Tuesday, March 16, 2010

541 Pages

No, that is not the length of my last post.

My dissertation is just about complete. I just need to fix a few formatting items, enter the edits for one of the chapters, and add a couple pages to the conclusion. So, anxious to see how long it would be, I finally made the left margin the requisite 1.5 inches (standard width for all dissertations so that they can be bound and still leave a 1 inch margin) and I paginated each chapter to begin after the previous. When I got to the end I found this beast is 541 pages! Holy Moley! That is a very long dissertation (250-300 is pretty normal). Now, to be honest, 39 of those pages are my bibliography and appendix, but it is still a meaty book. Everything should be finalized by end of this week and I can put copies on the desk of my committee members and schedule the defense.

So, you are wondering where Jen is at with her "final paper." They may call it a paper but long winded writing seems to run in the family because her work will be exceptionally long as well. I think most final papers are the length of MA theses, that is, 80-120 pages (though a good friend of ours just got away with a 25 page paper to finish his DMA). Jen is on track for about 150 pages, she thinks. We'll see at the end of the week when she finishes the draft for each chapter. When I was writing my thesis at Nebraska she said she could never do it. I think now she is even starting to like it.

As per Abby, well, she is working hard too. Last night she counted to ten with just a little help remember number four. She can also do most of her ABCs from A to G. She is a bright girl.