If all goes well, I’ll be dissertating in the fall. So I’ve been happy to see some down-to-earth advice on the subject:

Collin, who is just about always helpful, points out that the dissertation is hardly your mature work. And that not producing an opus isn’t anything to be ashamed about.

So does Johndan, who has also provided my motto for the next couple of years: Pass Without Embarrassment. For whatever reason, this resonates with me more than the old The Best Dissertation is a Done Dissertation, perhaps because it can also be readily applied to exams (as he does). This is hard for someone who tends to overcomplicate everything in the attempt to overachieve, but I’d really like to come out the other end of this with some sanity left.

And Krause is remembering how he managed to get Done with his in a year. I’ve considered aiming for that, but I think going on the market while getting a diss off the ground might kill me dead. But at the very least, I’d like to defend the April after next.

Of course I’ll continue to do the best work I can. I’d like to think the diss will be a draft of a book, and that I could get a couple of articles out of it. Since a few already-written seminar papers are slated to be chapters, I think that at least the articles should be able to happen. But I’m setting aside the expectation that it’s either that or abject failure. Being Done is pretty good too.