microlog post: 2026-07-02

2026-07-02 16:21:33 +01:00
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+Writing is hard! I've just spent 2 days fixing 1 paragraph in my dissertation. The problem was to give the reader good reason to think that the fossil fuel industry exerts a strong influence on the majority epistemology. The end result is a single paragraph with four citations. You'd think that would take half a day, not 2 full days.
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+I think what made it hard was that I needed to gain understanding. If I just needed a fact or two, it would have been easier: skim a few abstracts, extract a few figures, call it a day. But I didn't know in advance what fossil-think looks like. I couldn't write a paragraph that was almost done but for a few missing statistics. I needed to know the whens, the hows, the whos.
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+What I ended up doing was collecting a score of browser tabs with relevant articles and ebooks (which was easy enough), then going through each one and reading it: properly reading it, for understanding, not just skimming abstracts.
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+This worked: after about half a dozen articles, I reviewed my notes, realised I had enough to be getting on with, and wrote up my paragraph. Along the way I gained a (very shallow) understanding of how the fossil fuel industry influences public discourse.
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+But: it took a heck of a long time for one paragraph.
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+I really wish I had an experienced researcher looking over my shoulder, popping by a couple of times a day, to offer advice. Maybe they would tell me: sorry, that's just how it is, you need to gain understanding and that takes time. Or maybe they would say: you should really be cutting the corner here, let me show you how. It's one of the many things you cannot get from a monthly check-in with a supervisor.