perfection in academic work

[Rukh O'Rorke]

Please encourage me.

I'm trying to do final proof on my proposal but I keep rewriting things. Last proof was supposed to be final, but I did too much rework. Moved paragraphs, etc and needed to do another proof today. It's 130 pages so not a quick process.

On one hand, just do it. Yes. On the other hand, I don't want to embarrass myself. Worse would be if my advisor was embarrassed.

My advisor is really tough and his last 2 students went professional editor before proposal. I didn't have time or money for that. I need to finish today, I m on page 5.

I want it to be perfect, at least super good. But I also want it done. I want to propose before end of semester.....

I keep trying to focus on "good enough" but I don't know what that is.

If I have 5 typos in 130 pages....is that good enough?

Any ideas?

[Lizard Queen]

When I find that I change wording, and then realize that the new wording is exactly the same as I had written a couple versions prior to that, I stop. ;-)

(Searching for perfection can make you waste time spinning your wheels. Strive for clarity.)

[hoops902]

5 typos in 130 pages isn't good enough...it really should be typo-free. Stop fussing with "moving paragraphs" and the like though. You could do that forever and it will never be "perfect" because you'll put it in ABC order today, and tomorrow you'll think CAB order is better, then the next day you'll think that's ridiculous and make the order ABC all over again. You can fuss and fiddle with flow and never be satisfied. Focus now on typos, grammatical errors, etc.

Do you have a friend to read it for typos? It's SO much easier to spot stuff like that when you haven't memorized every word of every page.

In short, stop the rewriting, just find things that would embarrass you like typos and obvious grammatical errors.

[midjd]

Is there any way you can come at it in chunks? That way, once each individual chunk is done, you can just do one big read-through at the end instead of trying to do a deep edit of 130 pages at once. 

Most of my work product is around 10 pages, so I don't have as much experience editing longer pieces, but what works for me is to let it sit after drafting (or making edits) and come back to it after doing something else. If I write, then immediately edit, then edit again, I tend to get bogged down and start second-guessing my original edits and wasting time. If I write, let it sit for an hour or two while I do something else, and then edit, about the same amount of time elapses but I am not spending it all on one task. (It doesn't sound like you have an hour or two per section to let it rest, but even just getting up and taking a walk to clear your head or getting a snack can help.)

Also, I have a hard time catching all my mistakes on a computer screen (especially punctuation)... so although it's a waste of paper, I print for my final edit just to make sure I am not missing any periods, etc. If you can get one of your kids to proof, that might help too -- it's easy for your brain to overlook typos if you already know what you're reading.

And don't worry about perfection. I work with some extremely good writers and we all edit each others' work... every single one of us makes typos, even after proofreading multiple times (and even the ones who have been doing this work for 25+ years). I highly doubt an otherwise solid proposal is going to get dinged for a few missed commas or transposed letters!  

[giramomma]

I find that eventually, with edits, you go down the rabbit hole of diminishing returns.

To help you get to "good" enough..you need to prioritize. What's the big prize? Being done, right?

OK. What do you need to focus on...your proof of your proposal.

Is it clear? Does it make sense? Is what you are proposing valuable? Have you vetted the research to show that the problem you are trying to solve hasn't been already solved?

Yes. Then it's good enough.

Let's stop and look a things. What do you think is going to hinder your proposal? 4 typos or something major, like not doing a good enough lit review....

I wrote my personal statement in a couple of hours. I did have someone at the writing center at my university look over it, and he did point out where he thought my statement was weak. I fixed it and had him look at it one more time. Good enough. It did it's job.

I'm not retaking my GREs, even though my math score was not very good. Ultimately, coordinate geometry has no bearing on my career. I've never needed it in the 16 years I've been at my workplace. I've already proven that I can handle going to grad school, because I have a good GPA from for my first grad degree. My references highlighted my work experience.

I mean, I could give up every night, weekend, and every waking moment for the next 6 months to try again to up my math GRE score by 2 points.

But, the cost is not worth it.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

I would stop moving things around.   The more you move things around the more mistakes are going to pop up.    If it flows and delivers your point I would consider the writing to be good enough and stop trying to make it "perfect".  There will always be someone who thinks you should have paragraph B where paragraph C is, that's how literary critics make a living.

Focus on the stuff that would make you appear sloppy such as any misspellings or glaring grammar errors.

For me my issue is always with commas.   I either use too many or not enough and it always freaking depends on who is reading my paper.  I'll get three different answers from three different people.

So at some point I have to give up and just let them have at it.   As long as my paper delivers the message I want it to I am not going to kill myself trying to predict the perfect comma quota.

[giramomma]

Serial commas, or lack there of, is definitely and individual style thing.

But, sometimes, it does matter
www.ft.com/content/bdfb60aa-12ef-11e7-b0c1-37e417ee6c76

[Lizard Queen]

I believe the APA does not use the Oxford comma.

