Motivate! Motivate! Motivate!

Well, I finally badgered my adviser enough so that she got a chapter back to me! (Supposedly all three were going to be back yesterday... I still hadn't seen them this morning, but by noon she had at least got one back to me. Will I get the other two today? It's anybody's guess!)

Basically the only comment she wrote was "Why?" Over and over again. Apparently I need to motivate why I'm doing what I'm doing a lot more. She had actually told me this earlier, so I added nice little c.f.'s back to the first two chapters. Apparently that's not the right way to go about it.

I would complain, but I'm just so happy to have some work to do that I think I'll just do that instead.

The gift of pestering

I sent my adviser the next two chapters of my dissertation on Monday - whoohoo! Of course I haven't heard anything in response from her, so I called her home phone and cell phone first thing this morning. Of course she didn't answer, but I left a message urging her to read them and get back to me, seeing as I kind of need to graduate in like 4 weeks.

Then I logged on to facebook and discovered that today is her birthday. Whoops. I'm sure seeing my name pop up on caller ID was the way she wanted to start the day! Guess I won't be hearing back from her for another week...

Nothing like a snow day or two

Today is snow day number two. On Saturday we got a good foot, last night we got 5 inches and another 8 inches is predicted for this afternoon. This is the best time of the year to be in Houston (i.e., the worst time of the year to be someplace besides Houston!). But if it's going to be cold, I do like having the snow along with it!

The good thing about snow days is that you're confined inside. Thanks to the trash on tv, you're more specifically confined to your computer, which allowed me to finish my revision of chapter 3! I don't actually think it's that great, but it's great that I finished it!

That means I've now sent revisions of chapters 1-3 to my adviser. Cross your fingers and say a prayer that she gets around to reading them at some point!

My sad methodology chapter and a new outline

I was so anxious to have something to show for my week that I fired off my methodology chapter (chapter 3 in the current outline) to my adviser as soon as I could. I congratulated myself for doing that so early in the week, as it had been my goal to finish it by today.

And now as I read another gal's dissertation, I'm shaking my head and moaning in disgust. My methodology chapter was not at all complete. I had basically the first half, sure, but I completely forgot to include important things like how I actually went about measuring the vowels! Ugh. I know better. I've got to get my head out of the clouds and back into my dissertation.

On the bright side, it's been good for me to go through and read another dissertation. I wasn't sure if it would be worth the time (while this one is about imitation, it focuses on accomodation/convergence, which is not the direction I'm heading), but I think it is. If nothing else, I'd been needing to remind myself what a finished product would look like.

And it's making me rethink my outline. So here is a revised version, that will probably undergo further revision a month from now.

1. Introduction - Background, pilot study, motivation
2. Methodology - Normal stuff (including the analysis part I somehow managed to forget), hypotheses
3. Results - Both the listener and speaker statistics, with plenty of charts and tables
4. Discussion - Just what it says, polished off with a brilliant conclusion

Hm. Now that's looking too short, like I'm going to have to cram in so many subheadings that it'll be almost ridiculous. Oh well, I'll just work with this for now. Like I said, it's always subject to revision!

One chapter down, five to go!

Kinda.

This morning I finished the draft of my methodology chapter (which was basically copy/pasting from my prospectus, changing fonts, and slightly updating). It's not perfect, but it does feel nice to have that done! I haven't decided yet if I should go ahead and send it to my adviser or wait until I have another chapter also. I think I'll wait for now - there's too much unfinished (links to the unwritten chapter containing my hypotheses, for example).

Now to figure out what to do next. I mean, I have all kinds of other things I could to do next - go to the gym, workout, have lunch, run to the grocery store, read this other book that I'm really enjoying... But back to the dissertating part.

I really really really want to get my statistical tests done. As soon as I've got that, everything else can fall into place. I'll have results and then I can figure out what they mean theoretically. I'll have beautiful charts to send my committee. But I'm waiting on a book in the mail and/or an email response.

For a minute there I thought I was gonna get away with calling it quits for the day. But after reviewing my outline, I've found more writing I can do - hello pilot studies.

And good-bye internet.

Productive yet disappointing day

This morning I spent another two hours going over statistics one last time before giving up and emailing my questions to my committee member. I'm not sure that he'll actually email me back, but it's worth a shot. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to run the Chi-Squared. Actually, I know how to run it in SPSS, but I can't figure out what to put in each cell and suspect that it's actually the wrong test to use.

The good news is, I wrote a chapter of my dissertation this afternoon! The bad news is, it's really bad. I didn't think it was possible for a methodology section to be bad! And don't be impressed by the speed - I basically cut and pasted from my prospectus.

Oh dear, what a depressing first entry for this blog! I need to put something positive in here... Does having fun starting this blog count? I say yes.