Dissertations: or, the Art of Knowing Yourself
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” - Aristotle
On the last day of my final year of Secondary School, my English class teacher gave us all little good-luck cards, which was very sweet. On the inside of mine, and in flawless fountain-pen calligraphy, she wrote: “Dear Stuart, wishing you the greatest fortune. Remember ‘This above all – to thine own self be true’”. Following this seemingly excellent instruction, I came to the University of Glasgow to study English Literature, where I quickly learned that the character who spoke these immortal Shakespearian lines wasn’t, perhaps, the most reliable source of advice. Moreover, ‘to thine own self be true’ sounds great – but it proved to be a lot harder in practice than I appreciated. This was made very clear in the three(!) dissertations that I subjected myself to over the years.
Based in the exquisitely stately Victorian houses in University Gardens, the English Literature department was very attractive to a young, impressionable undergraduate student. Amid the dark wood furnishings, in offices with packed wall-to-wall bookcases effusing the perfume of old paper and bound leather, across tables buffed smooth from generations of eager elbows, literature was discussed and dissected, tasted like a fine wine on a receptive palate. I easily became intoxicated in the whole aesthetic of the experience. So, when it came time for my final year dissertation, I didn’t think too much about it: I picked a couple of very large, impressive novels to “study” and buried myself in them.
Occasionally I would walk-off a hangover on the higher library floors, picking up books almost at random that might be useful. They looked impressive when I arranged them in tall stacks around my desk, but I’m not sure if I even got around to reading the introductions of 99% of them. We were allowed to meet with our assigned supervisors a couple of times, but I didn’t use that time effectively. I was too keen on giving the impression that I, too, was a cool tweed-clad academic – and “apparel oft proclaims the man” – to actually do the hard work and take my supervisor’s advice to heart. I didn’t really understand what a “methodology” was, and why I desperately needed one. This all came to breaking point in the fever-dream that was submission week, where I tried to bleed the proverbial stone and arrange my “thoughts” on the page. Needless to say, I didn’t do very well.
My natural aptitude for cramming, however, meant that I did well enough in my exams to give it another go as a taught-postgrad. The material was much harder, and so I raised my game enough to start to see what my undergrad supervisor was going on about. Nevertheless, when dissertation time rolled round again, this time over an incredibly sunny summer, the end result just sort of happened. This time, my supervisor’s penthouse office had an honest to goodness balcony, and our meetings in the sun, chatting literature made me feel very important, I must say. Of course, even though I was doing a little more in the way of research, I didn’t put the hard, editorial work in to the dissertation until very late: even I could see that the final product was a hodgepodge of neat ideas rather than an argument of clear, measured intention.
I swore to myself that I’d pull my socks up when it came to my PhD dissertation. Using the fancy stationery I tended to receive for Christmas and birthday presents, I tried to keep a journal – but, as someone with terrible handwriting (who has thus far refused to improve it), I could never be bothered trying to decipher my own chicken-scrawl. I spent hours copying out quotes by hand on to index cards and assiduously filing them away, many never to see the light of day again. I was still, of course, addicted to the romance of quill and ink. It was only after I started reflecting on how I was working, and where to find better alternatives, that I could “to [m]ine own self be true”. I put the pen and paper away and started working with Word documents, and then became acquainted with the absolute miracle that is reference managers: there were over 800 footnoted citations in my final dissertation, and my list of sources was 25 pages long; I now shudder to think about doing this by hand.
Like many of us who complete (read: survive) dissertations, we end up learning things about ourselves and how we work as much as about our individual topics of study. I was certainly a slow learner, but the learning experience – every stumble, fall, and rise – was invaluable, and which “I shall the effect of this good lesson keep as watchman to my heart”.
Written by Stuart Taylor, GTA for LEADS