email sent to my supervisors today
Aug. 31st, 2023 08:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kareinaToday I have achieved a milestone with Chapter 2—feeling like I have a reasonable number of documents included in the literature review. There are still many more that I have cards for that can go in, of course, but now I feel that if we decide that for reasons of time constraints I need to stop before including all of them, there is enough that I wouldn't be embarrassed by how few had been included. To celebrate I have complied the document to epub again for myself, and, because the file is much too big to email (70,000 kb), I have decided to experiment and see what happens if one compiles direct to pdf from Scrivner. It isn't perfect, and there are places the layout needs help, but it gives an idea, and also shows me how the page count is doing.
The document is currently at 47,210 words, not counting references or figure captions, which translated to the first 137 pages of the single-spaced pdf (see attached), which leaves 50 pages of figure captions and references. I hope this is all in line with what you guys are expecting.
I finally remembered to do my registration for autumn today, and when I did it said that my fee was £0.00
I like that number, and I hope it is correct.
If it is, and I don't need to pay for fall term, then I am feeling even better about my progress this summer.
I have been very aware that I still have at least the Discussions and Conclusions chapter to write (though, as you can see if you look in the pdf, there is a pile of notes sitting there to be turned into coherent text). I also think it would be lovely if I also can finish the data processing on the two Hedeby artefact LA-ICP-MS results, though Tobias says that they "are not dated and thus not very suitable for publishing", I think they would still be interesting, especially as I recall that I analysed spinel, but their composition was very different from the spinels from my quarry samples (which is good, as Handöl is so far north and inland that one wouldn't expect it to be exporting to Hedeby), but as we know from what I have done so far with Chapter 5, data processing and writing it up takes time. I still haven't had time to write up anything for the XRD or SEM results.
I would love to meet with one or both of you soon to discuss logistics and when I have to get this submitted so that it can go through everything that needs to happen before the degree is granted, preferably with enough time that I don't have to enrol again next spring.
Ok, I confess that other than the worries about funding I am still enjoying this research enough that if I don't need to pay fees I would be ok to keep going longer than that, even without an income, especially if this could be a PhD, as originally planned.
I am, of course, still willing to accept a Master's degree, if that is the level of what I have accomplished with my work—it is tough for me to say, not being used to how Archaeology degrees work compared to Geology. I do know that this document is certainly much, much bigger than my first Master's thesis, which was 92 pages, double spaced, including references and figure captions. It is even considerably larger than my Geology PhD, which was ~11,000 words).
Doing that comparison, makes me wonder if I miss-heard Karen when she suggested that the word count goal for the Master's was 50,000 words. Could that have been 15,000? Or are UK theses more substantial than US or Australian ones? Either way, we should talk. What does your schedule look like?
The document is currently at 47,210 words, not counting references or figure captions, which translated to the first 137 pages of the single-spaced pdf (see attached), which leaves 50 pages of figure captions and references. I hope this is all in line with what you guys are expecting.
I finally remembered to do my registration for autumn today, and when I did it said that my fee was £0.00
I like that number, and I hope it is correct.
If it is, and I don't need to pay for fall term, then I am feeling even better about my progress this summer.
I have been very aware that I still have at least the Discussions and Conclusions chapter to write (though, as you can see if you look in the pdf, there is a pile of notes sitting there to be turned into coherent text). I also think it would be lovely if I also can finish the data processing on the two Hedeby artefact LA-ICP-MS results, though Tobias says that they "are not dated and thus not very suitable for publishing", I think they would still be interesting, especially as I recall that I analysed spinel, but their composition was very different from the spinels from my quarry samples (which is good, as Handöl is so far north and inland that one wouldn't expect it to be exporting to Hedeby), but as we know from what I have done so far with Chapter 5, data processing and writing it up takes time. I still haven't had time to write up anything for the XRD or SEM results.
I would love to meet with one or both of you soon to discuss logistics and when I have to get this submitted so that it can go through everything that needs to happen before the degree is granted, preferably with enough time that I don't have to enrol again next spring.
Ok, I confess that other than the worries about funding I am still enjoying this research enough that if I don't need to pay fees I would be ok to keep going longer than that, even without an income, especially if this could be a PhD, as originally planned.
I am, of course, still willing to accept a Master's degree, if that is the level of what I have accomplished with my work—it is tough for me to say, not being used to how Archaeology degrees work compared to Geology. I do know that this document is certainly much, much bigger than my first Master's thesis, which was 92 pages, double spaced, including references and figure captions. It is even considerably larger than my Geology PhD, which was ~11,000 words).
Doing that comparison, makes me wonder if I miss-heard Karen when she suggested that the word count goal for the Master's was 50,000 words. Could that have been 15,000? Or are UK theses more substantial than US or Australian ones? Either way, we should talk. What does your schedule look like?