Back To Finalizing My Thesis

Posted on November 15, 2014 by alexk

It is 643pm and I am heading home shortly –yeah!!  I have had productive day and my focus has been to resume the completion of final revisions to my thesis.  Today was dedicated to Chapter 4 and I am now 75% complete.  My hope is to dedicate a few hours after work next week and finish this Chapter off completely.

It feels good to return to my thesis after dedicating most of the past two weeks to revising a journal article.  I worked hard on it and I am pleased with the final product which I submitted a few days ago.  I am awaiting a response from the editors and keeping my fingers crossed that any required edits are minor.

I can’t overstate how satisfying it was to work on the article, despite the fact that it means that I am now two weeks behind schedule with my final thesis revisions.  Not only did the article force me to further clarify my thinking it was incredibly satisfying to complete a tangible piece that was only 8000 words, given that my thesis is 10 times this size.

I am heading home now for a relaxing evening.  My departure is much earlier than the past few weeks.  It is well-deserved because in addition to research I have had some challenging circumstances to navigate at work and great deal of work travel -so glad that it is the weekend!

 

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8400 Words

Posted on November 9, 2014 by alexk

It has been a marathon day at the library but it has yielded a good outcome.  I have a very solid draft of my article which is 8400 words in length.  The limit is 8000 so I have some culling to do, but it is always easier to cut than to add in my mind.  I am heading home now for a well deserved glass of wine and dinner!

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Time To Make Dinner!!

Posted on November 2, 2014 by alexk

I have had a very productive day at the library.  My focus has been dedicated to revising a journal article.  I spent about an hour earlier in the week thinking about the revisions and creating a high level plan.  Today I worked exclusively on the edits and felt very much “in the zone”.  My aim is to finish the revisions by mid-week and then conduct a final review next Saturday.  I will then return to the task of finalizing my thesis.

Even though I was a bit reluctant to take on this article submission it has been a useful undertaking both from an intellectual and achievement perspective.  It has forced me to take some new perspectives on my research and will be VERY satisfying to produce a tangible outcome after all of these months working on thesis chapter revisions!!

I am dashing home now.  I am having my girlfriends over for dinner.  I have been looking forward to this all week!!

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Behind Plan, But Solid Progress

Posted on October 25, 2014 by alexk

The title says it all.  I worked very hard this week in the evenings despite being out of town for work.  Also, today I have been super focused for 11 hours at the library.  My hard work has paid dividends and I have made substantial improvements to Chapter 4.  That said, I am only about 70% complete, so I will need to devote yet another day to this chapter.

One especially good thing happened this week.  I received a response regarding a journal submission with a “revise and resubmit”.  This means that I have some major work to do over the next few weeks but if all goes well I should have an academic publication under my belt before my VIVA.  This would be great!!

I am going to pack up now.  Planning to have dinner and then go to a movie with my partner.

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Battery Running Low…

Posted on October 19, 2014 by alexk

It has been a crazy day! There were many  logistical challenges at the library which resulted in a series of delays getting started today and ongoing technology woes. I suspect that I lost about 90 minutes of productivity as a result!  Also, I have to depart from the library early today because I am heading out to dinner with my partner.

This is my long-winded way of say that despite a lot of hard work, I did not achieve as much as I had hoped today!  My focus has been on revisions to Chapter 4 and I only completed about 30% of the work.  Hopefully I will be able to make up some ground during the work week. I am travelling but will have to maximize my time at the hotel. I have to post now before my laptop batter dies!!

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9:31pm –Yikes!

Posted on October 12, 2014 by alexk

This is a first, I think, 12 hours straight at the library!  My focus has been exclusively on finalizing Chapter 1.  The revisions that I completed included increasing the number of citations, culling some sections, and moving some content to the Literature Review.  I also completed grammar edits and added a few figures.  Overall, I am quite pleased with this Final Version.  Also, I am on track with my schedule –yippee!!

