After finishing writing two dissertations these two years, my master’s degree in France has ended, and I can finally look back on my improvement and progress in my French academic writing.
My academic writing wasn’t good enough during the first semester of master 1. To be honest, more than half of my essay and research proposal were first written in English, then translated into French and sent to professional proofreaders for my grammar and phrasing. It was extremely time-consuming.
However, I felt my improvement from the second semester. Ever since we’ve returned to physical classes, with the opportunities to interact with my French friends and professors, I no longer need the translator, except for looking up the vocabulary and synonyms in the dictionary.
The dissertation rules vary from each university. At Université de Paris Cité, we need to write two separate dissertations at the end of master 1 and 2; we can either extend the subject of the first dissertation or start a completely new subject.
After finishing the oral defence of master 1, I prepared and submitted my new research project for master 2 in haste (since we can apply to different universities each academic year, it’s necessary for us to resubmit our motivation letter and research project.) because all I could think of was:
Mon Dieu ! I can finally take a break from all the hard work and there’s this application to do!? How am I going to create a new project in two weeks?
And I suddenly forgot that I can simply extend my first dissertation.
Compared to focusing on the analysis of theatrical costume and opera, my research subject for master 2 was almost pure literature. Thanks to this decision, I can’t use the phrase “well, literature is not my strength after all…” as my excuse for not understanding the class or poorly preparing my bibliography anymore.
The way I prepare and write my dissertation is almost the same despite some improvements and modifications during these two years. Basically, there are three stages: Exploration, reading and writing.
Summer vacation/ reading and finding the direction
French is not my mother tongue, plus, scholars and literati tend to structure their phrases in a complicated way; I need more time to understand what I’m reading than my French friends. Thus, right after I finished the application for master 2, I started to read massively, take notes and organise the bibliography during the summer, in case I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the pace once school starts.
Most of my notes were written down during this period. Due to the fact that most of my books were borrowed from the Nation Library, I couldn’t highlight them except by making marks with pencils; I usually came back to write down the pages and quotes, or my reflection after finishing one chapter. The benefit of keeping notes of the pages is that I can easily cite them properly and quickly once I start my writing.
September/ bibliography organisation
Our first meeting with our dissertation director usually takes place during the first week of the semester. Thanks to the preparation during the summer, I can already discuss my primary bibliography and the draft of the structure with my director at this moment.
Thus, my professor is able to correct my structure and suggest some other important reading at the beginning of the academic year, which help me advance my progress; I almost won’t be lost in the research of bibliography and the writings.
November, December/ specifying the subject and structure
We always need to submit a proposal and midterm progress before Christmas break.
Even though we will only receive our feedback after the break; the constant discussion with my director allows me to be certain about how I’m going to write my dissertation. Therefore, I’m able to start my close reading during the winter vacation.
Before March/ close reading
In fact, I spend more than half of the time of the academic year reading than writing.
Nevertheless, “close reading” doesn’t mean reading every book in detail (our school prefers us to read the published books of previous scholars than the contemporary research paper, but it’s a similar idea for both). Not only because we will never be able to finish searching for new information, but also, these books aren’t the research subject that we’re analysing, but the information that supports our opinion.
Plus, these books contain hundreds of pages, no one can absorb such gigantic resources in such a short time.
Hence, the “close reading” should be to select the most helpful chapters to read in detail.
At this stage, I will still keep the notes of my readings, and I will start organising and reading my previous notes at the same time.
Some people prefer to use pens with different colours while writing; I prefer to use only one pen to save time. I will only apply the colour code when I’m going to highlight my notes:
Of course, according to the purpose and the content of the book, not every colour would be used.
In my opinion, an appealing note is not the main purpose, and the colour code is not for designing my note, either. Every part on the note is for the purpose of elevating the efficiency while writing; when I’m reading my note, I can quickly understand to which paragraph should I put this information.
March/ writing
No matter the progress of my reading, I will start writing my dissertation no later than three months before the oral defence.
Of course, there will still be a lack of certain information during the process of writing, but I wouldn’t continue on the close reading. Instead, I will only speed read to search for keywords and key phrases in the shortest amount of time.
There are two ways that I speed read:
/ looking up in the index and appendix
/ reading “vertically” to search for keywords
Reading “vertically” is like searching for items in your drawer; it’s not for the purpose of organising them properly, but to quickly take out what you need.
In fact, speed reading requires a lot more concentration than close reading because we can only try to put together the logic of the author from the scattered input.
Since I need to add the information immediately to my dissertation, I will stay in the library almost every day, from day to night for the last few months. During this period, my desk will always be covered with tens or twenties of books for me to search one after one.
May/ proofreading
No matter if we’re writing in our mother tongue or not, proofreading is a step that’s easy to be ignored. Especially when writing in French, adding or missing one preposition, conjunction etc., will probably make the sentence becomes nonsense. Therefore, it’s necessary to search for proofreaders for help.
However, a dissertation contains at least a hundred pages, it’s impossible to contact only one proofreader and expect him to finish the work instantly. Actually, I started proofreading paragraphs that I finished in February during the class with my French tutor. By the end of April, I started sending out different chapters to various French friends and professional proofreaders.
After persisting for two years, I found out that my French has improved enormously in spite of the tiring and stressful process. But if there is such obvious growth, it’s still a blessing in disguise.
