Dissertation Fears: Please, Continue

Dissertation Fear #1: What you're writing is stupid.

Dissertation Fear #2: What you're writing is stupid and someone else said it first.

Dissertation Fear #3: What you're writing is stupid, someone else said it first and the both of you are wrong.

Dissertation Fear #4: What you're writing is stupid, someone else said it first, the both of you are wrong and they're all laughing at you.

Dissertation Fear #5: What you're writing is stupid, someone else said it first, the both of you are wrong and they'd all be laughing at you if they deigned to read your writing, or it ever crossed their radar, in the first place.

Dissertation Fear #6: Everyone else already knows what you're writing about.

Dissertation Fear #7: Everyone else thinks that what you're writing about is so obvious that they cannot even fathom how it possibly took you years to understand it.

Dissertation fear #8: If you re-read your own work, you will discover you haven't been writing in complete sentences.

Dissertation Fear #9: You know you're never going to make your deadline anyway, so why bother.

Disseration Fear #10: Oh Jesus, you've even got writer's block trying to write about dissertation fears.

Dissertation Fear #11: Your dissertation serves no useful social purpose.

Dissertation Fear #12: When you look back at your dissertation later in life, you'll wonder why you spent the time of your (relative) youth doing that.

Dissertation Fear #13: Since you've not really going to work in your field anyway, your dissertation will be the last thing you publish in that field. Which, face it, is pathetic.

Dissertation Fear #14: Since you're not really going to work in your field anyway, your entire degree (as opposed to whatever you learned) is really of no more value than some business major's resume-stuffing MBA. However, yours is actually of less value, since a Ph.D. will *prevent* you from doing certain jobs.

Dissertation Fear #15: This is not the end, but only the beginning. [context]

Dissertation Fear #15.1: What you're writing is stupid; someone else said it first; and if you keep reading, you'll find out who.  But if you keep reading, you'll never write.  But if you write and someone's said it and you didn't know, you're an idiot.  Because someone knows who said it, and if they haven't told you, it's because you've asked the question the wrong way. So you read.  But you can't concentrate because you should be writing.  Or submitting a proposal.  Or finishing that cover letter so you can resubmit that paper.  No, wait: if you just read this one last book, then you'll at least know that this author didn't say it.  So you read.  No, fuck it.  You may as well write because then you can always revise out the idiotic part that someone (who?) already said.  Unless someone already said it the same way you were gonna say it, in which case your whole project's worthless.  Ergo, why write?  So you read blogs.  And comment.

Dissertation Fear 15.2: Wait, what do you mean "only see four chapters here"?  Hand me that.  See?  One, two, four, five ...

Dissertation Fear #16: What you're writing is stupid; someone else said it first; he said it better than you; his name was Immanuel Kant.

Dissertation Fear #17: Your right leg is hollow, made of glass, and everything you eat goes into it. [context]

Dissertation Fear #18: You will suffer a violent syphilitic explosion followed by absolutely complete alopecia. [context]

Dissertation Fear #19: You forget your age and post "Four Reasons a 28-Year-Old Pulls an All-Nighter" instead of "Four Reasons a 29-Year-Old" does. [see also DF 15.1 and 15.2]

Dissertation Fear #20: You never will get to the point where you have dissertation fears.

Dissertation Fear #21: By the time you start your writing your disseration someone will have already said what you are trying to say.

Dissertation Fear #22: All that funky theory just won't work!  And you worry sound like an ass when you refer to just about anyone from outside your field.

Dissertation Fear #23: All that funky theory just won't work! And you worry you sound like an ass when you refer to just about anyone from inside your field.

Dissertation fear #24: These things get kept in libraries.  Someone will read this and think it's stupid after you're already dead.

Dissertation Fear #25: Even when you have a brief flash of discovery, and think that you're on to something important, you'll find that the discovery was made a long time ago by a well-known but out-of-fashion person in your field, and even then merited only a footnote. [context]

Dissertation Fear #1: What you're writing is stupid.

Dissertation Fear #2: What you're writing is stupid and someone else said it first.

Dissertation Fear #3: What you're writing is stupid, someone else said it first and the both of you are wrong.

Dissertation Fear #4: What you're writing is stupid, someone else said it first, the both of you are wrong and they're all laughing at you.

Dissertation Fear #5: What you're writing is stupid, someone else said it first, the both of you are wrong and they'd all be laughing at you if they deigned to read your writing, or it ever crossed their radar, in the first place.

Dissertation Fear #6: Everyone else already knows what you're writing about.

Dissertation Fear #7: Everyone else thinks that what you're writing about is so obvious that they cannot even fathom how it possibly took you years to understand it.

Dissertation fear #8: If you re-read your own work, you will discover you haven't been writing in complete sentences.

Dissertation Fear #9: You know you're never going to make your deadline anyway, so why bother.

Disseration Fear #10: Oh Jesus, you've even got writer's block trying to write about dissertation fears.

Dissertation Fear #11: Your dissertation serves no useful social purpose.

Dissertation Fear #12: When you look back at your dissertation later in life, you'll wonder why you spent the time of your (relative) youth doing that.

Dissertation Fear #13: Since you've not really going to work in your field anyway, your dissertation will be the last thing you publish in that field. Which, face it, is pathetic.

Dissertation Fear #14: Since you're not really going to work in your field anyway, your entire degree (as opposed to whatever you learned) is really of no more value than some business major's resume-stuffing MBA. However, yours is actually of less value, since a Ph.D. will *prevent* you from doing certain jobs.

