--- layout: post status: publish published: true title: First draft of my Ph.D is done! wordpress_id: 1878 wordpress_url: https://www.martineve.com/2012/01/27/first-draft-of-my-ph-d-is-done/ date: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMS0yNyAxNjoyMjozNyArMDEwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMS0yNyAxNjoyMjozNyArMDEwMA== categories: - Personal - Academia tags: - PhD - PhDchat - hurrah comments: - id: 6604 author: Bex Hewett author_email: '' author_url: http://twitter.com/OrgMotivation date: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMS0yNyAxNjoyOTowMCArMDEwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMS0yNyAxNjoyOTowMCArMDEwMA== content: I am very impressed - that is a list to be proud of as you enter the last furlong of your PhD. I hope mine is as impressive when I get there! - id: 6605 author: Jo VanEvery author_email: '' author_url: http://twitter.com/jovanevery date: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMS0yNyAxODo0OTowMCArMDEwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMS0yNyAxODo0OTowMCArMDEwMA== content: That is a very impressive list. ---

Friday, 27th January 2012: 4pm. 2 years and four months into my efforts. The first draft of my Ph.D is now done! I have 81,000 words excluding introduction and conclusion, so some cutting needs to be done. Editing this is going to take at least a couple of months (some parts need beefing up, others paring down), by my estimates, but my last AHRC funding installment arrives in June, so I'm feeling confident. I will, of course, continue to read, amend, nuance and generally polish the work!

As with my halfway point post, I'm going to do some own trumpet blowing as I find this motivational and a positive influence for the, no doubt, protracted editing that still lies ahead.

Things I have achieved:

Write your own affirmative list and send me the link; a bit of self-congratulation can certainly ease the Ph.D pain!

Featured image by SqueakyMarmot under a CC-BY license.