From First Draft to Final Draft

 I never imagined the journey from the first draft tot he final draft would be the most arduous bit of the PhD. I was never under any illusions that my first draft would pass muster with my supervisor. I expected to have to make substantial changes. What I didn't expect to have to do is to take it apart and put it back again. It feels like building a flawed model of a car, taking it apart and putting it back again using the lessons learned throughout the process. Tweaks or even major repair jobs wouldn't do. Its break it down and build it up again. It took me some time to get used to idea of jettisoning insights and concepts that I had spent months on. But, I realised the lessons learned form writing an eminently flawed first draft was more valuable than the content of the first draft. This sounds all well and good but I'm aware that time constraints might still bite me. Rewriting takes a lot more time than reworking. But I've tried reworking and it hasn't worked so rewriting seems to be the only option. Even my supervisor, who is brilliant, couldn't follow my conceptual framework so the only conclusion I could reach is that it was shaky and lacked conceptual clarity.  Repairs wouldn't do, a complete overhaul was necessary.