(Pictures of people's desks always amuse me. [That is only one book stack of several.])

(My desks. Yes, desks plural. See also: teacups, plural; oranges, plural.)

   
Hey look! It has been less than a month since my last post. I am now on the home stretch of my dissertation, which feels so amazing. I did final edits this morning, and I have a few bits I want to smooth out, but now I am ready for the final bits and pieces: Table of Contents, Acknowledgements, printing and binding.
     I've wrestled a lot with this paper. At first, I never thought I would get to 15,000 words, but now I'm pushing the grace limit at 22,000 words. But I've also felt at a plateau with my writing this summer. This has happened to me before, most lately, my junior year of college. It's a really frustrating feeling--you just know you're writing can be better, but you have no idea how to get there. At the time, I had two professors who had some excellent advice for me, which I wrote down and carried around with me for years. Basically: be sharper, clearer, and deeper.
     This time around, none of my professors have been able to help me in the same way, except to remind me to be confident in my writing and my research. Instead, I've been reading a lot of authors I really admire (both fiction and nonfiction) and studying their prose for guidance. I can't say it's worked terribly well, but at least if I'm reading good writing, I might absorb some of it?
      Trying to be deep, sharp, and confident are three things that are incredibly difficult for me to do. I like to write in the passive voice, be polite in my analysis, and qualify every judgement I make. This might make me sound like a nice person, but it really doesn't come off well on paper. In an effort to combat this, I've spent the last week or so editing my paper, taking out qualifications, showing what research I've done, and writing and rewriting in an active voice.
     Today, I did a final edit, and my goodness. I had been so worn out with my paper; I felt so frustrated because my summer of research didn't seem to come to any real result. But after taking ownership of my research, being unafraid to critically judge museums, and having confidence in my conclusions, I am so proud of this paper. It feels like it was worthwhile, and that I have something to add to the discussion about heritage.

     And that's a really good feeling.

(Apologies for the continued summer dissertation blogging. After next week, we'll return to your regularly scheduled blog, which will highlight all the other non-dissertation things I've done this summer. Same bat time, same bat channel.)