PhD Thesis - Viva Voce

 Snapshot Photography: A Phatic, Socially Constructed, Mnemonic Technology

I survived my Viva Voce on the 13th March and was awarded a PhD subject to minor amendments and corrections. As soon as these have been completed I shall post a copy of the Thesis on the blog.

Large space before footnotes in MS Word 2010: Quick Fix

Formatting and Style problems are the one of the most time consuming aspects of thesis writing. Finding solutions to problems seems to take forever. Here is another problem that took me ages to sort out. I am using Word 2010, the solution is slightly different in other versions.

The problem is large spaces at the end of pages which are not cured by adjusting Paragraph settings. The problem proved to be associated with Footnote formatting. But finding out how to make the adjustment would try the patience of a saint.

The problem looks like this...

Check out this link for a solution on the Jess Writes Words blog...

LINK

Finishing the P.h.D. - Restructuring

Pat Thompson in her latest blog post hit the nail on the head. I quote:

You’ve done your thesis plan. You’ve written for weeks. And weeks. But now, despite your very best planning,  you find yourself at a point where that carefully thought out thesis road map no longer seems to work. This apparent catastrophe may happen before the first draft of the thesis is finished, it may be at the end of a second or third draft.

This is exactly where I am at, 3 years in 2 months to go to the deadline for my hand-in and here I am shuffling 50+K words. Mine is a practice-based thesis, 60:40 words: practice, hence the word count.

Pats' post came at just the right moment, providing much needed reassurance that I was doing the right thing.

I have joked for some time that I had all the right words, they were just not necessarily in the right order; to misquote UK comedian Eric Morecambe.

Source link

Improve Your Writing

Check out Bristol Universities excellent Improve Your Writing web pages...

Source http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/exercises/grammar/grammar_tutorial/index.htm

Poem: Fragments of Memory with Video

Fragments of Memory

Standing still
A special day
The place I know
The path beside the house
The coal shed
The house next door
Me, my face, my hands
My legs, my shoes
My book My cap
The gabardine raincoat
Keeps me warm and dry
Me ready for school
The path, the bricks along the edge
The shadows
Heavy on the wall
Me, my dad, together
I remember the place
But not the day


An element from my PhD Thesis Exhibition of Studio Practice

Grammarly | Instant Grammar Check - Update #2

UPDATE #2 I previously blogged a post about Grammarly - a Grammar Checker plug-in for Word, on 15 February 2015 when I mentioned that I had uninstalled this Grammar Checking app after personal bad experiences and poor reviews elsewhere. link

However, they seem to have updated the previous version and the Word plug-in is now FREE, it does not enjoy as many functions as the paid-for option. I used it to proof my Ph.D. Thesis, 60k words and it nearly made it to the end. There seems to be a limit on how many edits it will allow in the semi-automated mode. I finished the job of manually but I suppose it did about 50K words before that happened. I have not looked into the issue at this stage because I don't have the time. But it did pick up some interesting stuff but it is slightly more dyslexic in some areas than I am. But that was OK because it was consistent and I just ignored the suggestions. Would I pay for it? No, I don't think so but if you can cope with the minor limitations of the free version I would suggest it is worth a try. There is also a free plug-in for Chrome which I am trying.
If you want to check out the reviews I suggest you Google them, there are too many to list here.

The Croods - The Invention of the Snapshot

From the animated movie The Croods a family drama set in the Stone Age, a parody of Plato's Cave. After their cave is destroyed, the stone age family must trek through an unfamiliar fantastical world with the help of an inventive boy Grug. Here we see his efforts at inventing snapshot photography.

The Croods tells the story of the world's first family road trip. When their cave is destroyed, the Crood family must embark on a comedy adventure into strange and spectacular territory in search of a new home. As if patriarch Grug (Cage) didn't already have enough to handle, it goes from bad to worse when they encounter an imaginative nomad named Guy (Reynolds.) With Guy's help the Croods conquer their fear of the outside world and discover that they have exactly what it takes to survive - each other.(c) 

The first snapshot photograph