Week 50 : Starting on final substantivel chapter

Maximum number of words:	80,000
Words typed so far:	84,417
Words typed this week:	1453
Words lost this week:	0
Total increase:	1453
Days I managed to write this week:	4

As you can see I have started making progress on the final substantive chapter of my thesis. I probably had more words I could type this week but decided not to I had just got to a natural break in the argument and so I have the next section of the argument to develop on from.  This actually means that I have crossed the very difficult part of this chapter. Social Science has a love-hate relationship with science. The problem being that I and I think quite a few other scientists do not recognise their description of how science is done, as the task we do when we do science. It seems to be concerned with things like the nature of truth that most scientist do not spend time worrying about. We are far more like crafts-persons/artists than philosophers and what we are doing is following the discipline we are trained in and seeing where it leads. If you fulfil the requirements of the discipline then your research is valid. Please note that I have used "valid" and not "truth" there. We are often well aware that we are entering a debate about "truth" and even if our research is "valid" that does not mean that the communal consensus will accept our interpretation of it. Validity gets us a hearing only.

However social science also uses science in a completely different way and that is a source of metaphor for understanding knowledge. Some of these metaphors have been used as justification for "scientific methodology", however some have been openly cited as ways of thinking about things. It is this latter line that I am taking in this chapter but in order to get there I also need to take people into the mathematics of the metaphor in greater depth than most social scientists normally do. The reason for this is as we explore the mathematics we begin to understand better the implications of the metaphor and where we need to give our attention within the social science. The metaphors we think with are not neutral but allow us to see some things clearer than others

Week 49: No progress

Maximum number of words:	80,000
Words typed so far:	82,964
Words typed this week:	0
Words lost this week:	0
Total increase:	0
Days I managed to write this week:	1

All right so I did well last week, but this week no progress at all except a bit of writing one day which was not worth writing up. So I had better do better this coming week and actually get something written. I think it helps that I have at least decided where to start writing and I can see how that goes.

October Supervision: At Last a chapter my supervisor is structurally happy with

The board announces my train home

Well I thought I was going to break my fine weather when I am in Birmingham rule, it was so windy and wet when I left home at Sheffield, but by the time I got to Birmingham it was dry and this afternoon the sun even came out. The other news is at last Birmingham University has managed to bill me for this years fees correctly. It has been tiresome in the extreme this year and I still have to pay. The amount is not bad but I need to find an old email which tells me how to. I may still well end up ringing them up to pay over the phone. It may well be easier. I was going to do it in person but what looked like the nearest entrance to the office also was right next to a room where exams were happening!

Also the computer network was up so I was able to check my scholar alerts. Let me be honest now I am no longer really following these. That is I am only jumping if something major comes out and in this case it was a book on “Ethnography and Ecclesiology”. Should be right up the line of my thesis.

Supervision was interesting, we did not just cover the topics on agenda, we also for the first time really started talking about what happened after my thesis. The question is pertinent as I am almost ideally placed to a be an amateur expert, but the space of for these in the discourse has been eroded in the last twenty years with the increased division between the academy and the seminary. That means fewer niches for those who cling somewhere between church and academia and that has a knock on effect on people like myself who are driven by passion for a topic rather than wanting a career path. Mind you I might have just git first hint of who my external maybe.

Then we got onto discussing several areas within my chapter. I have not as yet brought up gender within my thesis but there is in this chapter a clear point where it matters. I may decide to gloss because I am not sure I can tackle this without blowing someone anonymity in a way that they would feel unfairly put the spotlight on them. Gender does play a part but usually in the roles people are given. However I can and did break those rules and I was not alone in doing that in either congregations. Hmm it is going to be interesting. It maybe worth checking back over the chapters. I am also going to have to put footnotes because there is a good chance my examiners will not read it from start to finish (or the central chapters in order). This is a pain as the argument flows through the chapter structure as well as the text. They are NOT in random order and when I am explicit about the pattern it should be as if the person realises that it reflects the journey they have been on reading the text.

So next Supervision is December, as my supervisor is very busy end of November. I should at that time have a draft of the final theory chapter and thus be ready to enter writing up! It should be an interesting month as the work is significantly different even from the last two theory chapters and a level more abstract. It also intriguingly uses the fact that I am mathematician, but pushes me into areas of maths I tended to avoid as an undergraduate. Actually more accurately be said strong social pressure was put on me to study as they were outside my direct interest. One because it was in the discipline I tended to avoid except at its most theoretical and the other because it was populist and I felt I wanted to do proper maths. I have read up and though I am no longer mathematically fit enough to do the calculus automatically I can follow the argument and understand what is happening. For those who are not mathematical trained, a skilled mathematician can look at an equation and work out what the next step would be to turn it into a useful form. This is a highly developed form of brain pattern recognition working similar to recognising times tables, numbers that sum to make another and prime factors of a number. If you do not practice it and I haven’t for over twenty years it becomes weak. I can go "Oh Yeah" I remember that when somebody does one, but don't expect me to do it for myself.

I also saw a large rook sitting on its own on the end of one of the platforms at Birmingham New Street on my way home. The sort of thing that gets you murmuring "that is a large rook or is it... but surely you don't get ravens at Birmingham New Street".

So for this coming month, that I keep on writing, I do they other things I need to and that I have this chapter written on time.

Week 48: Crossing 80,000 word mark

Maximum number of words:	80,000
Words typed so far:	82,964
Words typed this week:	5614
Words lost this week:	0
Total increase:	5164
Days I managed to write this week:	3

Right that is over 80,000 words. So my thesis is now officially TOO LONG. Indeed it is almost 3,000 words too long. What is more it is going to get longer before it gets shorter. I have another almost 10,000 words to write before I can start editing down the too long chapters. At present my chapters on location, community and worship are 50% longer than they need to be and the methodology is around 100% too long. However I have another chapter to write before I can start chopping. This one on flows.

The other thing is the 5,516 words written this weekend. Given how slow I was before the holiday it really looks as if the holiday has done me good. However you might like to consider that I spent a lot of time reviewing the data chapters and such while away in preparation for this writing. This gave me a set of notes on which it was based and the 5,516 came easier than the previous writing.

So the then I have now finished my chapter on belonging and need to move onto the big theory one. This has been looking at small theory or I will be if my supervisor agrees on Tuesday.

Finally one point, this post also marks a year of writing. In that I have written over 80,000 words. Is it possible to write up a thesis in a year full time. It certainly looks like it from here.

Back from Holiday and time to be getting back to writing

Well that is Dora shaking her head telling me not to do it, she would really rather I stayed up with her and took her for long walks at least twice a week. I do not own her, but she seems to think I am the fun senior female in her pack.

Anyway I am back from holiday, and though I am not going to post a word count this week as though my official length has changed somewhat it is quite small. However I have spent lots of time preparing for writing the central bit of my chapter on belonging. This is important. It seems to me that at the core of a congregations identity is the question "What does it mean to belong?" That is both a question congregation try to decide for themselves and one that individuals negotiate as individuals. What I have therefore to do is demonstrate the "work" that both congregations and individuals do to sustain that sense of belonging or not belonging. For anything to be defined there must be a boundary but often that boundary is mutable and changes according to situation.

I have spent the mornings of my holiday trawling through the descriptive chapters looking for bits and pieces that are there that relate to this work. I am hoping that that lays a good groundwork for writing  as I need to write 6,000 words next weekend so as to have the belonging chapter drafted. So I will be in thesis purdah. I expect I will do it but it is going to take an effort.