Research Project Draft Reflections

As I did not have a thesis proposal draft to submit and reflect upon, I thought I would rather reflect upon the draft process for my research project now due in less than two weeks (!!). The analogy perhaps most appropriate to describe this past semester of researching and writing is that of a roller coaster: highs and lows and everything in between.

I first submitted my draft at the beginning of March, a little over a month ago. This draft was a culmination of a few months of researching and a great deal of hard work. Nevertheless, my draft was not quite up to par. Indeed, I soon discovered that I was not on the right track: too much passive voice (peppered throughout this post, ironically), too little analysis, and a bit too much historiography. Thus, in the middle of March, I began to reformulate my paper yet again, virtually starting from scratch. Fortunately, my research proved to be in place; it was my writing that needed serious work.

So began the next phase of my draft process: creating rough draft #2. This draft had far fewer issues but still needed some tweaking nevertheless. Now, down to the wire for my project’s due date, I am still in the process of creating new drafts and editing what I have already written. At this point, it feels as if my work will never be done, however, and I am eagerly awaiting the day when I will be. Until then, I am sad to admit that my previous excitement concerning dogs in World War I no longer really exists. I hope that my classmates who are writing theses do not have similar reactions to their own topic of choice, for the thesis proposal is only just the beginning!