Using Scrivener to Write a Dissertation – Why I’m Glad I Did and What I Would do Differently Next Time

My younger colleagues often ask me for dissertation advice. How do you keep your research and notes straight? How do you structure and restructure your argument? How do you motivate yourself to write on a regular basis? How do you do all of this without losing your precious sanity? Regardless of which question I am being asked, my response almost always involves a common refrain: Scrivener.

Developed initially for novelists and other creative types, Scrivener is writing software that has earned quite the following in the academic community. In this post I would like to outline why I chose to use it while writing my dissertation, why I am glad that I did, and what I would do differently if I had to do it all over again.

[N.B. — Initially designed for Mac, Scrivener is currently available for Mac and Windows. Everything in this post is in reference to the Mac version. I have never used Scrivener for Windows.]

Why did I choose Scrivener initially?

A fellow graduate student introduced me to Scrivener years ago. I will confess that while he was explaining several of its features, I found myself wondering why he was so excited. How could this software be useful to ME, someone responsible for writing serious and scholarly things? I already had Microsoft Word, and it had brought me through college and two masters degrees, right? So what, I asked, was the point? I concluded (hastily, in hindsight) that it should be placed alongside font selection as one more way that graduate students could procrastinate while still appearing productive.

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About two years later and after several other encounters with devotees of the software, I passed my comprehensive exams and jumped headfirst into the dissertation. And because I was a graduate student, I also began to search for clever and efficient ways to procrastinate: I started printing out test pages to determine which font I was going to use; I began experimenting with alternative/therapeutic lighting schemes and furniture/book arrangements in my study; I discovered that not all note-taking paper is created equal; and I learned that Microsoft Word is neither the only nor the best word processor for long, book-length documents. Realizing that I was deceiving myself into thinking that such pursuits were good uses of my precious time, I devoted one day—and one day only—to figuring out which font, paper, and word processing software I was going to use.

I downloaded a few options to start with: Nisus, Mellel, Bean, LaTex (which I never did figure out). After toying around with these a bit, I remembered Scrivener. I’m not sure why, but when I opened up the software for the first time something about it just clicked with me. Perhaps it was because I found the programs I had looked at thus far to be downright clunky, but Scrivener’s user interface struck me immediately as clean, well organized, and intuitive in many ways. After about an hour with it I was hooked; I took a few of the tutorials and had a detailed outline set up in no time. So yes—ironically, what began as an attempt to procrastinate ended up yielding what I now consider to be the single most important tool in my toolbox.

Why am I glad that I chose Scrivener?

Anyone who uses Scrivener on a regular basis has an opinion regarding its most useful components. Below are three of the features of Scrivener that I found to be the most helpful in the process of writing a dissertation. The list is not intended to be exhaustive.

1) Outlining — One of the things that takes a bit of getting used to in Scrivener is the “binder” that is situated to the left of the text input window. The binder is divided initially into three sections: draft, research, and trash. The draft and research sections allow you to create outlines to guide you in the process of writing and research. These can be about as detailed or broad as you want.

The outlines you create are actually systems of tiered text files. So, let’s say you make an outline for “Chapter 1.” Under this broad rubric you construct five headings, and under each of these headings you create three subheadings. The benefit of this—aside from more or less requiring you to outline your project before you start writing it—is that the system of text files allows you to skip quickly from one section to another, which helps move you away from thinking of the whole thing in strictly linear terms. Most of us don’t think in straight lines from start to finish, yet the expectation (for whatever reason) is that we need to write this way. No wonder the experience of staring at a blank page is such a common one!

Scrivener’s outlining feature certainly does not eliminate writer’s block, but it does remind you that your larger project is made up of individual components, and that you don’t necessarily have to work on them in order. In fact, the whole thing may move along more quickly if you don’t work on them in order!

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2) Automatic Writing Goals — If you know roughly how long your project should be, and you know when you want to have it completed by, Scrivener can help you figure out how many words per day you need to write every day in order to reach your goal on time. I am aware of no other program on the market that has a feature like this.

