Chapter One
YOU'RE THE AUTHOR NOW
William P. Sisler
OK, so you've passed your orals, defended your thesis successfully,
gotten your union card. So far, so good. But the pressure is
intense and immediate. To get ahead, to stay ahead, you need to
get that book out. You have the raw material, but it's not a book;
it's a dissertation, and that won't do. Why? Because when you
wrote your thesis, you were an acolyte not yet empowered to
speak with authority and gravitas. Now, as you begin to think
about moving that dissertation into book mode, you'll need to
make a gestalt shift, in which you stop seeing yourself as a supplicant
seeking to convince the chosen few (your dissertation committee)
and start seeing yourself as a creator, an expert, an authority-an
author.
As an author-as the author-you've taken charge of your
work; you have a right to speak and be heard. Your readers will
pick up your book not to judge your mastery of the facts or your
facility with the literature in your field but to learn something
new. Unlike your dissertation committee, they will assume you
know what you're talking about. Still, your readers don't want ... read full excerpt from Revising Your Dissertation: Advice from Leading Editors ebook
