Give it up and print it out - Revising sentences - Part I. Research and writing: from planning to production

A manual for writers of research papers, theses, and dissertations, 7th edition - Kate L. Turabian 2007

Give it up and print it out
Revising sentences
Part I. Research and writing: from planning to production

If one thing is harder than starting to write, it's stopping. We all want another day to get the organization right, another hour to tweak the opening paragraph, another minute to . . . you get the idea. If experienced researchers know one more crucial thing about research and its reporting, it's this: nothing you write will ever be perfect, that the benefit of getting the last 1 percent or even 5 percent right is rarely worth the cost. Dissertation students in particular agonize over reaching a standard of perfection that exists largely in their own minds. No thesis or dissertation has to be utterly perfect; what it has to be is done. At some point, enough is enough. Give it up and print it out. (But before you turn it in, leaf through it one last time to be sure that it looks the way you want it to: look at page breaks, spacing in margins, positions of tables and figures, and so on.)

You might now think your job is done. In fact, you have one last task: to profit from the comments on your returned paper.