For those of you who don't know, and wonder what is this paper that I constantly refer to, a PhD is not earned without a dissertation. A dissertation is a five-chapter paper that, depending on your field of expertise, ranges from 100 - 400 pages. Mine will hover around 150. It is split up into five chapters: the introduction, which is a summary of everything to come; the literature review, which is a long explanation of all the research and ideas that have come before; the methods, which is an explanation of how the study was done; the results, which is what happened in the study; and the conclusion, which is the justification for all the time and frustration, why any one should think your work in worthwhile.
When doing a dissertation, you first have to propose it, which is when you write the first three chapters, then present it to a group of professors and you all determine whether or not this study will work. I proposed my dissertation about 18 months ago. I only wrote the first and third chapters though, because I was significantly pregnant, and working on a bit of a deadline if I was to collect my data before my baby was born.
I did collect this data (640 16-page surveys) that ended up on my kitchen table two days before Kiddo joined us. You can imagine that at that point my progress screeched to a halt. I have slowly been coming back to working on this. For the first semester of Kiddo's life I still had a job to do in my limited work time. In the summer I did my calling and taught a course. Then, about six months ago I got all other school work off my plate so I could get serious about finishing up.
About 6 weeks ago I got even more serious, and now work in every available moment of my day (which is not as much as I would like, but not bad given that adorable little girl who hangs out with me every day.) I cannot work when Kiddo is up. She is content to entertain herself unless I am 1) using the computer, 2) reading, or 3) writing, the three things one must do to progress on a dissertation.
So now that you know how I am doing this, I must announce my victory for today: I started another chapter! No, I have not finished a single one, but now four out of the five chapters are started, and that is a reason to celebrate. Plus, I really feel like I'm making progress right now, so that's almost as valuable.
Oh, there's my daughter waking up, I'm off to live my other life, as a mom.
