I heard recently that ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ was the number one song on Spotify this year.* Encountering that unsurprising fact must have moved the phrase onto the tip of my tongue because I found myself using it later in the day to explain why I couldn’t answer a simple question about my own thesis from one of my students. The question that stumped me? What was the title of your thesis, Rachael? I was eventually able to recall the proper title, but I stumbled over a number of inaccurate versions first. I was mildly embarrassed, of course, but mostly I was just amazed. In less than 10 years, my thesis had gone from being my everything to being, well, ‘somebody that I used to know’. My students were tolerant, as always, but I wasn’t sure they really believed me. Which makes sense. When I was in their place, I wasn’t even sure I could finish the wretched thing, let alone finish and then forget about it. Perhaps if you find yourself in the thick of things, unable to see a clear path to completion, it may help to imagine that someday you may not even remember what it was called!
While I was still thinking about this diminishing importance of our theses over time, I read a post on The Thesis Whisperer from Ben from Literature Review HQ. In this post, Ben reflects on his post-graduation case of Stockholm Syndrome. He knows he should be glad to have his thesis behind him—and, of course, is glad to have it behind him—but still feels a bit bereft. While that sense of loss is inevitable, Ben has the exact right response: he figures out what was good about the process that can now inform his new post-thesis working life. There is a great deal of intellectual struggle and psychological pain in the thesis writing process, but there is also a unique degree of freedom. That freedom can be an opportunity to learn about ourselves and how we can optimally organize our professional lives.
* If you hate this song, ask yourself if you really hate it or if you hate it the way the guys in the car hate it.
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Recent links from @explorstyle on Twitter
From the Lingua Franca blog, Lucy Ferriss on the rhetorical impact of using ‘we’.
From @thesiswhisperer, using the Cornell Method to limit, analyze, and annotate your own notes to prepare for writing.
From @ThomsonPat, an explanation of the metacommentary we use to frame our own contributions to the conversation.
From @CShearson, helpful advice about using strong verbs in scientific writing.
From @ThomsonPat, an interesting breakdown of the many complex tasks involved in reviewing the literature.
From @ThomsonPat, a helpful way to think about writing a road map.
From @fishhookopeneye, a radical approach to breaking down the tasks of thesis supervision.
From Inside Higher Ed, the final instalment of Kerry Ann Rockquemore’s excellent series on academics and perfectionism.
From @MGrammar, a discussion of why it is so annoying when someone says “I don’t know, can you?”.
From @ThomsonPat, interesting reflections on the way blogging readily disrupts any dichotomy between work and leisure.
From @ProfessorIsIn, a post by @rogerwhitson on successful collaborative projects (with lots of helpful links).
Do you need another way to distract yourself from academic writing?
Can a humanities PhD be done in five years? Inside Higher Ed discusses a new proposal at Stanford.
From Inside Higher Ed, a helpful discussion of a commonly asked question: how to cite our own work at various stages of completion.
From @chronicle, Cassuto on possible futures for PhD education.
From the New York Times, a fun post on what life is really like for lexicographers: Lies! Murder! Lexicography!
Glad to be included in the @thesiswhisperer‘s November newsletter, along with lots of great stuff on doctoral study.
Mind the gap! @ProfessorIsIn on a characteristic and crucial weakness in academic proposals and theses.
Explorations of Style 
Some Study That I Used To Know:
Thanks, Sean–that’s great!