Rough Theory

Scott Eric Kaufman over at Acephalous is blogging about dissertation fears again (for the record, he and I have had this conversation before).

Scott started things off with four of his fears; others have added theirs – as of this posting, the list is up to 16 (with two different contenders for #15). My main fear has remained constant now across several research degrees: that I am working on something that is completely obvious to everyone else, and that, when I finish, everyone will look at me and say, “You’ve spent three years on this?! Everyone knows this!”

From the Acephalous thread, I particularly enjoyed #8: “If you re-read your own work, you will discover you haven’t been writing in complete sentences.”

A warning, though, before you hop over and have a look: one recent commenter has complained, “Ya’ll certainly know how to dampen the (apparently naive) enthusiasm of a first year grad student.”