[Rukh O'Rorke]

Mar 30, 2017 15:56:41 GMT -5 Lizard Queen said:

I believe the APA does not use the Oxford comma.

I always use the oxfords!!!!

[Rukh O'Rorke]

Mar 30, 2017 15:37:39 GMT -5 giramomma said:

I find that eventually, with edits, you go down the rabbit hole of diminishing returns.

To help you get to "good" enough..you need to prioritize. What's the big prize? Being done, right?

OK. What do you need to focus on...your proof of your proposal.

Is it clear? Does it make sense? Is what you are proposing valuable? Have you vetted the research to show that the problem you are trying to solve hasn't been already solved?

Yes. Then it's good enough.

Let's stop and look a things. What do you think is going to hinder your proposal? 4 typos or something major, like not doing a good enough lit review....

I wrote my personal statement in a couple of hours. I did have someone at the writing center at my university look over it, and he did point out where he thought my statement was weak. I fixed it and had him look at it one more time. Good enough. It did it's job.

I'm not retaking my GREs, even though my math score was not very good. Ultimately, coordinate geometry has no bearing on my career. I've never needed it in the 16 years I've been at my workplace. I've already proven that I can handle going to grad school, because I have a good GPA from for my first grad degree. My references highlighted my work experience.

I mean, I could give up every night, weekend, and every waking moment for the next 6 months to try again to up my math GRE score by 2 points.

But, the cost is not worth it.

I'm super good at the theoretical and finding holes in the research to fill.

I m less good at making my ideas clear, but my writing has improved considerably over the past year. Because I've been writing and rewriting continuously for last year, maybe year and a half? No, I'm losing time...almost 2 years

I'm the worst at finding typos. My brain is wired to sweep over, pick up the gist, and fill in what's missing.

I'm now on page 16, I'm trying very hard to let imperfect but grammatically correct sentences go.

The first 80 pages was reviewed by my advisor 3 times and then by a committee of 3. The rest has been through the 3 rounds with my advisor.

I'm just cleaning it up based on feedback and changes I made to first 80 pages, plus the method section, before it goes to committee of 5.

[Works4me]

Mar 30, 2017 16:36:26 GMT -5 Rukh O'Rorke said:

Mar 30, 2017 15:56:41 GMT -5 Lizard Queen said:

I believe the APA does not use the Oxford comma.

I always use the oxfords!!!!

The use of the Oxford comma can be seen as an indication that the writer is "older."

[Cookies Galore]

Mar 30, 2017 16:36:26 GMT -5 Rukh O'Rorke said:

Mar 30, 2017 15:56:41 GMT -5 Lizard Queen said:

I believe the APA does not use the Oxford comma.

I always use the oxfords!!!!

Oxford for life!

[Cookies Galore]

Mar 30, 2017 16:47:01 GMT -5 Works4me said:

Mar 30, 2017 16:36:26 GMT -5 Rukh O'Rorke said:

I always use the oxfords!!!!

The use of the Oxford comma can be seen as an indication that the writer is "older."

Lol, or works for a professional organization that uses it! (We use AMA style)

[Deleted]

I was an assistant editor once upon a time at College English.  It is one of the most important academic journals in our field.

There are always things you can improve.  The parent organization, NCTE, made us do a second set of proofs because they tired quickly of the cost overruns when we found something we just had to change in galleys.

Your committee isn't going to judge you by five typos.  Fifty, maybe, but not five.  What they are going to do is point them out.  What you are going to do is graciously thank them for their careful reading of your product.

Breathe.

[giramomma]

Mar 30, 2017 17:21:03 GMT -5 Cookies Galore said:

Mar 30, 2017 16:47:01 GMT -5 Works4me said:

The use of the Oxford comma can be seen as an indication that the writer is "older."

Lol, or works for a professional organization that uses it! (We use AMA style)

The profs that teach technical communication for our programs have the students to use Oxford commas.

People that still put two spaces after every period in Word, to me, signals that the writer is "older."

[Rukh O'Rorke]

Mar 30, 2017 19:29:36 GMT -5 giramomma said:

Mar 30, 2017 17:21:03 GMT -5 Cookies Galore said:

Lol, or works for a professional organization that uses it! (We use AMA style)

The profs that teach technical communication for our programs have the students to use Oxford commas.

People that still put two spaces after every period in Word, to me, signals that the writer is "older."

I do one space, so obs a youngster

I finished, declined to reproof, and sent. Then I realized I forgot to update toc after making sure tables and figures were ok, not splitting across pages, had their captions, etc.

Stayed at work to do it, now I'm traveling home just to retrieve, update, and send again in shame....

Ah well!

