Thursday, November 05, 2009

Adjectives on the typewriter, he moves his words like a prize fighter

I'm slowly but surely revising my dissertation according to comments given to me by my committee members. Four of the five had very little to say about it, but one had a lot of suggested changes. A lot of suggested changes. Some of them were helpful (very few), and others not so much (most), but he refused to sign off on the manuscript, so they're not exactly "suggestions" at this point since I have to go show him that I've made them all before I can his signature and actually graduate.

Since I'm a procrastinator and all, sometimes I like to do things that aren't exactly work, but make me feel as though I've done something productive with my time. A few days after I defended, before I really wanted to think about making the changes themselves, I went through the marked up copies of my dissertation and added all the suggestions from my committee to the electronic document using the 'Track Changes' function in Word. At the end of each comment I put the last name of the committee member who'd made it, so that when I went through to deal with them all, I'd know who to ask if I was confused about what they meant. Since some of the one committee member's many, many comments were not useful (dare I say stupid?), I found myself getting a little annoyed as I added his comments to the electronic file.

A few times I noticed that I'd typed his last name beginning with a lowercase letter. I started to go fix it, but then, in an act of childish behavior, I decided to leave it. I know, right? That sure showed him.

Anyway, he got the last laugh without even knowing it. The reason? As I have been dealing with each of these comments in the revised manuscript, I delete each one. The problem? Each one of the comments where I failed to capitalize his last name now requires an extra step, because I have to acknowledge the grammatical error before Word will allow me to delete the comment. The lesson? Some people are just here to make life difficult for others, even when they're not even trying. That, or that childish behavior doesn't usually give the desired result.

9 comments:

2 Dollar Productions said...

Childish behavior might not get you everything you want, but it still feels good every now & again even if you get burned by it. I swear some people carve things up just to justify their existence and hear themselves talk (even if they are in fact writing).

As for the previous post, I had no idea that Clinton would be so popular, but that is good to know for the future.

Amber said...

see I would have gone as far as to add my own rebuttal to his comments in the revision marks LOL

Kymical Reactions said...

After you get all of these changes made, and this guy finally signs off on your dissertation and you graduate - you should send him a box of red pens with a note that says something like "since you used all of your red ink on my paper, I thought you could use some more for the next sucker."

(just so you know, I'm the girl who laughs at her own jokes like they are the most brilliant thing anyone has ever said.) :o)

Michael Nannini said...

There seems to be a pattern emerging. I remember you ticking off one of your Master's committee members because you weren't taking their comments seriously enough.

Dr. Psycho said...

ha....when I did my dissertation, it helped when my committee chair got fired. The new chair helped me push it right through... :)

Bill From Gainesville said...

Its like in an Officer and a gentlemen. When the recruits are working for him to become officers they are his bitches. When they become officers though He has to salute him.. Although you might not soon be an officer you will have a PHD and really thats as High a degree as you can get so then he will be, if not your bitch, at least your peer... Wait till then and thats when you tell him to KISS your ASS!

mindy said...

my sister used to write our brother's name with a lowercase letter in her journal when she was upset at him. Which was most of the time.

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