Thesis update: Chapter 3 (draft) completed

I've been burning the midnight oil for the past few nights, driving to finish the draft version of chapter 3 of my thesis, which presents the data I have gathered. And, as long-time readers of this blog know, there was a lot of data to present. Chapter 3 ran 40 double-spaced pages with 30 charts. A typical paragraph looks like this:

When the types I and V samples for the concordance reports were compared in terms of the ratio of NCNA negative:NCNA positive references, the type V values were higher for every year in which both types have data (see Figure 3-27, “Stage 3 - Yoshikoder Concordance Report - NCNA Neg:Pos Ratios [Types I, V, VI]”). The type I ratio values range between approximately 1 and 2 from 1978 to 1980. In 1983, 1985 to 1988, and 1991, the NCNA negative:positive ratio was below 1 — in other words, there were higher proportions of NCNA positive terms in these yearly samples. The type V NCNA negative:positive ratio in the first year of the Deng era, 1977, was about 1:1. In 1978 there was no type V data, but in the next three years the ratio rose from 4.33:1 in 1979 to 11.25:1 in 1981. The type V ratio dropped to 6.45:1 in 1982 and 2.92:1 in 1983. In 1984 there was a dramatic spike in the NCNA negative:positive ratio to 25:1, resulting from an unusually high NCNA negative rate of 16.3% and an unusually low NCNA positive rate of 0.65%. In 1985 the NCNA negative:positive ratio declined to approximately 3:1. The ratio dropped further in the next few years. In 1988 and 1990 it was 1:1, in the remaining years the NCNA positive rates were higher.

People interested in the ALM program should know that my approach is not typical, at least among history and government concentrators. Most ALM theses in these fields are qualitative in nature, and involve different levels of primary source citations, judging by the examples on display at the Extension School's Grossman Library.

Next up: Chapter 4 (interpretation and analysis). Then it's time for revisions, formatting, bibliography and front matter, and all of the other bits and pieces that go into an ALM thesis.

Earlier draft chapters are discussed here.