Writing – Page 56 – a sibilant intake of breath

Ten days to chapter two

By the end of this month, I am to submit the second chapter of my thesis. On “problem identification and investigation” it will detail the scientific processes that led to the Stockholm Convention and the Kyoto Protocol. Largely because of the sheer scale of the latter effort, it is a more difficult thing to pin down, especially in a reasonably concise way. If someone knows of an article or chapter that provides a neat scientific history of the climate change debate, UNFCCC, and Kyoto, I would appreciate being pointed in that direction.

On the theoretical side, the chapter will examine the ways in which phenomena in the world are categorized as ‘problems’ or not. I am also going to examine the role of existing bureaucratic structures in determining if and how scientific research in undertaken. There, the contrast between the American and Canadian approaches to dealing with POPs should be illustrative.

About 7,000 words long, this chapter will be one of the three pillars upon which the thesis as a whole will succeed or fail. As such, I am understandably anxious to do as good a job on it as can be managed, given the limitations on how much I can actually read and remember. My biggest source of anxiety remains the thought that I haven’t done enough research to speak authoritatively on the subject. Finishing the Litfin and Bernstein books is thus the first order of business, for the next few days. To that end, I should resume my ‘peripatetic and caffeinated’ reading strategy.

Richard Casement internship

As one more project for the next couple of weeks, I am going to prepare a submission for the Richard Casement internship at The Economist. Since about ten people a day are finding my site by searching for that term, I am not going to give any hints about what I might write my 600 word article about. That said, I am told that such applications generally succeed through the combination of a good submission with a fortuitous personal connection with someone already inside the organization. Furthermore, their stated “aim is more to discover writing talent in a science student or scientist than scientific aptitude in a budding journalist” and I am neither of those things.

That said, I can hardly imagine a better way to spend the first three months after finishing here than writing about science in New York or London. Hopefully, my application this year will go better than the ones I submitted in past recruiting cycles.

Alternative thesis flowchart

Introduction draft (v0.3) complete

Through the liberal application of Red Bull and Beethoven, a 4,802 word draft of my thesis introduction is ready to be dropped off tomorrow for my supervisor to read. I’ll give it one more read-over before printing it in the morning.

With seventy-seven days to go until submission, here is the state of the project:

Introduction: 4,802 words (5,477 with footnotes)
Chapter 2 – Problem identification and investigation: 2,753 words
Chapter 3 – Consensus formation in science and politics: 0 words
Chapter 4 – Remedy design and implementation 0 words
Conclusion: 0 words

Total: 7555 (25%)

Note: there are significant sections that were written in the old structure and have not found homes in the new structure yet. Most of them will land in Chapters 3 and 4.

My next chapter is due on February 28th. Just having the a draft introduction written makes me feel much more as though I am on top of this project, though parts of it will certainly need to be revised once the three substantive chapters have been written.

Tomorrow, I should also finish Kuhn and move on to Bernstein and Litfin. I also need to work out which bits of Haas need to be read most urgently.

[Update: 5 February 2007] I am starting to look forward to April, when the task will be to cut what I have written down to the correct length. (v0.4) of the introduction, which I just submitted, crept up to 5,018 words (5,894 with footnotes).

Thesis typeface: three options

While it may seem trivial to some, I do think it is worthwhile to put some effort into the selection of the font in which my thesis will be written and ultimately printed. For reasons of aesthetics and ease of reading, a fairly classical serif font is the sort being considered. Within that genre, there are three options I am considering most strongly at the moment.

Continue reading “Thesis typeface: three options”

Marshaling paragraphs

Sorry to go on and on about the thesis, but for some reason it has been dominated my attention recently. It has now taken on the character of being much like those large maps of Europe on which officers push around little tanks with long wooden poles. The tanks are there, the terrain is there, but their positions with respect to one another keep changing. A section on the nature of environmental ‘problems’ is somewhere near the border between the introduction and the first substantive chapter. Other bits have yet to be deployed into the theatre of operations, despite being fairly well constituted in and of themselves. Others are like the fledgling brigades of the new Iraqi army: assembled, in some sense, but far from ready to operate as part of a larger operation.

The draft introduction being submitted tomorrow is best seen as a first attempt to deploy a coherent strategy, with plenty of bits to be filled out later. The central issue is working out a broad way by which to coordinate the operations of disparate units, so as to develop sensible (if not entirely comprehensive) coverage of the terrain in dispute.

[Update: 8:30pm] This evolving draft section from my thesis may also be of use to general readers of this blog: Appendix I: Glossary and Table of Acronyms For those times when you can’t keep remember what was happening when UNECE (part of ECOSOC) negotiated the CLRTAP to deal with POPs (including PCBs).