Dissertation Fear #15: This is not the end, but only the beginning. [context]

Dissertation Fear #15.1: What you're writing is stupid; someone else said it first; and if you keep reading, you'll find out who.  But if you keep reading, you'll never write.  But if you write and someone's said it and you didn't know, you're an idiot.  Because someone knows who said it, and if they haven't told you, it's because you've asked the question the wrong way. So you read.  But you can't concentrate because you should be writing.  Or submitting a proposal.  Or finishing that cover letter so you can resubmit that paper.  No, wait: if you just read this one last book, then you'll at least know that this author didn't say it.  So you read.  No, fuck it.  You may as well write because then you can always revise out the idiotic part that someone (who?) already said.  Unless someone already said it the same way you were gonna say it, in which case your whole project's worthless.  Ergo, why write?  So you read blogs.  And comment.

Dissertation Fear 15.2: Wait, what do you mean "only see four chapters here"?  Hand me that.  See?  One, two, four, five ...

Dissertation Fear #16: What you're writing is stupid; someone else said it first; he said it better than you; his name was Immanuel Kant.

Dissertation Fear #17: Your right leg is hollow, made of glass, and everything you eat goes into it. [context]

Dissertation Fear #18: You will suffer a violent syphilitic explosion followed by absolutely complete alopecia. [context]

Dissertation Fear #19: You forget your age and post "Four Reasons a 28-Year-Old Pulls an All-Nighter" instead of "Four Reasons a 29-Year-Old" does. [see also DF 15.1 and 15.2]

Dissertation Fear #20: You never will get to the point where you have dissertation fears.

Dissertation Fear #21: By the time you start your writing your disseration someone will have already said what you are trying to say.

Dissertation Fear #22: All that funky theory just won't work!  And you worry sound like an ass when you refer to just about anyone from outside your field.

Dissertation Fear #23: All that funky theory just won't work! And you worry you sound like an ass when you refer to just about anyone from inside your field.

Dissertation fear #24: These things get kept in libraries.  Someone will read this and think it's stupid after you're already dead.

Dissertation Fear #25: Even when you have a brief flash of discovery, and think that you're on to something important, you'll find that the discovery was made a long time ago by a well-known but out-of-fashion person in your field, and even then merited only a footnote. [context]

Comments

[History Geek]

Dissertation Fear #26: Even when you have a brief flash of discovery, and think that you're on to something important, you'll find that the discovery was made a long time ago by a well-known but out-of-fashion person in your field, and even then merited only a footnote. Also, you're out of beer.

Dissertation Fear #27: No one will believe you wrote your dissertation.

Dissertation Fear #28: No one will believe you wrote your dissertation. Your cat get tenure. [Did your cat get tenure, or can you not get it?—Ed.]

[Raelun]

Dissertation Fear #29: You have what you think is a great idea but no idea how to do about DOING it.

Disseration Fear #30: Not knowing how to DO it means that maybe your idea isn't so great after all. Hence you got nothin'.

[N. Pepperell]

Dissertation fear #31: My cat will get tenure before I do.

[Adam Roberts]

I don't want to jump the gun here, but:

Dissertation Fear #1000: You are a tenured professor at one of the world's major universities. Everything is going right for you, professionally speaking. Then, one morning, prompted by a weblog thread, you look back at your dissertation, submitted so many years previously, and realise that oh my god it's complete crap from start to finish including the acknowledgements page.

[CR]

Dissertation Fear #32: Unfortunately, the self-loathing doesn't end so much as truly begin in the wake of the defence. You simply start a new list: First Book Manuscript Fear #1: I have to transform the wha? into a wha?

[Kerry Higgins Wendt]

Dissertation Fear #33: From the glass-lined tanks of old Latrobe

Your dissertation is actually good, but it will languish in a library unpublished because Stephen Joyce will put the kibosh on it and copyright law will be made that makes it impossible to live long enough to publish it. You:

a) consider self-publishing your dissertation as a chapbook!

b) consider having children so that you, too, can continue your legal publishing battles into perpetuity.

[Stephen Joyce]

re: Dissertation Fear #33 mwahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!

[Nathan]

Dissertation Fear #34

You'll never be as prolific as your parents, anyway.

[Jonathan Mayhew]

#34 I guess the biggest "fear" is one you might not even have thought of. That your dissertation will be fine, but that you will have squandered your youth worrying too much about it. That not as much is really at stake as you think!

[M Schwartz]

Dissertation Fear #35: Normative time.

Dissertation Fear #36: Those who entered your program after you did (as much as three years later) will have completed their disserations, published them, and found employment while you still toil away in revision.

[The Disgruntled Chemist]

I'm on #20 right now. Once I start my Ph.D. thesis, however, I'm sure I'll move on to a combination of the other ones. It helps that my Masters thesis was comically bad, and anything else I come up with will look brilliant and scientifically rigorous by comparison. I guess that helps, anyway.

Dissertation Fear #37 (special Chemistry fear): Your results don't really mean what you say they mean, and your thesis committee notices before you do.

[c]

It's what keeps you publishing -- you look at the CV and say yikes I'll be remembered for THIS.

[camicao]

Once completed, and with job in hand, then reset this post by substituting "Dissertation Fear" phrase with "First Book Fear". All else may remain the same, except reference to age of author, which should be upped, and the insertion of clause about being denied tenure and having spent 15+ years working for nothing, really. :-)

[dumber]

Dissertation Fear #40: "What you're writing is stupid; someone else said it first; and if you keep reading, you'll find out who. But if you keep reading, you'll never write. But if you write and someone's said it and you didn't know" ... you'll be hung for plagiarism because nobody will believe you didn't know that someone already said something that stupid.