Writing Your Thesis/Dissertation in 15 Minutes Per Day

Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day by Joan Bolker
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

An interesting and quick read for those beginning and thesis or dissertation.  I was able to quickly read through it during a two hour plane ride and pick out the best pieces of advice and tips for completing a thesis of which I am proud.  Now, to get to the writing!


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Surround Yourself With Intelligence

It has been a while.  Over the last two weeks I have written 50 pages of academic writing for 3 papers for 3 different classes on 3 different subjects.  This term was going to be tough and these papers pushed, pulled, squeezed, manipulated and crunched my brain into places that are new.  New knowledge.  New thoughts.  New theories.  New ideologies.  Moments on which to dwell in order to entwine these new concepts into my already formed ideas, thus pushing the boundaries of that which I thought I knew.  Education.  A way to open doors of thought that you did not even know existed.

Over the next few posts I will share with you the basic arguments, ideas and thoughts from the papers I wrote.  This may even include the stacks, and I mean STACKS of articles and books I have read over the last four months.  A small forest is cursing me at this moment.

For now I want to introduce you to Web 2.0.  What you may ask?  The newest phase of the internet, the web, this place, the place that has turned a corner.  An environment in which people are now seeking the thoughts of like-mided individuals to with whom to share their ideas, influence their opinions, solve problems, and improve decisions.  After reading an article about travellers using the internet in more of a Web 2.0 direction, I started seeing this place differently.  In the end, this new information served me well.  While writing one of my papers I became stuck.  Could not think of the correct word.  Completely mind-frozen.  So I turned to Facebook (the beloved and dreaded reference in many current conversations) to ask for friend help in selecting the correct word.  Many brains better than one.  True to

the reputation of Web 2.0, I was directed by many an intelligent friend in choosing the correct word. It was such fun to read through everyone's responses and I am adding them here. I learned again in my life, that selection of friend's based on intelligence, humour, kindness or decency, the best kinds of people to have around. Enjoy!

My Post:
Quick I need a word for a paper: one word that means a reference to the past. I.e. "The modern day temple at this festival is a _________ to historical temples built by all dominant religions around the world." What academic word can go in the blank people?

Within 3 hours I had 22 responses and then they continued:

Sarah
the only word that comes to mind is throwback, but that's not very academic.

Cristy
tribute?

Cristy
p.s. I'm not an academic but gave my opinion anyway. darn bossy teacher you know! ;)

Shelley 
tribute

Sarah
tribute sounds good

Shelley
symbol

Jeff
homage

Bev
obeisance

Deb
nod, acknowledgement

You Know Big Words

When I finished high school my family moved to Ottawa and I moved from a city of 3 million people (Cleveland) to a city of 40,000 (Medicine Hat).  It actually saw tumbleweed rolling through the downtown bit (too small to be called a 'core') one day when I was trying to get to know the city.  Culture shock in so many ways!  While in The Hat I pretended to go to class and played basketball with the Rattlers at Medicine Hat College.  One day, one of my team mates asked me a question, "why do you use such big words?"  I can't remember my reply but I remember being stunned that someone thought I had a large vocabulary.  It always seemed about normal to me.  (Recently I drove through the hamlet of a town she was from in Saskatchewan and realized why I seemed so odd and perhaps in her eyes.)  Once in a while I drag up this memory as I learn a new word and have a giggle.

This term of Grad School has hit me at breakneck speed like a wall of ruddy, inflexible, unyielding bulwark of responsibilities.  It was inevitable as my last term started really slow.  My class schedule alone is bulky, but add being a TA and a Grader/Marker to the mix, while I begin to hunt down an adequate summer job and the term is going to be over like the flash of a light-bug's bum.  Here I sit taking a break from the 1.5 inches of reading I had to accomplish for this week's classes.  Much, much reading to complete.  It dawned on me that I have been using a dictionary more than I ever had over the last 2 weeks, and had a giggle as my use of large words does not include much of the language I am encountering at Grad School.  Last week while reading an article about consumer culture and the media I lowered the article from my face and yelled at the wall, "who writes like this!"  It seemed as though the thickness of the vocabulary was going to leave me stuck in a quagmire of stupidity.   Thanks to my phone App dictionary.com I have learned even more words and someday someone will scream at me, "who uses such high falutin' big language?"  One can only hope.

Below is the list of words I have had to familiarize myself with in order to understand what the hell I am supposed to be doing.

List of Words
January 4 - 24

• invidious
• emulation
• pecuniary
• conspicuous
• fetishism
• dataveillance
• cathect
• cathexis
• semiology
• fecundity (have heard the word for years but can never remember the definition)
• metonymy
• diasporic
• concomitant
• meme path
• parlysian
• torun
• concupiscent
• phylogistic
• grodno
• tautology
• evenescent
• sanguine
• intransigent
• perspicious
• subsumptive
• subsumption
• occlude
• indefatigable
• eidetic
• contrastive
• hypostatization
• reify
• multiphrenic
• ersatz (I have had to look this one up many times over.)
• aestheticized
• neurasthenia
• cognoscenti
• antinomial
• flaneurs (French)
• typology
• ephemeral
• interpellated
• poesies
• monolithic
• lacuna
• limen
• limina
• threshold
• communitas
• liminality
• serendipity
• discursive
• phlogistic

Yep, that is the list so far.  How did you do?  Do you feel smarter than me because you could actually use one or two of them in a sentence?  Good for you!   Feel free to leave me a comment your favourite word on the list, about a new word you have learned recently, or a story about feeling completely incompetent.  Go!  Learn!  Use big words!

Spelling

Why isn't 'grateful' spelled 'greatful' as well?  Should there not be two spellings depending on which message you are trying to share?  Being thankful versus something being great.  Makes sense to me....