I knew that my dissertation needed to be around 65,000 words, not including footnotes, and I also knew that I wanted to finish writing it in one year (that didn’t happen, but that’s a story for another day). So I opened up Project Targets, entered my figures, told Scrivener to “automatically calculate from draft deadline,” selected the days on which I planned to write, and that’s it. Turns out that if you want to write 65,000 words in one year, and you only want to write on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, you can accomplish your goal by writing 414 words per day. If you set a more aggressive schedule, i.e., write on every day of the work week, that figure drops to 249 words per day. Either of these is entirely manageable and a lot easier than sitting down every day not knowing if you are ahead or behind. If you get inspired one day and write more than you are supposed to, Scrivener will update your goals so that you will write less the next time. Alternately, if you take a week off of writing, Scrivener will have you write a few more words to catch up.

This feature was valuable to me because it showed me that the only way to complete long writing projects is one piece at a time. And it reminded me throughout the process that regardless of how small an accomplishment it seemed at the time, writing 400 words was in fact bringing me closer to my ultimate goal, namely, finishing.

3) Design and Stability — One of the first things that really struck me about Scrivener was just how smart the layout is. It’s clear that the software was designed, from start to finish, by people who could imagine themselves using it on a regular basis. Nearly every aspect of the user interface, from the layout of the toolbar to the color of your backgrounds, can be easily customized to fit your own needs and preferences.Like any software, there are some learning curves. But if you are willing to spend a little bit of time working through the tutorials that come packaged with it, you will figure things out quickly.

One final point of praise, related to design, is that Scrivener is a remarkably stable program. In the two years that I spent using it to write my dissertation, it NEVER CRASHED ONCE. Anyone who uses Word will marvel at that last sentence. Go ahead. Marvel. I imagine there are ways to crash Scrivener—the point is that you are going to have to work at it. Even if you did crash it, however, Scrivener automatically saves your work every two seconds. So even in the unlikely event that you throw more at it than it can catch, odds are you will lose maybe a total of five words.

What would I do differently next time?

By now you can tell that I’m a huge fan of this software. I could certainly have written a dissertation without it, but the task would have been much more arduous. To close out this post, I thought it might be helpful to reflect on what I would do differently next time. While I will never (ever) have to write another dissertation, I have recently started work on another project in Scrivener that should keep me entertained for at least the next year. So what am I doing differently now?

1) Use the research section of the binder more — Scrivener is first and foremost a writing tool. But it also sports a number of features that can help you organize the nuts and bolts of your project. One of these is the research section of the binder (mentioned above). This section can support pretty much any sort of file that you can imagine. In the project I’m working on currently I am keeping images and article .pdfs in the research section as well as outlines and notes. Scrivener’s split screen mode makes switching between your writing window and .pdf viewer unnecessary; you can have both open at once. While I am still using bibliography software for citations, I’ve found that using the research section is helping me stay more organized.

2) Take more snapshots — A snapshot enables you to save a version of your project that you can later go back and compare against newer versions. It is similar in many ways to Word’s “track changes” feature, though more smoothly executed (surprised?). I knew that this feature existed when I started using Scrivener, but I didn’t start using it until I was finishing the final chapter and beginning to edit. To be sure, the editing phase is the point at which snapshots are most valuable; if you find that you were a bit too zealous in your cutting, you can always go back and retrieve what you have chopped out.

In the project I am working on right now, the first thing I do EVERY TIME I open the file is take a snapshot. It takes seconds, and I have peace of mind knowing that there is a limit to how bad I can screw things up if I’m having a bad/off day.

 

3) Use the scratch pad. This is a feature that I rarely spend time telling others about because I don’t think all that many people would understand the idea behind it. The scratch pad is tucked away in Scrivener’s “window” menu (I think it is also possible to assign a keyboard shortcut that will open it). When you select it, a little text entry window appears. In this window you can do some free writing, record a stray thought that may have entered your mind, or sketch an idea you have about reorganizing a chapter, etc. You could use it to write out a grocery list if you want.

What the scratch pad does is give you a blank document quickly, before you have to waste a whole lot of time deciding where to type whatever might be on your mind. It’s akin in many ways to keeping an index card and a pen with you at all times, just in case something pops into your mind and you don’t want to forget it.

What makes the scratch pad different from all other text entry windows (as I understand things) is that the text you enter in it isn’t really linked to any project in particular. If you have a Scrivener file set up for your dissertation, another for your blog, and another for, say, teaching resources, all of these would share a scratch pad. So, if you are in your dissertation and open the scratch pad to make a few notes, those notes will be there when you open up the scratch pad while you are working on your blog. I use this feature when I am in the middle of writing for one project but have a thought related to another; the scratch pad lets me record that thought quickly without worrying about getting too sidetracked or forgetting where I put the note to myself.

