outlining

In the middle of the night, I woke to return to the pieces of paper that variously sketched out parts of my dissertation. At that point I was still trying to write a somewhat linear text...perhaps using different fonts, text boxes and layers, somewhat like Kathy Nolan (2001, 2007) used in her dissertation (see also, Lather & Smithies, 1997). While I had come to observe myself reading dialogically, I still did not have a clear sense of how dialogic reading could create a dissertation. Thus, in my moments of trying to create a 'somewhat normal' dissertation I was still looking for an outline – and chapters.

Very early one morning I awoke, and felt like it was finally time to create the elusive outline for the dissertation. My hands picked up various pieces of paper on which I had written key ideas then placed them side-by-side. I taped them together. There it was, my outline. The structure I had been looking for – and never did use.