Reflections on Completing My Thesis

Ok -it has only been one day, but I have thought about these (almost) three years and all that work culminating in a submission of a long (285 one-and-one-half space page) thesis. Here are some reflections

1. Durham was definitely the right place. It combined a rich history and tradition of excellent biblical scholarship with a desire to modernize, keep up with technology, etc… Now, that does not mean it is the world of the future. We put up with some archaic systems and what not, but I was thoroughly satisfied with my experience.

2. Having two supervisors has been an advantage in many ways. Both supervisors (Stephen Barton and John Barclay) complemented one another quite well.

3. The topic I chose was enjoyable to research overall. I had a bit of a scare when a German monograph came out six months ago that had nearly the same title and topic. But, it all worked out. There was a sufficient amount of difference. I think.

4. I should have used Endnote. Yes, I chickened out because I couldn’t figure out how to get it to do the things I wanted. I have vowed to use it for my next project.

5. I chose not to use unicode, but I have a program that can immediately convert Bibleworks font to unicode in any word doc with one click. When I publish the thesis, I may do the Greek in unicode.

6. I could not have found many important books without the aid of googlebooks.

7. Its amazing, no matter how many times you read over your own work, how many new errors you recognize. I am glad to have had others proofread my thesis for me, especially Dr. Barton.

8. I chose a short footnote citation style which always cited last name + year + page number (Dunn 1998: 46). This can be a pain to read, but it saved me about 8,000 words! (NB: Many UK institutions do not have a standardized style. The mantra is: ‘as long as you are consistent’).

9. It is better to do 1 and 1/2 spacing versus 2 because it saved me money and the life of some trees (285 pages versus 360 pages).
10. My introductory chapters are long (esp. my methodology). I am happy with this because this is where my original contribution lies. I think more theses should be trying to break new ground in terms of method.

11. I did a lot of book reviews (over 60) during my phd. Many of the books were not obviously relevant to my thesis subject matter, but it helped stretch my thought and I found connections and ideas that aided my thesis.

12. I pre-published about portions of my thesis as journal articles.  This will help me pass the thesis, I think, but it may mean that it is not suitable for publication as a monograph (as several parts are already ‘out there’).  I think I can make a case for its worthiness.