The Chronicles Of Nay

Hello! Happy Saturday! I hope that everyone is doing well, staying as dry as possible! I am grateful for the rain because hopefully that means that it will start to cool off! I do enjoy the warmer weather but I really enjoy the colder weather!

Ok so where we last left off was I was getting ready to go in to my comprehensive (or qualifying) exams. Well those are finished! I got out of that pretty much ok. haha I wrote them. I had a hell yeah pass from one member and with the same paper another member said it was a pass but they wanted to me to consider some deeper concepts! Then there was a that will do, because this member knows that the things I left unsaid will come out while I start to write. Finally I had a let’s look at this again because there is confusion. I rewrote that one and got a pass on that one too.

I think one of the hardest parts about this entire process is askign for help. The idea that I should know what I am doing yet everyone being well aware that I don’t so everyone is there to help!

Since that part is done, now I working on my dissertation. I am basically writing a book! haha I am currently working on what we call the prospectus. It is the first three chapters.

1. chapter 1 is the problem. So why are we here? Why is your research important?
2. Chapter 2 is the literature review. This is where you search what all the experts say about what you are researching and you compile it and you say well everyone else says this. these are gaps, these are the things that align with what i say.
3. Chapter 3 is the methodology section. This is the section where you explain what it is you are doing. all of the who, what, where, when kinda stuff.

It is so much more then just typing up a paper for like a class. I worked on chapter 1 for like 3 weeks to a month. I would send what I thought was an amazing draft to my chair and she would say “this is a good start”. She would give me some edits and I would try again! Once I got that pretty clean and ready I went on to chapter three. I am still not 100% on chapter three. My chair keeps tell me that I have great bones and that I need to add more. She says that I need to elaborate more. Have you ever seen the office? I feel like Kevin! here is the clip:

While I am working on that I am also working on chapter 2. I have been stuck on chapter 2 because it is very overwhelming. Just seems like a big task. But I have broken it up in to little sections and I am just focusing on sections at a time. It has helped it not look so daunting!

The next step after I finish these three chapters is to pull my committee together and defend them. I will keep y’all posted about that. I had wanted to be on that step already but had to give my self a little grace. Teaching in this state take over and trying to write this dissertation is turning out to be a little more hectic than I anticipated! Stay tuned for more updates! I hope that everyone has a great rest of your weekend!