Iterations Toward a Goal

I’ve been working on iterating a research proposal for submission for funding. This is a process of thinking, reading, fixing, getting feedback, changing and then doing it all again. This is, I’m thinking, what doing a PhD dissertation will be like, only the document will be one hundred pages rather than only one or two. I’ve been working on making changes based on the feedback provided. Now I’ve got new eyes looking at the article, not just my supervisor, but others who are willing, and have experience, in constructing these types of documents. Their feedback, compounding on the feedback already received, will help me iterate the text, craft the words into a coherent whole, that may or may not result in some funding for my research. There are no guarantees that all this work will result in any financial support, it certainly has opened my experience of having my writing scrutinized in minute detail. When an article is required to be a certain word count or page length, word crafting and spacing become part of the equation of success. So, I continue to put the puzzle together, take it apart, put in new pieces, take it apart, find new designs and shapes, take them apart, only to realize that the document I started out with does not in any way resemble what I end up with in the end.

I’ve posted the first version in this blog in a private posting. I’ll post the fifth iteration here as well, and then post the final version, once that has been attained, as a public document. Since the submission due dates are coming up, this process will inform some critical next steps in my PhD process.