12-09-2005 12:52									#1
	Finishing a Dissertation.... Support Apolyton

Well... it's ****ing finished isn't it.

I just this minute fixed up the last typos I could find. I'll bet anything that some have been missed, but that's just life. It's all done and tomorrow, barring some fatal accident, I will hand it in to the School of Graduate Studies, pay them 15 bucks to bind it, and then it will rot in the Library with all of the others.

You would think that someone who had stupidly chosen a hard topic for his MA Thesis would not repeat that mistake again. Alas, I did. It's 50% larger than the typical doctoral thesis because I yet again chose a topic that required me to write about a large amount of material and which crosses swords with almost everyone in the business (thus requiring a million footnotes along the line of "X, Y and Z say p, but they are full of **** because of the 5 obscure references that follow).

Anyone else have a dissertation horror story to tell?


PS. I believe this is the first look at me thread I ever posted.

	12-09-2005 12:59									#2
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Now will you please stop sucking on the Canadian public teat and go back to sheepland where you belong?

	12-09-2005 13:15									#3
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I have dissertation horror stories. But not to tell, no. Just to repress, until one day they bubble to the surface, I snap, and all of Poly sees my neighbors on the news describing me as a "nice, quiet man."

	12-09-2005 13:17									#4
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quote: Originally posted by KrazyHorse Now will you please stop sucking on the Canadian public teat and go back to sheepland where you belong?

As soon as you stop spreading your vile liberalism among the good people of Maryland, and stop rogering your mates' birds.

BTW. I've been paying my own way for the last year.

	12-09-2005 13:45									#5
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Last dissertation I finished took 5 paper cutters, 2 knives, 3 forks, and lots of shots from a staple gun. A true horror, I tell you...

	12-09-2005 13:58									#6
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Last? How many dissertations did you write?

	12-09-2005 14:25									#7
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* Urban Ranger is wondering if BeBro is pulling his leg

	12-09-2005 14:27									#8
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Never

	12-09-2005 16:16									#9
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I can't help you with dissertations because all my work is based on plagiarism and making up things.

	12-09-2005 16:18									#10
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quote: Originally posted by Agathon Anyone else have a dissertation horror story to tell?

I lost about 4 hours of good writing to a crash on a mac after I had used the 'move' command rather than 'copy'. The irony was that it happened while making a backup from the HD to a floppy.

Thats about it. My PhD thesis is only 28 pages long with another 6 pages of refs. If you do novel work there's no need to write a bunch of 'filler' .

Of course the majority of the thesis work in Sweden is actually in the published papers that are included in the back so the 28 pages just tie everything together into one piece of work.

	12-09-2005 18:10									#11
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My wife's thesis for Art Therapy was just shy of 80 pages, plus another 81 pages of photos - she was trying to develop a new kind of psychological art assessment for inner city children. I had already helped her (hell, I did them) the sadistics, as she affectionately calls the math. I was tired, as I had to run all over Cleveland and Akron to find a University with the right modules for SPSS. We needed a very specific multivariate one that of course nobody had purchased (except for the University of Akron, go figure).

We were running up on a deadline. She told me don't worry, she would take the photos of the artwork with my 60mm flat field copy lens and my Nikon 8008. I had shown her how to do it in the past for her internships. I had driven up (four hours) after working a graveyard shift, so I happily crashed. We drove back home that evening, her family was uncomfortable with us sleeping together because we weren't married yet - as if we had been celibate for the previous three years (and the wedding was just a couple of months away).

Stupid Shawnmmcc. Dumb Shawnmmcc. Art Therapists are not known as precise, exact scientists. In fact the skill set to be good in the field is almost totally antithetical to that - and she is very good. Every photo, every God damn photo, was skewed. As in the artwork formed a trapezoid in the square photo. As in three edges had to be trimmed half-way between the skew and the square edge to hide the problem.

But no, not for 81 photos. For six time 81 photos, as we had to turn in the six copies (five in color, one in black and white) in a couple of days. Plus, we had got the film developed back home (we had never had a problem before, and she had taken duplicates - which were also skewed ). Which meant the professional copy stand was four hours aways, and we lacked the money and time to find a professional with the equipment and the expertise, if we could have even found one in our small town. So I trimmed 486 photos. Three edges each, which makes it almost 1500 trims. I called in sick to get it done.

I saved the shaved photo edges and gave them to my wife when she got her Masters, in this big envelope with a bow on the outside.

	12-09-2005 18:20									#12
	Re: Finishing a Dissertation.... Full PM-box? Change here!

quote: Originally posted by Agathon Anyone else have a dissertation horror story to tell?

My ex wrote, "Batchelor of Science" on the front of her dissertation. Which had entire chapters missing, a word count of less than 5000 (10000 is the norm), and earnt her a princely mark of 27%.

	12-09-2005 18:50									#13
	Re: Re: Finishing a Dissertation.... Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

quote: Originally posted by Gibsie My ex wrote, "Batchelor of Science" on the front of her dissertation. Which had entire chapters missing, a word count of less than 5000 (10000 is the norm), and earnt her a princely mark of 27%.

