Instagram Draft Thoughts

On June 1st, Professor Thompson returned my Dissertation Draft with a series of comments and ideas. His general appraisal was quite positive and encouraging. His ideas for improving the essay were also quite sound and helpful.

On June 2nd, I re-read the entire document and added my own thoughts. I am collecting both sets of comments here to keep them in a convenient place and have them for posterity.

= Thompson's Thoughts =


 * Professor Thompson's thoughts on the essay boiled down to five main points:

= My Thoughts =
 * 1) "Terrific text, and beautifully written- small typos" :: Definitely lots of copy-editing still to do
 * 2) "You could say more about limitations of your data" :: Particularly in the methodology opening, I need to stress the "elite" "self-selecting" and relatively "small" sample
 * 3) "Need to say more about financial basis of Instagram (37)" :: Not sure I have space for this, but it would be helpful. Might be able to get a sentence in. But not a lot discussion unfortunately. Especially as the word limit is nigh.
 * 4) "How did you indentify 'motivations' (59) " :: Great point. Need to discuss looking for trends and recurrent phrasing.
 * 5) "Needs more of an argument - perhaps return to Siegel and Keen in the conclusion and develop a critique of their work in some detail" :: Also a really strong point, probably going to need to re-write much of the conclusion/ scrap it completely and write it again.


 * Overall, I was stunned with how complete this draft felt. Having worked on it so piecemeal (albeit from a good outline) I never got a sense of its unity. Which is quite there.


 * The ethnography section is probably the strongest.


 * The conclusion (as Thompson suggests) is the weakest and needs to really develop my arguement/positioning


 * The motivations chapter can be sharpened, but is overall pretty good. I think I could have used less motivations, but its really too late to re-think this now. Plus, the categories work, although they are more "trends in motivations" or "motivational trends" then hard "motivations"


 * Need to find a way to cut a lot of words. Feel like the interface analysis could be shortened. Would love to add a photo there, but I am unsure of the rules (how many words an image counts for) in the writing.


 * Not that far away from a complete package. Tomorrow I will make the initial touch-ups in the morning, and then focus on the conclusion in the afternoon. I will send it along to Thompson by Saturday morning at the latest. It shouldn't be that long anyway.


 * Feeling good. It felt proficient if not outstanding. And I have time to sharpen it up!

= Notes =


 * Part of On Instagram
 * Full draft can be found here
 * Please note that this is an incomplete draft and that a final draft should be available shortly.
 * Part of At Cambridge Work as well