This morning I read through Chapter 7 of my monograph again, tweaked it minutely, then opened a new document: the conclusion! (And 33 days to go until my submission deadline. The work ahead of me might just exceed that.)
Up to that point, I really hadn’t much idea what I would write there. A summary of all that I’ve written about, obviously. I was once told, in connection with public speaking or lecturing, that what you have to do is:-
- Tell them what you’re going to tell them
- Tell them it
- Tell them what you’ve told them
It sounds glib, but it’s actually a pretty good reminder of how to structure a piece of writing.
Today, since this is my second monograph, I added an extra bit at the beginning. My first book was about song-collecting, but it wasn’t the end of the story. The present book has continued from that point – albeit with a slightly different slant …
I still have a few things more that I want to read, before revisiting the last chapter. And then comes the editing. Getting rid of a few words. Finishing the introduction. Checking the formating of the endnotes, and deciding what goes in the bibliography. However, seeing that “Conclusion” and a few hundred words beneath it already?
Priceless!
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 