How to write a humanities dissertation, part three: The Messy Middle

(See part 1, and part 2)

Step 1: While reading Writing your dissertation in 15 minutes a day, you come across a lovely piece of advice from the illustrious authoress, Joan Bolker. She suggests that, when writing, one should "Make a mess, then clean it up." You begin to feel that you are on the right track, for you have certainly made a mess. You have pages and pages of mostly useless free-writes; long sections of quotes, loosely strung together; a half-baked introduction; an outline; and a collection of your own stream-of-conscious annotations for the the complete works of Bob Dylan. What you don't have is a dissertation. Now is certainly the right time to start "cleaning up."

Step 2: In an effort to clean up this mess, you hand-write a large outline using several sheets of your favorite yellow legal pad, then you cut the outline into pieces and attempt to rearrange them until you get something resembling a useful structure. Working with pen and paper and scissors gives you a much-needed sense of accomplishment. Unfortunately, at the end of the project, the digital elements of your dissertation are still in the same mess they were in before, and, despite the wonders of technology, your free version of Open Office writer does not make the task of organization as quick or simple as you'd like.

Step 3: You download Scrivener, a word-processing tool that has several useful features for what you are now calling your "messertation."  Scrivener allows you to break your dissertation into multiple sections that you can view all together as in an ordinary document, in outline form, or (your favorite), in notecard form. You can click and drag these sections around just like you could with physical pages, making it easy to rearrange and reorganize to your heart's content. You can dump all the "extra" stuff that you're not sure about into a research section along with notes, .pdfs, website links and other research materials. When you're done, you can export everything into one of several formats. In short, Scrivener is a saving grace at this point in the process, well worth the money. With the help of these tools, you slowly begin to take control of the messertation.

Step 4: An introduction, two chapters, and a re-worked outline in hand, you excitedly meet with your advisor. He wants to rehash the same quibble about definitions in the introduction that you thought you had already fixed. (See part 2). You wonder if he has even read the chapters or the outline. You wonder if anyone will ever read any of it. You wonder if your life has purpose and meaning. You wonder where you can get some Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream at this late hour.

Step 5: You plod ahead, continuing with your morning free-writes and your 1,000 words per day. Unexpected life circumstances interfere with your writing routine, and getting back into the swing of things is difficult without any hard deadlines in front of you. To make yourself feel like you're being productive, you re-organize again, and again, and again. Scrivener is a useful tool, but it is also evil, as it makes limitless organizational schemas easy, turning you into a compulsive re-organizer who hardly ever puts actual words on an actual screen. You need some motivation; you need Part 4: The Dire Deadlines.