First Draft Completed

Coming in at a lean and mean 170 pages, 49,269 words, 945 paragraphs, and 4,506 lines, is my completed dissertation draft. *WHEW*

My immediate concern is my defense scheduled for this Monday, 11am, and I have a number of items to take care of before I leave for Los Angeles this weekend.

Of all the things to do I had the most difficult time with was formatting my dissertation, and writing my acknowledgements page. The general issue about formatting my dissertation are the specific requirements regarding margin lengths, typeface, point size, title page, signature pages, dedication, acknowledgements, table of contents, and many others. It's more of a technical issue but it is time consuming. For instance, one requirement about page numbering states that the page number should be at the bottom-center for the first page of each new chapter. All other pages will have the page number at the upper-right hand corner. After googling for the answer, I found that I needed to use section breaks that will allow different formats for each page including page numbering. I was using page breaks which allows a continuous format for all pages. *Shrugs* I did it and it's done.

The hardest part was writing my acknowledgements page and I can't say that I'm totally happy with it. According to the dissertation preparation manual, an acknowledgements page, "is where you would acknowledge the assistance of those who were significant contributors to the process of writing your dissertation: committee members, outside readers, someone who helped you formulate your proposal, someone who helped with computer work or statistical analysis. Funding sources which supported your research would be acknowledged here as well."

I made an initial list and I ended up with several dozen people to thank that went over three pages single spaced. That's way too long but how do I choose? I started by identifying who I absolutely had to include and they were my partner, my dissertation committee, and my dissertation grants. I then asked myself who could I do without and they were mostly folks I randomly met at conferences, through other friends, etc. Interesting conversations but not a totally huge impact on the direction of my dissertation. What's left are the people in-between that includes close friends, scholars, and professionals. I worked with a couple of friends from my program to build an intellectual community; I know have to thank them. There are friends who I met at Claremont who provided a wonderful social setting for colleagues; my quality of life would've been horrid if it wasn't for them. Then there are the folks in the academic setting who didn't treat me like an adjunct but helped my professional career and offered their support for my writing. They were highly influential because they gave me an idea on what it means to be a researcher/scholar/activist. It keeps going from there and I think I have to include my family in some way too even though my parents still have no idea what I do for a living.

I just have to keep thinking about who made a difference on my scholarship and how to determine those lines. Or, I could just make it totally simple and short. Thanks to my committee, my partner, and the dissertation funding from CGU.