Defending is on the horizon

I am still progressing well towards finishing up. My dissertation is taking decent shape - the Introduction chapter is probably better than 90% done, after getting a thumbs-up from a key advisor. Just add a figure and I'll write that off. I've been a little stymied by my third paper. It has been slow going putting together the results and discussion sections, as I parse through the data. Objectives shifted slightly across experiments, so some outputs weren't collected in the same manner. And, there's an experiment or two that aren't consistent with the others. My advisors had initially said: put the results together and we'll see if another experiment is needed. To me, shooting for a certain significance level is a bad idea: this aim isn't showing that one thing is necessarily significantly better than another, but that it can be accomplished. So, adding experiments could improve the numbers, sure, but I could get more outliers which just make it worse. In my opinion (granted, not worth a lot in the big picture), I have shown a functional output. Certain comparisons are signficant while others are not - but that my results are similar while not being worse are key to me. So, I haven't been as quick to "put together the numbers" while working on other sections...as my committee was very pleased with my results, I should be able to force the issue of not having another experiment by having time pass. I just have to make sure that the arguements are strong in the paper for the relevance of the work. That's where some of the wording has slowed me down. So, rather than move slowly on one thing, I've been flying through other sections of the dissertation. Of the 6 appendix sections I'll have, three are now finished, or > 95% done. A fourth one will be an easy pasting of a setup diagram already created. The last two will be brief and shouldn't take long. So, I'm happy with that progress, along with the praise I've received for the Introduction.

And, to help push things, I have scheduled my defense. March 10th. Barely a month away. Prior to the defense, I have to distribute my dissertation two weeks ahead of time....by February 24th. So, that now leaves me with 2.5 weeks to finish my dissertation. And, to make things a little interesting, the talk I was scheduled to give last Wednesday that was canceled by snow has been rescheduled for February 25th. Good thing I'll be repeating a talk I already gave, using material I'll have just pored over for the dissertation.

My goals for the weekend are to get the remaining 3 appendix sections to >= 90% done and to get a new, improved draft of the third paper done. That paper will be the sticking point on my dissertation, with my advisor, I'm sure. Hopefully after this version there will just be one more reviewed version prior to sending out the dissertation. Then, the other chapter needing work is the Discussion, which is just in a ~3 page outline right now. Translating sections from the Introduction and the discussions of each paper should cut down on a lot of the work time.

Unusually, I have plans each day this weekend, which will limit how much work time I've got. Tonight I'm picking up a new grad student to the lab at the airport - where he's flying in from Germany. I'll take him to his temporary hotel and probably out to eat. Tomorrow afternoon/evening is a surprise birthday party with my girlfriend. Sunday I'm going to an alumni event for several hours in the afternoon. Here's hoping I can be productive Saturday morning and Sunday evening!