Ending … again

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This ending doesn’t come with a soft sigh. It comes with strong emotions of elation and exhilaration. There is joyousness and jubilation in my knowing I have accomplished something great. Greatness, not for the world, but for myself. Greatness for the mere fact that it is the accomplishment of a job done!

This dissertation is done. The many steps that have lead me to this point in time are ending. I have passed through the labyrinth and emerged – changed and humbled by the walking. I write this post after the ‘official’ handoff to my supervisor and committee members. The products and my part in the process now pause, pending review and feedback. I have time to take a step away from the work, from the self-imposed pressures of completion, and from the puzzling over edits and revision. I know there may be more revisions to come, but for now, I can stop for a while.

Over the past several weeks, since my last post at the end of the dissertation writing phase, I have methodically worked on revisions of both the Scalar document and the word processed document, looking with a critical eye to grammatical and typographic errors.

  • I read through the print version of the document, marking up and rewriting where sentences don’t make sense or where verb tenses need to be changed. This process takes me a full week. Then I return to the digital versions – in Scalar and word doc – to make all the changes I have recorded in the print document. As I work through this process, I check and highlight what I have completed since I don’t always do this in a linear or logically manner.
  • I have puzzled over verb tenses to make sure they are consistently applied. I have removed the multiple commas that interfere with reading, then promptly reinserted them to suit my own preferences.
  • I have checked and double checked the in-text citations, working to rephrase quotations where possible. I have revised the references in Zotero to ensure they comply with APA formatting.
  • I recheck and match up the citations with the references to make sure that what I cite is listed in the references and vice versa. In order to track this, I checkmark and record the page number where a citation first appears so I can confirm that every reference is cited and every citation is referenced. I make an intentional decision to cite the quotations I use, so I update Zotero to include these in the listing. I do the same for references and citations used within the glossary.
  • As I work through this process, I also work on updating and completing the glossary and the acronym records. I record the page number where the acronyms appear for the first time so I can ensure that each one is ‘spelled out’ before being used throughout the document. In the Scalar version, I link a note to each usage of the acronym on any particular page – methodically checking each page for acronym usage.
  • After considering the impact of the quantity and detail of the glossary items, I shift the full glossary listing to the end of the word processed version of the document while leaving a one page, linked listing at the beginning of the dissertation. I do this to manage the page count and avoid an overly long front matter section in the eventual PDF version of the dissertation. For the Scalar version, I ensure that every glossary item is integrated into the document through the ‘in-text note’ feature, and that these are applied consistently without the title or description, only the content appearing in the note.
  • I review the listing of all figures and make strategic moves for the Spirals to Literacies graphic, having it appear within the literature review section rather than in the findings. I revise the figures listing where they appear within the document, ensuring the captions match the listing. In the Scalar version, I link the graphics and figures into the pages as well as hyperlink them to the one page listing in the front matter of the dissertation.
  • When this process is complete, I update the appendix section of the final word processed document, and match this to the Scalar version of the appendices.
  • The final task is the production of the ‘how to use Scalar’ to read the dissertation. This takes another two days to script, screen cast, and construct. In the end, I’m happy to have taken the time to get this done since it may help those who come to the document through this open option without any experience with Scalar software navigation.

Painstakingly, methodically, sequentially – I moved myself through the two versions of the documents to ensure they match and mirror each other as much as possible.

This process takes two weeks, full days, no weekends away, working and writing from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. with short movement and bio breaks semi-scheduled through the day. I adhere to this self-imposed exile from the world since I have an objective and self-selected deadline to meet.

During this time, I also reach out to my supervisor and each committee member to schedule a brief meeting to provide an update on my process and goal. This adds accountability to my process and production as well as provides time for me to check-in with each of them to see how their schedule may accommodate the review work that is coming their way. When I meet with my supervisor, we sketch out the possible timeline from submission of the completed dissertation to the tentative scheduling of the defense of the PhD. I also provide a short list of possible external reviewers who may be willing to provide that service to my doctorate process.

So, this ending, while feeling a lot different from the previous soft ending, also leads me to realize that endings are really only beginnings of the next phase of a journey. Or, the ending leads to a whole new journey based on where you may have ended up … in the end.

Image attribution: Photo by Crawford Jolly on Unsplash