Literature Review first draft officially (re)submitted

I was finally able to submit my initial draft of my dissertations chapter 2 – the literature review.  (My university uses a five-chapter format that might not be the same in all disciplines or different countries.)  It was a

bit of a scramble to finish up as I had aimed my initial rough draft based on double-checking the criteria (covered all sections and included 50-70 peer-reviewed sources), but I somehow had missed the other sections which had that same criterion *plus* one that said 40-60 pages of scholarly APA material.  In trying to keep it organized, naturally, I ended up on the lower end of the scale for the number of sources, and around 21 pages of literature written up which also equated to around 6500 words.

Oops – figuring that out on December 2nd and having to have it revised by December 9th at the latest, was somewhat panic-inducing.  It is important to note that it is also the last couple of weeks at the undergrad university I teach full-time at, which means undergrad students have their own concerns about assignments to help out with etc.  In a glorious push (likely added by the increasing beard power), managed to do a final 6-hour push the afternoon of December 6th to finish up the first draft of the literature review, ending right at 40 pages and 11,500 words.  The organization certainly suffered in the crash additions, though did legitimately find an area to cover that I hadn’t previously, so that will certainly enhance the review overall, and will be modifying the initial draft of my chapter 3 (methods) accordingly.

*Disclaimer for other doctoral students – don’t try to hammer out 50% of the literature in 5 days. Wisdom imbued into the beard involves double triple quadruple-checking the requirements, just like you tell your students to do… 

It sucks.  At least I had the bulk of the additional research already in my library and much of it had been previously read at some point too.  The only benefit to the method was able to finish up before the deadline and carve out time to get caught up on grading undergrad assignments.

The next big step (and the purpose of the spring 2022 semester) is to draft out chapter 1 in preparation for submitting drafts of Chapters 1, 2, 3 to the IRB (Institutional Review Board) to have official approval to conduct my study.  I hope to have this done (and approval received) prior to attending SIGCSE TS 2022 in March as some of what I participate in there will relate to my study.