Chapter One

I rewrote my outline for chapter one to help
guide the rest of my progress and keep
me on track. Don't mind the belly bump view.

Last week I met with my advisor to make a plan to defend my dissertation proposal. It was a very good meeting. One reason it was so good was because he really helped me see the bigger issue of what I was trying to get at with my dissertation topic. One would think that choosing a topic and saying why it's a problem would be kind of simple. It's not. I have been struggling to really clarify why my topic has a problem, and why this problem is justified. "Because no one is doing this research" is definitely not a good justification for a problem. (Although if I said "because we shouldn't build a wall" I think my advisor would get on board).

So I am typing away, typing away, and making some progress. Next week my advisor and I meet to go line by line over what I have finished. And just yesterday I realized that I am actually writing a dissertation right now. Sure, technically speaking, it is a dissertation proposal, but for all intents and purposes, a dissertation proposal is really chapters one, two, and three of an actual dissertation. And I am closing in on finishing chapter one. CHAPTER ONE FOLKS. It is apparently one of the hardest chapters to write because it must clearly express everything that will be in my dissertation. Indeed, I am finding it rather difficult. But I'm getting there.