University AU, Pairing: Fleete/Internet
So the message that I got from my adviser today was that I needed to a) write my dissertation proposal like it was fanfic and b) go ahead and write the header information for it. That's not what he said, obviously, but that's what I heard.
Here's what's been going on. The problem has been that I've just been writing and thinking around my topic for the past few months, and when I brought my ideas to some friends, they said, "awesome, but you've got about five different things going on here." So I tried to condense it down and explain how the ideas were related to each other, and sent that version to the adviser. Adviser says, good stuff, but yes, you've got a lot of different things going on. He says the problem is that I'm doing very detail-oriented writing right now, that I can't see the forest for the trees. This is what he says:
"I think what you need here is to plot out your dissertation. And when I say plot, I really do mean tell a story. Everything's a story, really. So for instance: things were different, and then things changed, and now there are problems. Classic story. Just sit down and fill in the words 'things' and 'problems' with what you're talking about."
His advice was to try to condense my dissertation to a story I can tell in 30 seconds. He suggested sitting down for an hour or two and trying to write the outline of the story I wanted to tell. I could even use the form he suggested (things were different, things changed, now problems, what do we do?) as headers and then just try to do bullet points and notes under each of them. Then I could come back to it a couple of days later and work on that outline even more. Eventually, I would have a sense of what my story was and would be able to give a 30 second version of what the dissertation was about. In other words, I'd be able to write the header info with a summary.
Maybe once I've written that out, I'll post it under a f-lock! It will be all:
Title: Dissertation of Doom
Author: fleete
Pairing: Internet/People
Word Count: Fucking Lots
Warnings: ANGST, political depression, academic jargon.
Summary: Stuff, probably. Almost definitely involving stuff.
\o/?
Here's what's been going on. The problem has been that I've just been writing and thinking around my topic for the past few months, and when I brought my ideas to some friends, they said, "awesome, but you've got about five different things going on here." So I tried to condense it down and explain how the ideas were related to each other, and sent that version to the adviser. Adviser says, good stuff, but yes, you've got a lot of different things going on. He says the problem is that I'm doing very detail-oriented writing right now, that I can't see the forest for the trees. This is what he says:
"I think what you need here is to plot out your dissertation. And when I say plot, I really do mean tell a story. Everything's a story, really. So for instance: things were different, and then things changed, and now there are problems. Classic story. Just sit down and fill in the words 'things' and 'problems' with what you're talking about."
His advice was to try to condense my dissertation to a story I can tell in 30 seconds. He suggested sitting down for an hour or two and trying to write the outline of the story I wanted to tell. I could even use the form he suggested (things were different, things changed, now problems, what do we do?) as headers and then just try to do bullet points and notes under each of them. Then I could come back to it a couple of days later and work on that outline even more. Eventually, I would have a sense of what my story was and would be able to give a 30 second version of what the dissertation was about. In other words, I'd be able to write the header info with a summary.
Maybe once I've written that out, I'll post it under a f-lock! It will be all:
Title: Dissertation of Doom
Author: fleete
Pairing: Internet/People
Word Count: Fucking Lots
Warnings: ANGST, political depression, academic jargon.
Summary: Stuff, probably. Almost definitely involving stuff.
\o/?