At the end of the day, being a successful writer, i.e., completing what you set out to write without losing your mind, is as much about having the determination to sit in one place for long periods of time as it is about anything else. But coupling this determination with the right tools can make your task a little more pleasant.

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Running, Writing, Pacing and Consistency

*caution: this post contains running analogies.

I am not a “serious” runner by any means. More serious than some, I suppose, but not over-the-top crazy. 10-15 miles a week is typically my goal, give or take. When I accomplish this goal, I find that the next week it is a bit easier to accomplish the same goal. When I don’t, the next week takes a little more effort. As any good coach (or beloved wife, in my case) will tell you, running is not something that most people are just “good” at on their first try. It is a sport that takes a while to work up to…the first few weeks are painful, but if you want to be a runner (or lose weight, get in shape, etc.) you just have to work through them.

When I first began running I started with a run/walk program…run for X minutes, walk for X minutes. I did this on a two-mile loop for months. My goal was to be able to run the entire loop without taking any breaks. It took a while (I was pretty out of shape). After that, my goal was to run a 5K. After that, a half marathon. You get the point. Now, I typically run about a 5K distance or more each morning. And I typically don’t feel like I’m going to die when I finish. It’s become easy because my body is used to it…I did it often enough and for long enough that it’s now not that big of a deal.

When winter comes to Milwaukee, running is more difficult, either because there’s too much ice or because I simply don’t want to go outside and be cold. During the winter it is not uncommon for me to not run for several days, even a week at a time (or two, if I’m being honest). When this happens, runs hurt a bit more than normal: as my body becomes less accustomed to the task, it takes a little while to build back up to it.

But how does this relate to writing?

Well, I have recently returned to dissertation-writing after about two weeks of research, editing, and other related activities. In doing so, I am reminded of advice that I have come to cherish as empirical fact:

Writing gets easier when you do it often; it gets harder when you don’t.

My dissertation director tells incoming doctoral students to “write a page a day.” Doesn’t matter what it’s about…just write something: pick a newspaper article to comment on; complain about the weather; keep a journal; write a blog; or (obviously) work on your dissertation. It is advice that I have attempted to follow over the past year, and I think that it has paid off. Writing becomes easier (not easy, mind you) when it is part of a daily routine. What I discovered today after my two-week hiatus is that it’s going to take some effort to get going again.

On Rabbit Holes and Writing Styles

There are two ways of writing a dissertation, broadly speaking. The first is to do all of the research that you will need to do before you even think about putting pen to paper: outline your argument, cover your bases, and then begin. The second is to start writing before you have completed your research: get a sense of where you’re going, be ready to change your mind, and write what you can when you can. Each approach has significant benefits and drawbacks.

With the first, the benefit is that you have charted a more or less clear path through the argument you’re going to be making. You know where you’re headed, who has been there before, and the path you’re going to take to get there. At least in theory, this approach makes the writing itself easier. The drawback to this approach is that it allows you to postpone the writing process indefinitely in favor of more research and reconceptualizing (a fancy term for procrastination). That is, if you’ve decided to do all the research before you begin writing, it is difficult to tell when enough is enough.

With the second approach, you discover much about where you’re headed while you’re on your way. You know where you want to go, and you have a vague idea of what the path you’re going to take looks like (or at least what you want it to look like). But because you are granting that you will uncover many things in the course of your writing, the second approach requires a degree of flexibility. And therein lies the drawback: you have to be willing to change your mind or alter your course after you’ve already begun.

Regardless of which approach you choose (I myself prefer the second), you will at some point encounter the phenomenon that some refer to as the “rabbit hole.” The rabbit hole is comparable to discovering a loose thread on a sweater. You see the thread and you pull it. Sometimes it will be an inch long, and you can remove it without difficulty and forget about it. Other times, it is much longer, and continuing to pull at it will undoubtedly destroy a portion of your sweater (if not the entire garment).

The same is true for rabbit holes. When you see such a hole, you have no idea how long the tunnel behind it is or where it leads. The only way of determining the nature of a rabbit hole is to dive in and take a look. You may discover that it leads nowhere, that it is little more than a shallow crevice. Or, you might find yourself in a veritable maze of new, unexplored territory. The question, of course, is whether to include what you find in your dissertation, to save it for another venue (an article, presentation, etc.), or to simply ignore it (not a smart choice).

