The worst advice I got in graduate school was to write my dissertation to please my committee members. I don’t even know if this was meant as advice, really. I think it was supposed to function more like reassurance. The purveyors of this message meant to tell me: “Don’t worry about the big world of possible readers out there. Just check the boxes you need to check for this very narrow group.”
This idea might be reassuring for some—and if it is for you, go forth and prosper—but it wasn’t reassuring for me. I couldn’t get over the feeling that this approach was a) infantilizing and b) misguided. It felt infantilizing because it always seemed to be said with the aim of lowering my own expectations for myself. It felt misguided because my committee—and I was extremely fortunate to have a supportive, responsive, sharp, generally wonderful committee—frankly didn’t agree with each other on a lot of the stuff I was writing about. Which was the point! I constructed a committee of terrific scholars who had different perspectives on my project, different entry points to it, and, not least, different politics, precisely because I thought (rightly, it turned out) that I could learn a lot from that range of perspectives. Trying to write for my committee as a collective, in addition to making me feel small, tied me into knots.
So, if you’re like me, and you find the idea that you just need to write for your committee somewhat baffling instead of reassuring, who should you write for?
- Write for your friends. One reason writing groups and workshops can be so helpful is that they provide an audience beyond the committee to share your writing with. Other audiences of friends can simply be imagined. The person in your college friend group who is actually interested when you talk about your academic work? Write for them!
- Write for your enemies. Are there scholars in your field that you disagree with fundamentally? These people may not be “enemies” per se, but imagining them as your audience can motivate you to sharpen up your arguments nonetheless. And if you have actual enemies? Definitely set out to prove them wrong.
- Write for the future. Do you ever go on ProQuest’s dissertation database and search for dissertations related to your topic? (If you don’t do this, you should. Unpublished dissertations are a tremendous resource, and reading ones that were later published can give great insights into how a dissertation becomes a book or an article.) Future students will do this, and they will find your dissertation, and they will think it’s impressive. Isn’t that kind of awesome?
- Write for yourself. This is the hardest one for me. I almost never write first drafts for myself. It’s only in the revision process that I start to feel like I’m making my own choices, turning sentences and paragraphs over just because I like them that way. Once I get there, though, that can be the most satisfying writing of all.
It's hard to construct your audience in advance. But, if thinking of a particular audience can be constraining, imagining other audiences—and not forgetting yourself—might give you the boost you need.
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