you’re the expert on your topic, so make a strong power point and slay the presentation. I made sure I had a good visual presentation (it was important for my topic), but I had to fit a lot of information in about 7 minutes (and it felt impossible). So I talked very fast and this was the only critique that I received from most of the professors in my department. Proposals are great for receiving comments about your dissertation and any improvements you can make regarding methods, etc. So think of it as a helpful step for you to better your dissertation to receive a good final grade. 

9. DATA COLLECTION. If you need to collect and analyze data, make sure you dedicate enough time for it! I needed to have 90 participants in my study and I struggled to collect data, because my campus consisted of only a couple hundred students. I ended up collecting data for a month, so make sure you have that extra time in case you will need it. Same goes for statisical analyses if you need to do them. For stats, a great resource is Laerd Statistics. 

10. DEFENSE. This is the most important step regarding your dissertation, so stay consistent for ultimate success. I’m not going to pretend that I was not nervous before my defense, we ALL were, but we could not really change anything about it. We just had to do it and knowing that other students have survived it made me feel better. I also listened to A LOT of Beyonce to calm my nerves beforehand, as I was the first one to present. Safe to say that my presentation was a horror story, because the professors on my judging pannel did not understand my topic, no matter how slowly and clearly I tried to explain everything (yeah, I don’t really want to talk about it)... So I genuinely thought I was DONE. My potential career as a researcher was ruined... However, I still ended up getting one of the highest grades for my year and this was all in the past, so now I feel much better about my first dissertation experience. But I have to admit that on the day I was not happy about it AT ALL. I should also mention that I was given the opportunity to present my research at an academic conference and I did really well there + other professors and professionals understood my topic well, so I did feel confident going into my defense and it ended up being a disaster 😂😂😂 

11. IT’S HARD. This is a bonus warning that the whole dissertation writing process is very lonely and stressful. Yes, your peers will be writing their dissertations as well, but we like to internalize the struggles and not care about our friends as much, even if we are all going through the same thing. People will also have different attitudes about writing their dissertations, as I have mentioned in the disclaimer, so stay focused on your work and DO NOT COMPARE YOURSELF TO OTHERS. Think of it as an adventure and a learning experience! I definitely learned a lot about what it is like to write a full research project and present it to other academics and learned that it is something I would like to continue doing in the future.😊 ALSO let’s not ignore how stressful last year was for me personally, so I would recommend scheduling a holiday after your dissertation defense/graduation, so that you have something nice to look forward to!

I hope these tips help some of you out! I wish you ALL THE BEST if you’re writing your dissertation/thesis this year! If I did it, you CAN TOO! Just believe + trust yourself! 

If you would like to read more from me, click HERE to see other blog posts! You can also follow my studygram HERE for some inspiration!