Rabbit holes can be frustrating for a number of reasons. If the material you discover is relevant to your topic, then you have to make time (and space) to incorporate it. If it contradicts something you’ve already said (or planned on saying) then you may have to defend or alter your position. If it is truly interesting but simultaneously irrelevant to what you’re trying to say, you might have to find another outlet for it. To be sure, resisting the temptation to “say it all” is a challenge that all dissertating students share.

But rabbit holes can also be invigorating. If you are researching a topic in order to confirm a hunch (or a “thesis,” if we are being fancy), then you may uncover material that confirms your hunch in a way that you didn’t expect.  That is, you might uncover a path to your desired location that is different from and perhaps better than that which you intended. If this is the case, the challenge becomes determining what to do with the path you’ve already charted. Does it continue to exist as an alternate, albeit less-desirable route (i.e., in footnotes), or does it simply fall by the wayside? The latter of these two options is painful, to say the least, as it involves essentially trashing what may amount to weeks (or months!) of research. Yet even paths that end up being “less good” are valuable in the grand scheme of things, as we learn much from the roads we travel, regardless of whether they end up being the most efficient.

When is Enough, Enough?

This is the season for the Marquette library to send out the obligatory “please return or renew your loans” e-mail. Generally, I’m content to just login, select all my books, and hit renew, but lately I’ve been feeling as if my life is being consumed by library books. They are everywhere — piled up in front of my computer monitor, holding my study door open, occupying my shelves and the floor of my research carrel in the library. Driven mostly by a sense of morbid curiosity, today I logged in to my library account at Marquette to see how many books I had checked out. The answer:

 

 

 

 

Now, this is neither terribly shocking or offensive, given that I am currently in the midst of writing a dissertation. Others, I’m sure, are far worse off. Even so, having this many books checked out at once makes me somewhat nervous. For starters, the more you have checked out, the easier it is to misplace something and incur a fine, and I am not a fan of paying fines. Perhaps more significantly, I find that having this many books checked out at once leads to a sort of “fog” in the process of research: as I sit in my study or carrell surrounded by piles of books, many of which I can’t even remember checking out, I cannot help but think I’m missing something. To try and clear this fog, I will on occasion play what has become (for me, anyway) a sort of game.

The first step is to go through my shelves and try to determine why I have what I have, whether I actually need what I have, and whether I need to keep it on hand for reference. Many of the books I have currently checked out (probably 20 or so) are reference materials that I consult on a fairly regular basis. I need these, and I know that I need them. They stay. This leaves roughly 80 that are unaccounted for. Included in this latter group are books that were consulted for chapters that are already done, books that may have looked relevant for subsequent chapters, and books that at one point looked interesting, for whatever reason.

The second step is to go through this larger pile, one book at a time, and weed. Several books reveal themselves instantly as irrelevant for my current research. This morning, for example, I discovered on my shelves a copy of D. C. Parker’s Codex Sinaiticus: The Story of the World’s Oldest Bible (riveting, I know). I checked this book out last year, after I saw it at SBL. I read the first couple of chapters, and then got busy with other things (a baby, to name just one). Because it is entirely unrelated to my current research, I made a note of it in my “books to read” file, and I put it in the pile of materials to be returned to the library. It will be there when I have more time. Others are books that I have already accounted for in the dissertation but have yet to actually return to the library. They go back too. The rest, admittedly, are not so easy.

These, I put into a “skim” pile to be evaluated. The process of skimming a book, as I understand it, should take no more than 10 minutes. It involves, basically, reading a book through the table of contents/index in order to determine whether there is anything of immediate value to your project. I skimmed two books before I left the house this afternoon: Bruce Chilton and Craig Evans’ James the Just and Christian Origins, and John Painter’s Just James: The Brother and Jesus in History and Tradition. As my dissertation is on the Proto-Gospel of James, I’m sure both made sense when I checked them out. In the process of skimming, however, I found that Chilton-Evans was hardly relevant for my purposes. A fantastic book, to be sure, but uninterested in matters pertaining to James in Christian Apocryphal Literature. Painter, on the other hand, was peppered with valuable little snippets and insights that, at the very least, would make for some interesting footnotes. Having discovered this, I opened up the dissertation file and went through the various sections in which Painter’s work contributed to my own. I netted about 100 words in the body, as well as about 8 footnotes. Not bad, and now Painter can go back to the library. He will be there waiting for me if I need him.

