Dissertation Advice
Dissertation Advice:
The point is: what are you trying to show?
The point is: what is your point?
If you can get that straight in your head, and put it up front
at the beginning of your document, you will be able to proceed in a straight
line.
You will know what things are essential, and what things are distractions
or detours.
You will know when to stop writing: when you have demonstrated your thesis.
If your thesis committee makes unreasonable demands of you, you will be
able to tell them:
“(a) My thesis, as stated, is a solid advancement of the field, and
(b) I have supported my thesis.
This is all I need to do to graduate;
your requests are above and beyond this threshold.
Cancel them and give me my degree.”
——–
my thesis is… more or less that software is policy. not that code is law, but that software interfaces are policy devices that control and normalize humanities interaction with machines and that these policy devices have a politics, which plays a part in the political economy of the internet as seen through the open source/free software tradition.