[Lizard Queen]

Mar 30, 2017 19:29:36 GMT -5 giramomma said:

Mar 30, 2017 17:21:03 GMT -5 Cookies Galore said:

Lol, or works for a professional organization that uses it! (We use AMA style)

The profs that teach technical communication for our programs have the students to use Oxford commas.

People that still put two spaces after every period in Word, to me, signals that the writer is "older."

My business school prof marked me wrong for using the Oxford comma, as the business school uses APA style.  Only, having previously gotten a phych degree from the same university, I thought I knew APA style.  . Guess things change over the years.  I might still do 2 spaces, too, but maybe not.  (I  try to write as little as possible.)  I did notice that office automatically makes the space after a period wider.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

I'm the worst at finding typos. My brain is wired to sweep over, pick up the gist, and fill in what's missing.

This might be hard to do with 150 pages but what I used to when writing papers and I'll do for people here who want me to check their English is that I read out loud.   For whatever reason it's A LOT easier to spot mistakes when I "sound it out".   

This really helps with reading stuff that is just slightly off English wise.  If I read to myself silently my brain will automatically fill in the proper information.   When I read it out loud my brain picks up that it doesn't sound like it's suppose to.

I look crazy while I am doing it, but it really helps me slow down and forces my brain to pay attention.

[janee]

Don't change things by moving them around, unless it's is a big error. You'll just introduce possible errors.

At this point, correct, not improve.

Good luck!

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

I had no idea you weren't supposed to double space after the end of a sentence anymore.

Maybe that's why it took me so long to get a job.

[giramomma]

Another thought for the future...

Does your school have a writing lab? Due to length, our lab would not look over your whole proposal. But, they would look at a particular part in depth. At my school, appointments are like 45 min in length..and they are free.

This might be a good compromise between nothing and a professional editor.

[giramomma]

Mar 31, 2017 8:50:22 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

I had no idea you weren't supposed to double space after the end of a sentence anymore.

Maybe that's why it took me so long to get a job.

Sometimes, I really am baffled at the amount of minutia I'm paid to deal with.

[Cookies Galore]

Easily my favorite news story of the past couple of weeks. www.ft.com/content/bdfb60aa-12ef-11e7-b0c1-37e417ee6c76

[Cookies Galore]

Mar 31, 2017 8:50:22 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

I had no idea you weren't supposed to double space after the end of a sentence anymore.

Maybe that's why it took me so long to get a job.

That's a typewriter holdover. You want to have a crazy party? Get some English/Journalism majors together, add wine, throw in a comment about Oxford commas or spacing after periods. BAM! Instant fireworks!

[Rukh O'Rorke]

Mar 31, 2017 6:47:42 GMT -5 Lizard Queen said:

Mar 30, 2017 19:29:36 GMT -5 giramomma said:

The profs that teach technical communication for our programs have the students to use Oxford commas.

People that still put two spaces after every period in Word, to me, signals that the writer is "older."

My business school prof marked me wrong for using the Oxford comma, as the business school uses APA style.  Only, having previously gotten a phych degree from the same university, I thought I knew APA style.  . Guess things change over the years.  I might still do 2 spaces, too, but maybe not.  (I  try to write as little as possible.)  I did notice that office automatically makes the space after a period wider.

I can only find that the oxford comma is usually omitted in journalistic type settings, I don't find anything official regarding APA, except this:

blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/04/using-serial-commas.html

which I took to mean that the oxford was APA style.

I'll check in my manual when I get to work.

[Rukh O'Rorke]

Mar 31, 2017 9:31:15 GMT -5 Cookies Galore said:

Mar 31, 2017 8:50:22 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

I had no idea you weren't supposed to double space after the end of a sentence anymore.

Maybe that's why it took me so long to get a job.

That's a typewriter holdover. You want to have a crazy party? Get some English/Journalism majors together, add wine, throw in a comment about Oxford commas or spacing after periods. BAM! Instant fireworks!

I can't decide if this is funny, or more sad....

[Rukh O'Rorke]

But speaking of APA and spacing after sentences....double space is still considered APA for draft submission. But I asked and it seems no one holds you to that when submitting, so I don't do it.

I did hang on to the double space for a while, it makes sense!!! But when word starting flagging it as an error, I gave up

[Rukh O'Rorke]

when I work up this morning, I realized I was dreaming about paragraph indenting errors.....Hope it isn't prophetic.

in reality.....Word was super trolling me yesterday. Changed the font of my headers......renumbered my research questions.....hope I caught it all....

[Pants]

Technically, I'm a professional writer. (Do I know how I ended up here, no.)

We read things out loud ALL THE TIME. If you stumble when you say it, go back and take a second look.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Mar 31, 2017 9:47:29 GMT -5 Pants said:

Technically, I'm a professional writer. (Do I know how I ended up here, no.)

We read things out loud ALL THE TIME. If you stumble when you say it, go back and take a second look.

Well at least that habit doesn't make me look crazy.   Now onto justifying the rest of them.