30 or so books made it into my skim pile this morning, and I intend to peruse each of them over the weekend. Some, I’m sure, will end up in the “reference” pile, and will stay on my shelves until the dissertation is finished. Others I will be able to simply return to the library, having discovered that they weren’t what I thought or hoped them to be. Others still, like Painter, will yield some valuable insights that can be accounted for quickly, at which point they can be returned. The hope is that, come Monday, I’ll be able to log in to my library account and see a number closer to 60. That will, in turn, give me an excuse to check out more books from the library, and in another two weeks I will have to repeat the process. Such is life.

If you’re reading this, I’m curious to know A) if you take note of or care how many books you have checked out from your library, B) if you have a record that you’re particularly proud of, and C) if you have a process for weeding unneeded resources.

Using Scrivener with Bibliographic Software

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I have seen in more than a couple of posts about Scrivener a recurring question – Does Scrivener work with bibliographic software? The answer, in short, is “Yes.”

For those who are currently writing a dissertation without the aid of a bibliography/citation management software, I strongly advise that you look into getting one. I cannot begin to emphasize the joys that such software will bring to your life.

I use Scrivener and Bookends together with little to no problem. Here’s how I do it.

Footnotes in Scrivener are displayed in an unconventional manner. They are off to the right of the screen and are unnumbered. When you “compile” your final product (in .rtf or .doc format), they look like regular footnotes. The layout takes some getting used to, but within a couple of days, you don’t really notice it.

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You’ll note in the following image that many aspects of my footnotes look like gibberish (i.e., {Foster, 2007, #992@577}). This is the format in which Bookends enters and recognizes various citations.

The first step toward integrating Scrivener and Bookends is to select Scrivener as your default word processor in the Bookends preferences menu:

When you’re typing along in Scrivener and you need to compose a footnote via Bookends, simply click the “add footnote button” in Scrivener. Then, go to your bookends window, select the source (or sources) you wish to cite, and click the “copy citation” option at the top of the window:

If Scrivener and Bookends are linked, then after you click the “copy citation” button, you will be whisked away to Scrivener where you will see your citations represented in curly brackets. The numbers after the “@” symbol represent the page numbers you wish to reference. Everything between the curly brackets is replaced after you compile your document and perform a “scan” with Word (or whatever word processor you choose for final formatting):

After you have completed your document in Scrivener, you will compile it and proceed to the final formatting steps. When you open the compiled document in Word (or whatever), your footnotes will still look ugly:

To fix this, you need to “scan” the document. The option to do so is located in the “script” menu of Word which, after you install Bookends, will display the option, “scan document.” Perform the scan, and your citations will be properly formatted:

Well, almost. You’ll note that there are a few instances in these particular footnotes where the author needs to be removed, parentheses changed to square brackets, a stray period here and there, etc. This is part of the final formatting process.

Bookends is the only bibliographic software I’ve used with Scrivener. The integration is not perfect, but I am convinced that even with all the final formatting issues that exist after the scan, the program saves a great deal of time.

I cannot speak to the functionality of EndNote (which I despise) within Scrivener. Sorry.

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Stupid Grammar Checker

One of the neat things about graduate school is that, as you get smarter, the spelling and grammar tools in your word processor start seeming less intelligent.

 

Dissertations and Roller Coasters

I once knew a roller coaster “fanatic,” and in retrospect I imagine his fanaticism would make him a candidate for placement somewhere on the autistic spectrum. He sought out roller coasters like some sort of addict…most weekends you could find him at Six Flags or, if he was out of town, at the theme park closest to him. I once asked the fanatic what he liked best about roller coasters. He answered, “I don’t know…I just like them.” I then asked him what he liked least about roller coasters, and he said, simply, “Lines.” He then went on to inform me of the best days to go “riding.” Mother’s Day, without a doubt, is the best…no lines.

Marquette is in the middle of spring break right now. As a consequence, the library is like a graveyard, as the undergrads have all departed (dorms are closed, apparently). This is the first spring break that I don’t really have anything pressing down…no assignments due in the next month, no in-class presentations, no lectures, etc. The only thing I have to do is research and write my dissertation. Some may ask, “Shouldn’t you take a break?” Maybe, but I have come to realize that writing a dissertation is much like riding a roller coaster. Allow me to explain my analogy.

