the thesis progress journal
it’s all based on louise desalvo’s concept of a process journal for writers, from her book ‘the art of slow writing’ which i read way back in 2014 but has stayed with me all this time. she based that concept on sue grafton’s journal, which “stands as a record of the conversation she has with herself about the work in progress.” desalvo talks about her own process journal : “to plan a project, list books i want to read, list subjects i want to write about, capture insight about my work in progress, discuss my relationship to my work (what’s working and what’s not, whether i need to make changes to my writing schedule, how i’m feeling about the work)”
her view of the concept is so interesting and can easily be applied to grad school : “keeping a process journal helps us understand that our writing is important work. we value it enough to plan, reflect, and evaluate our work. a process journal is an invaluable record of our work patterns, our feelings about our work, our responses to ourselves as writers, and our strategies for dealing with difficulties and challenges.”
she says, and i quote : “our progress journals are where we engage in the nonjudgmental, reflective witnessing of our work. here, we work at defining ourselves as active, engaged, responsible, patient writers.” and like ???? yes, go off louise!
every week i make an entry with my three to five priorities. since i currently still have seminars, my entire week cannot be dedicated to my thesis, so these priorities allow me to really focus on specific things. they can be bigger or smaller depending on the amount of time i have to work on my thesis.
every day i work on my thesis, i make an entry. i try to answer two questions : “what did i do that day to make progress on my thesis?” as well as “how am i feeling & what i can do to feel better?” i also choose two to five specific tasks to achieve that day and write about the progress. for example, if my task is reading an article, i’ll write it down, check the box once i do it and write a summary of the “experience” (how was the article, was it useful for my research, should i read more of that author’s work, etc.) that way, i can look back at previous tasks, know what happened and learn from it.
i also use the journal almost like a bullet journal (the OG kind) with ongoing lists of important things. of course, there are some to do lists here and there (even though i prefer having my comprehensive task list on todoist), but it’s mostly things like
names of people who have helped me so i can thank them in my thesis
call numbers of books to borrow or archives to consult
things to look for in the archives i consult
questions to ask my professor/advisor/archivist/etc.
issues that need to be fixed in my thesis
additional things to research
i also use it as a regular notebooks for all things thesis. one of my seminars this semester is a methodology course, so i take notes in my journal as reference. i also sometimes will write some reading notes if i don’t have my computer on me, such as key quotes or arguments. also, all of my notes from meetings/calls/emails with my advisor are put in the journal, as well as a any pertinent meeting notes (with an archivist, fellow student, my mom, etc.) lastly, sometimes it just becomes a catch all for brainstorm sessions and random thoughts.
for me, this thesis progress journal is the best way to take a step back from the actual work and reflect on what i’m doing, good or bad, and what i can do to make things better, but most importantly, it allows me to understand my progress.
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