This past week I finally got a certain something off my chest — or off my desk — that’s been in the works for the last little while: my MA thesis proposal.
The proposed work will centre on the writings of a neat old fellow named Roger Crab (the original “Mad Hatter”). A hermit and vegetarian, Crab wrote four pamphlets in the mid-1600s. For a few years there, he lived on a small piece of land near Uxbridge in a cabin that he built for himself, eating only roots and herbs that he grew for himself, and adhering to a set of eremitic beliefs that that he developed for himself. Anyhow, the Hermitary has a good writeup on Crab that you can check out if you’re interested.
But back to the thesis proposal. In the wake of its submission (it’s been, oh, a day now), I’ve been fighting the urge to go and retrieve the poor document and tinker with it a little more. You know, add a section or two, fiddle with the chapter titles, that sort of thing. Consider it a form of postpartum anxiety, unique to grad students. Of course, if you didn’t put your foot (or pen) down, you could probably just work on your proposal indefinitely, or at least until you had just about finished researching and writing your actual thesis — by which point I am sure that you could prepare a perfectly wonderful proposal for it. Anyhow, we’ll have to see what the Committee has to say about things… it all sounds vaguely inquisitorial to me.
Now, I’ve found that “the proposal” can be a tricky genre. It’s also probably one of the more unethical ones that I’ve worked in for a while, almost on par with writing ministerial correspondence for the federal government… I guess the key is to be apodictic. Or, as Basil King said, “be brave and mighty powers will come to your aid!” A good way to start this is by removing the word “perhaps” from your vocabulary for a while. Also, you have to come to grips with the fact that no matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to read everything that you need to; you can still go ahead and list it all in your bibliography, however.
And remember: “if you can’t think logically, at least think chronologically.”