Keyboard clacking away

By Monday, I am meant to have a draft copy of my thesis introduction ready for discussion. The paradoxical thing about the task is that it will almost certainly be necessary to revamp the introduction a great deal, once the three core chapters have been finished. Of course, it is essential to get the direction right. Tidying up the introduction and conclusion is something that can be done during the period between when my supervisor leaves Oxford and when my thesis is due (April 1-22).

Hopefully, a generous soul or two will volunteer to read a few chapters (or even the whole thesis) to check for general comprehensibility and strength of argumentation.

PS. Lots more information, both about the thesis and other coursework, is appearing on the wiki.

Climate change all over the news

Sorry to be less esoteric and entertaining in my writing recently, but I have been focused by necessity on issues pertinent to ongoing projects. The process distorts one’s perception of the world. I cannot really judge, for instance, the extent to which the apparent increase in coverage of climate change issues in the media is (a) the product of my increased focus on those stories, (b) the result of cyclical phenomena, like the release of IPCC reports, or (c) a demonstration of increased awareness – or at least increased newsworthiness – of the climate change situation. With that caveat stated, it certainly seems as though climate change related stories are getting top billing in the media to an increasing degree.

The front page of today’s Globe and Mail site features four articles on climate change. One is on climate change and Parliamentary politics, another deals with the proper role of scientists. There is a question and answer session, and finally an article on the impact of rising sea levels on Indonesia. Many organizations, including the BBC, now have dedicated portions on their websites to cover climate change news.

Even President Bush has acknowledged the need to take action. It’s enough to make one hope that a massive shift from talk to action might take place within the next few years, going beyond Kyoto and into the realm of mechanisms to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions and move into a post fossil fuel economy.

From the perspective of a concerned citizen, this all seems like good news. It is very important to reach as good an understanding about the likely costs and benefits of climate change as possible. Also essential is the development of political consensus to take action to prevent climate change and mitigate the impact. From the perspective of a graduate student working partially on climate change, it is all quite overwhelming. It makes one wonder how relevant one’s research will be in a year or two. Additionally, it makes it seem less likely that one can add anything new to the discussion. My hope is that by drawing together more types of information than most people will be examining, I will be able to develop some insights. The degree to which my thesis will be a real contribution to scholarship largely depends on it.

Defining expertise and legitimacy

I am presently working on the draft introduction for my thesis: Expertise and Legitimacy: the Role of Science in Global Environmental Policy-Making. Given the title, it is essential to get the definitions of ‘expertise’ and ‘legitimacy’ right. Here’s what I have so far:

Continue reading “Defining expertise and legitimacy”

The home stretch

Right now, I feel both as though I am on the final stretch of the M.Phil and that I am still less than halfway through the single most important item: the thesis that stalks me down Oxford’s cobbled streets. Now that I have a schedule set, the first order of business is prioritizing the reading that I should do in the remaining time. The second is to get the thing written. I will feel a lot better about the whole process once I have submitted and discussed one draft chapter: at present, I don’t particularly feel as though I know what I am doing. Once I have intuitively accepted that this project is not enormously more difficult than others that I would now brush off, it will come together quickly. Thinking about it as five or six long papers on related themes is one way to make the whole assembly seem less daunting, though it is important for them to be tightly integrated.

Aside from the thesis, all I have left are two papers for international law (both of which can probably be made highly thesis related) and four three-hour exams. Two of those are on the core seminars from last year: history and IR theory. The other two are on the optional papers from this year: the developing world and international law. There is good reason to be concerned about all of them – the two core seminars from first year aren’t exactly sharp in my mind, and the two optional papers cover a lot of material. That said, there is only so much information you can transfer from mind to paper in three hours. Likewise, while you do need to know a good amount of stuff to do well on Oxford exams, the way in which you approach and answer the questions seems to make all the difference between a tolerable grade and a really good one.

Parallel to all of this is the lingering and difficult project of finding something worthwhile to do after this. I have three basic objectives: finding a job that will (a) increase my knowledge and experience, (b) make me at least financially neutral, no longer going deeper into debt, and (c) not make people say: “So you did an M.Phil at Oxford and then you did… that.” This is the sort of project that you would be expect to be easier than finishing the degree itself, but it’s a matter of comparative advantages. With five months until I leave Oxford, the clock is ticking.

PS. New difficulties have arisen, with regards to the submission of the fish paper to the MIT International Review. If three specific things can be dealt with, it should be published within the next few months. If not, I may need to start hunting for yet another journal in which to try and get it printed.