Category: Writing

With my departure for the reading week in Dorset a mere nine days away, the pressure is on to submit as complete a thesis draft as possible, so there will be at least some opportunity for discussion before then. As such, my aim is to complete my consensus chapter by Sunday evening, at which point I mean to have it physically delivered.

The prospect of moving beyond the thesis is quite an alluring one. For months, the project has been dominating my attention – though often more on account of the anxiety it induces than in terms of workable ideas being generated and put on paper. The efficiency with which a project is completed basically seems to be inversely proportional to the total size. Dealing with a single email, one can use almost 100% of the time devoted to action actually working. For a research paper, it seems unlikely to be much above 50%. For a thesis, I would be surprised if 30% efficiency was being achieved.

Sorry to be writing more about the thesis. I spent a good fifteen minutes trying to think up something else to write about, as well as flipping through the websites most likely to provide inspiration.

The trickiest thing I am doing at the moment is trying to come up with an over-arching argument for each of my three substantive thesis chapters. Each one has a lot of content – many sources, issues identified as important, and specific points about those issues – but none really has a single massive point to prove. Personally, I am fairly happy to present things as a series of related vignettes on consistent topics and themes. It seems, however, that something more directed and integrated is required. That creates the danger of setting up straw men to knock down. Coming up with an important, novel point that takes 7000 words and a couple of dozen sources of diverse kinds to prove is not an easy thing.

PS. As part of my thesis-completion drive, I am boycotting Adium (a program that combines MSN, AIM, ICQ, Google Talk, and other message programs). People who want to speak with me should try Skype: more meaningful and less likely to carry on for many hours. My apologies to all the friends I have been neglecting, while trying to get through this.

Today’s meeting with my supervisor was very useful – the flaws in my draft second chapter were discussed, and a route forward proposed. As soon as possible, I am to submit a revised chapter two introduction, as well as draft versions for the opening sections of chapters three and four. These are to lay out the central purpose of each chapter, the three or four main arguments that will be made, and the structure that will be used:

• Chapter two, main argument: the linear model of scientific investigation is wrong, in the context of environmental politics generally and Stockholm and Kyoto specifically
• Chapter three: scientific and political consensus are not independent, the first does not chronologically precede the second
• Chapter four: technical remedies to environmental problems are not value neutral (be sure to focus on remedies and scientific rationality, not economic rationality ie. Coase)

Once that is done, I am to revise chapter two into a more logical form, then write the draft of chapter three that was originally due tomorrow. The objective of all this is to have the structure of all three chapters finalized by the end of the month, as well as their introductions and conclusions. Then, when Dr. Hurrell leaves for Brazil and I go to Dorset, it will be a matter of tidying things up, adding some footnotes, and generally polishing the finished work prior to submission.

Of course, that leaves me with eighteen days to write two more chapters, as well as discuss and edit them. Amazing how the period in which the bulk of the work on a project actually seems to get done always lumps up at the end. Hopefully, all the background reading I have been doing since last year will percolate into my analysis.