Thoughts on Introductions

I promise this isn't dissertation whining, more like... musing. I finished my introduction this week and sent it off to my advisor (henceforth known as The Scot) for comments. I don't think this would have been possible without the help of my commrade-in-arms, D. I swear she is the yin to my academic yang, and has the incredible ability to make sense of my frantic writing and give really constructive feedback.

So here are a few thoughts:

-Chapters suck, but the introduction might be the worst (saving the final assessment until I have to write the conclusion).

-Lit reviews are a real pain, but once you figure out they are not supposed to be anything like the historiographic essays you've spent the last 7 years writing or your QE papers, they get better.

-The intro to the intro - where you lay out your argument - is really hard. Even after you've been working on your argument for years. The "haven't I already said this a million times" feeling is really hard to shake. I was only able to write this after sending D my chapter and asking her: so what is this actually about? What's actually important here?

-If you are like me, and struggle with the cute-narrative-anecdote-to-pull-the-reader-in-thing, the intro to the intro is a real bitch. I still don't have a hook.

-When you thesis, make sure you have a thesis buddy going through approximately the same phases as you. Someone who can give you really honest, concrete, put-this-sentence-here, despite-the-70-pages-you-wrote-this-bit-on-page-72-is-your-real-argument, you can do it! kind of feedback.

Finally, in retrospect I should have hired another one of my major thesis support people, the Goat, to write my intro. He's a master at historiography and even better at integrating anecdotal evidence to bring in the reader. My current "hook" is a tiny baby step up from "this dissertation argues X".

Conclusion: Despite the historical field's insistence that our work be solitary endeavors that express the unique genius of each of us, the best academic work should be collaborative and draw on other people's strengths. If I could combine one super-historian that incorporated D's deft handling of research and analysis, the Goat's mastery of historiography and anecdotes, and my editing, interdisciplinary, and public speaking skills... we'd be unstoppable! Maybe that's why they make us work in isolation, too much power and we'd actually succeed in taking over the world.