#TeamPhD
Whether or not I believe in New Years Resolutions, I know that 2012 has to be The Year Of The PhD for me, otherwise I will never finish writing it. This knowledge has manifested itself as a decision to work on the thesis every. single. day of 2012. This can be in the form of writing, reading, or getting organised. But the thesis has to be active in my mind every day, and I believe by doing this I will build some serious momentum. The kind of momentum which means from day to day I'll be thinking, "I started writing some excellent stuff yesterday - I can't wait to return to it today" rather than the usual "I started writing some excellent stuff yesterday - I'm sure I'll do more again someday".
I have four friends and Twitter acquaintances eager to take the same approach - we are #TeamPhD, participating in #YearOfThePhD, and we're prepared to #DieTrying. I'm reporting on my progress daily on Twitter, both because that's how I can communicate with the whole #TeamPhD, and because I'll be held accountable in public. Feel free to keep an eye on me over at @naomieve, and to yell at me if you think I've skipped a day.
Today's work: fleshing out the approach I'm taking for the analytical chapter about how effectively the Domain Grrl experience (teenage girls' personal homepages in the late '90s/early '00s) and the Facebook experience facilitate the development of a community for girls.
My main thought from today's work: That just because my brain needs to go through 2 steps to clarify my thinking about this logic, doesn't mean I need to write about each of these steps as part of my methodology for this chapter - this distinction doesn't exist in my arguing, just in my thinking. Now that I've finished clarifying my thinking, I can move onto my arguing, which doesn't need to be so clear and distinct in how it progresses the logic. Sophisticated and flowing is more like it. Condensing separate thoughts into one big argument is a "the sum of the whole is more than the parts" thing.