How good was the first draft of your thesis?

Did it flow?

Was your argument clear or did you develop it further at a later point? Had you done all your footnotes?

What kind of feedback did you supervisor give you? rewrite? improve?

What should i be aiming for in my first draft? With two weeks to go before handing in my first draft of the complete thesis i feel like its never going to be perfect and am embarassed by the low quality of some sections, yet i can't address them all in the time available. However, I do not want to miss this deadline because of perfectionism!

Any advice?

I wish I could help you by speaking from experience on this, but I'm not at this stage yet. However, I do think it's worthwhile just getting the thing in on time, faults and all, and letting your supervisor give the guidance you need. Perfectionism can be such a blackhole where time is concerned and this is just a first draft, no?

I hope that helps a bit Jojo, good luck.

Hi Jojo,

I think it is like drawing a picture. At the beginning one needs to put a lot of effort in the composition and in making sure that "eyes and the nose" are in the right place. Once you have this OK, then one can fill in the colours and smaller details.

If you skip this initial part, you are quicker initially yet I do not think you get a good picture: if the nose is too long, it is too long and will not become better by changing the colour.

As such I spend a lot of time on making sure that the backbone of my text is correct and that there is a logical sequence. Once I have that I will fill in the details (which I do know, just have not put them all in one text).

Hope this helps and that I have not confused you more:-)

You need to be aiming for complete chapters, but an overall argument that might need a lot more work, and potentially much rewriting. I had mostly complete footnotes, but some were still to be written. I sketched out in bold and italic text what I was planning to put into them. Actually there were even a few main text sections of my chapters like that!

My overall argument certainly didn't flow well in the first draft. I'm currently in the process of final rewriting to sort that out. And all of my chapters needed rewriting and developing. And my supervisors gave me very critical feedback.

Basically view it as a work in progress. The complete first draft is a really important step, but it's not the end point, but rather a pausing point on an ongoing journey.

Good luck!

I am still a proponent of Flowers paradigm. http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Using+the+Flowers+paradigm+to+write+more+efficiently.-a019410805

It sets out four stages of writing. You are not yet at the final editing stage ( the Judge) and having this kind of structure helped me make sense of where I was, and also explain to my sometimes flabbergasted supervisor. It gives you a plan and a set of phases to go through, and literally a way to "shut off" the Judge ( the perfectionist) who does get to play his/her role, but only later, when needed.