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Final Game Plan

Posted on October 4, 2014 by alexk

I have had a very productive day at the library.  My focus was on PLANNING!  I created a detailed spreadsheet that captured all of the feedback that I have received over the past three months.  The spreadsheet includes input from both of my supervisors, participants at the Wisconsin seminar, an academic in the field, and last, but not least, my comments.  Suffice it to say that the spreadsheet has a lot of rows!!  After completing this document I  spent 90 minutes compiling a companion project plan with key milestones.

This second document was very useful as it has helped me to realize that, I will only be able to submit before year end if everything goes according to plan.  One thing that I have learned with my thesis is that nothing goes according to plan, it always takes longer!! As a result I have decided to book the first two weeks off work in January to provide a buffer for myself in order to complete the thesis.

Overall, I am feeling positive.  There is a lot to do but I feel well equipped to tackle the tasks ahead.  Also, I have only a three small work trips planned for the next two months so I should be able to get better traction during a few evenings each week.

My i-Phone is dying so I better need to upload this post while I can still use my personal hotspot!

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Long Time No Post

Posted on September 27, 2014 by alexk

I am sitting on my desk enjoying some sunshine.  It is great to not be at the library on a Saturday!!  That said, I just realized that because of a great deal of travel over the past few weeks I have not posted to this blog!!

Two weeks ago I visited my parents for the weekend, but spent the 4 hours prior to getting on the train sending hard copies of my dissertation to Wisconsin.  This past weekend I attended the Wisconsin Seminar and received great feedback on my latest draft and also had the opportunity to provide feedback to other researchers.  This was an unexpected benefit because it really helped to strengthen my skills as a researcher and reinforce some tweaks that I need to make to my dissertation.

This weekend was supposed to be research free: however, I have spent a few hours editing one chapter of my dissertation that I plan to submit to a journal.  This is exciting!!  I will write more next week when I resume my regular research schedule.

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7pm

Posted on September 6, 2014 by alexk

It is 7pm, the day has flown by!!  I didn’t accomplish as much as I wanted to but I am pleased with my output nonetheless.  It took some time to get back in the groove because I have so many piles of papers and articles!!  Once I organized myself, I focused on updating the empirical studies summary tables in Chapter 2, this took a long time.

Today I also created a plan for next week as I am on vacation and have to complete revisions on three chapters by end of day Thursday.  I will forward the revised thesis both electronically and by FedEx on Friday morning to the folks participating in the US Colloquium that I am attending in two weeks.  Heavy lifting ahead!!

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Family Frolic!

Posted on August 30, 2014 by alexk

It is a long weekend but I have been a conscientious researcher and have spent all day at the library.  It has been tough because it is warm and sunny, and the summer is coming to a close so I would really prefer to be outside.  That said, it is 440pm and I am almost done for the day.

We have several family events planned for this weekend which is lovely.  In many ways this has been become a bit of trend for the past month.  Although it has been difficult at times to juggle with research and work, I have thoroughly enjoyed all of it.  The family frolic will continue for another few weeks.  My brother will be in town again next weekend, and the following weekend I will travel home to see my parents.

I am making very respectable progress with my writing.  I was unable to post last weekend because I had a family event but I finished up the revisions to Chapter 1.  I had a productive meeting with my Toronto supervisor a few days ago, we discussed her feedback on both Chapter 4 and Chapter 1.  She is generally quite pleased which is terrific.  The other piece of good news is that I was accepted at a Women’s Leadership Conference in the UK in December.  Unfortunately, it looks like I will not be able to attend after all given my work schedule, but it was good to know that I met the conference standard.

I need to be very focused on my research for the next two weeks.  I am aiming to complete Chapter 2, and then devote four days of vacation to Chapter 3 and Chapter 5.  I need to print and ship all 5 chapters to Norway so that the folks there can begin their review in advance of the US Colloquium in September.  Never a dull moment!!

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