5000 words Batchelor?

Thank God you got rid of her.


My horror stories are yet to tell when I finally come to review all the microfilm documents I ordered from the archive. I'm sure they're unreadable now, some will be mising and some will just have the last word in each line missing because they were too stupid to remove the thread of the bundle or because they don't want to "alter" the document. ****, how that thread hold together the bundle won't tell us anything, but the document is worthless if I can't read the last word in the line!
It has not yet happened, but it will!

	12-09-2005 21:01									#14
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i've finished my PhD dissertation last month

and i already know that newyear is going to come one month too early...

	12-09-2005 22:08									#15
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My first dissertation commitee chairman was a terrific economist and an even better teacher. (TCO had some classes from him and agrees completely.) He likened the effect of earning a Ph. D. to getting a union card. But this first chairman went to Berlin for a three-year sabbatical, so could not continue to serve on my commitee.

The chairmanship then devolved to the second most senior member of my committee, who had, I learned later, a long-standing reputation in the department as a right bastard. When I met with him for the first time as chairman, he described the process to me as follows:

quote: "Writing a dissertation is like public crucifixion. When I decide you have suffered enough, we will cut you down and hand you your degree."

Jobs were tight, so I took a full time job and left grad school before I was finished. Took me every single weekend, vacation day, and holiday (except Christmas and Easter) for the next two and a half years to get it done.

I brought the finished product to the grad school office. The secretary hit about three keys on the computer and said "You're done." I'm thinking "WHAT??? THAT"S IT???? If that's all there was to it I would have broken in three years ago and punched the three damn keys myself!!!" I stumbled to the edge of campus, sat under a tree, and stared at Lake Michigan for 4-5 hours, emotionally exhuasted.

The strange thing is that I learned far more economics at work than I ever did at school.

Protocol Note For Agathon:
You did not receive a Ph. D.
You were not awarded a Ph. D.
If the task was anything at all worth the doing,
you earned a Ph. D.

Congratulations.

	12-09-2005 22:34									#16
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Maybe now you can do something useful in the real world.

We need more workers in the oil sands out here. Good pay, too.

	12-09-2005 22:54									#17
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quote: Originally posted by Adam Smith quote: "Writing a dissertation is like public crucifixion. When I decide you have suffered enough, we will cut you down and hand you your degree."

I like that. It describes the majority of thesis defenses. Mine was a little different. Aside from one slight bobble, I was on the offensive the entire time. After all, no one knew as much about the subject as I did.

	13-09-2005 04:48									#18
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quote: Originally posted by Asher Maybe now you can do something useful in the real world. We need more workers in the oil sands out here. Good pay, too.

I thought that for an easy time I'd change to a subject that requires no intellectual ability, originality,wit or personal hygiene.

It's called computer science....

	13-09-2005 05:03									#19
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I'd like to see you try. Really, I would.

	13-09-2005 05:21									#20
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Intereseting stories, people.

quote: Originally posted by SpencerH I like that. It describes the majority of thesis defenses. Mine was a little different. Aside from one slight bobble, I was on the offensive the entire time. After all, no one knew as much about the subject as I did.

What was the subject of the thesis?

	13-09-2005 08:45									#21
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I have to write a dissertation next year

Any ideas/advice?

	13-09-2005 08:48									#22
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I'm not working on a PhD dissertation, but I am currently in the middle of working on my Masters thesis.

	13-09-2005 10:55									#23
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I've got that to look forward to next year. Yay!

	13-09-2005 11:47									#24
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quote: Originally posted by Gibsie I've got that to look forward to next year. Yay!

Are you already an avid drinker of coffee? Because if you're not, I hope you won't become addicted to it, as you slave through your paper.

I think I'm one of those rare, hardened troopers who has never had to drink coffee even with the hours I have put in so far, working on my thesis.

	13-09-2005 12:04									#25
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quote: I can't help you with dissertations because all my work is based on plagiarism and making up things.

You are my hero.

	13-09-2005 12:16									#26
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I proofread my friend and coworker's electrical engineering thesis. He's a Turk so it was mainly a case of checking his english, and thank god because the last science classes I had were 20 years ago, and the last math classes 25 years ago. It was 40 pages long, and I understood very little of it.

	13-09-2005 16:59									#27
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quote: Originally posted by VetLegion Intereseting stories, people. What was the subject of the thesis?

Epithelial cell cytokine production in response to infection.

	13-09-2005 17:49									#28
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quote: Originally posted by SpencerH Epithelial cell cytokine production in response to infection.

I have the disco mix of that I think....

	13-09-2005 19:14									#29
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SpencerH - could this help deal with some of the new supergerms that cause topical infections, i.e. hospital staph and the so-called flesh-eating strep?

	13-09-2005 21:37									#30
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Prior to my/our work no one thought that epi cells played a role in immunity except to act as a barrier or to transport antibodies out of the body. The production of cytokines by epi cells in response to infection fundamentally changed our understanding of mechanisms of immune responses at mucosal surfaces and the skin. So in that regard it may help, i.e. people will look for responses they wouldnt have before but I wouldnt think theres any direct benefit.