Thursday, January 14, 2010

viva voce

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've got my PhD viva tomorrow. I'm going through my thesis and feel really sorry for the examiners because I can't write concisely or clearly for toffee. Regular visitors to punkscience will be aware of this and I apologise for it. Its just not something I've ever really aspired to and it really shows in my work. That's not to say I'm not a good scientist. I am. I'm fucking awesome! I can communicate my work very eloquently and clearly- just not in the formal written style that all science is documented in.

This is a problem I need to address because being a good scientist these days is simply not going to get you a job. You have to be a self-publicist and prolifically so in all sorts of media- not just peer-reviewed journals. I don't approve of this. There are so many examples of boundaries being smashed apart as a result of people ignoring this paradigm and concentrating on research instead of wanking their egos that I can't begin to motivate myself to 'play the game.'

Anyway, instead of wasting time writing badly here I'm going to go back to pondering the bad writing in my thesis. I will leave you with some relevant ponderings from Dr Jim. Who is awesome.

5 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey, I hope your viva went well!

    Congratulations ;-)

    ...and chillax, some.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks Jim, its all good! I had a brief moment of chillaxation this morning but I've got to give a departmental seminar tomorrow and only started writing it at 1800 tonight. Oh dear.

    ReplyDelete

Feel free to share your opinions of my opinions. Oh- and cocking fuckmouse.