Graduate School :: Six Flags as Dissertation Writing :: Roller Coasters

Six Flags, like graduate school, is filled with people of different stripes. Some have come to ride the roller coasters, and some have come because they want to be with their friends. Some have come because they feel forced to do so (for whatever reason). Those who have come to ride the roller coasters genuinely love to do so. They will keep riding until the park closes. Those who have come to be with their friends are indifferent to roller coasters. They will ride them, but without loving or hating them. Those who have come because they feel forced will hate every minute. They don’t care much for roller coasters, and will spend much of their time simply watching others have fun.

Roller coasters, then, are the things that you do in graduate school. In my analogy, I have used dissertation writing as an example, but that’s only because that’s where I’m at. Like the roller coaster fanatic mentioned earlier, those who truly love the work of a graduate student will take every opportunity to “ride.” Especially wonderful are those times where the park is otherwise empty, as when the park is empty yet open, you get to ride more than you normally would! I suppose spring break in this analogy would be akin to Mother’s Day…Six Flags (the library) is open, yet no one is there. Gone are the lines (papers to grade, office hours to hold, classes to attend, etc.). For the roller coaster fanatic, spring break is the time to ride!

There is, of course, a caveat to this analogy. Those who love to ride roller coasters must control themselves, as everyone knows that if you ride too much, you will throw up. The case is similar with dissertation writing.

Dissertations, Fonts, and Wasting Time

From the outset, I should admit that I’m somewhat of a “font junkie.”

I haven’t always been this way. In my undergraduate years, I was mostly satisfied with Times New Roman, unless of course I needed to make my paper a bit longer, in which case I would gravitate toward Courier or Arial (I was convinced that this trick was undetectable to my professors). I never needed a font to make a paper shorter…a testimony to how much I despised the act of writing.

Things have changed. Now, I gravitate toward new fonts like a shark to blood. Initially, my fascination began in seminary with Greek fonts…I wanted to make the Greek text in my papers stand out better, so I began downloading various fonts to help make this happen. Then, with the advent of Unicode fonts some years back, things got more interesting. Now, there was no longer a need to have separate Greek and Roman fonts. The joys! Of course, this led to the frustration of liking the Greek character set but not liking the Roman character set or vice versa.

Over the years I discovered Linux Libertine, Garamond Premier Pro, SBL Greek, Minion, Cambria, among others. I’ll admit that my excitement has waned a bit. Nowadays, I have two fonts that I use on a fairly consistent basis: GentiumAlt and Palatino Linotype. Both are serif fonts and have a nice, clean look to them. Plus, both are Unicode and have smart looking Greek character sets.

Yesterday evening, as I was chipping away at some dissertation-related business (not writing yet, just piddling), it occurred to me that some fonts may be more acceptable to others when it comes to a dissertation…could it be that I would have to return to Times New Roman? The horror!

My alacrity rekindled, I began to compulse. A simple Google search on the topic led me to a discussion forum in which someone had asked a similar question: “What font should I use for my dissertation?” One of the responses is simply too good (and poignant) not to share. Despite my love for fonts, I’m inclined to agree with this:

Spending time choosing fonts is not productive work, and is one of the absolutely classic time-wastes of graduate students that make advisors beat their heads into the wall.

The probability that anyone but you and your committee will ever read your dissertation in its form as a dissertation is very low, and your dissertation will look like shit no matter what fonts you choose because the required formatting is functional, not aesthetic.

The probability that anyone but you will care in the slightest what fonts are in the dissertation is exactly zero.

Why Writing a Dissertation is Harder Than Having a Baby

I help run a website for graduate students in Theology at Marquette. Today, one of my colleagues posted a humorous piece by a fellow graduate student on “Why Writing a Dissertation is Harder Than Having a Baby.” I reproduce the post here, but here is a link to the post on our other site.

——————

Why Writing A Dissertation is Harder Than Having a Baby — Tony Bonta

1. Three months before your due date, your doctor doesn’t say, “I want you to
go back and redo the first trimester’s work.”
2. Unlike advisors, you can switch doctors without starting over.
3. Conceiving a baby is WAY more fun than conceiving a topic.
4. You know exactly how long pregnancy takes.
5. Friends and relatives don’t question the worth of a baby.
6. You don’t need to explain repeatedly to friends and family what it takes
to make a baby and why you’re not through yet.
7. Babies don’t require proper footnoting or adherence to a style manual.
8. You can freely borrow other people’s stuff if you’re having a baby; if
you’re writing a dissertation, that’s called plagiarism.
9. No one will complain that your baby is too similar to another one.
10. No matter how much trouble it was doing it, some people will gladly have
more than one baby.