ABSTRACT
One common mistake is to spend too much time writing a first draft for your committee. I labored over this task, hoping to impress the committee with the excellence of my scholarship and prose. Instead, I discovered that each member of my committee had specific desires (I’d call them quirks) for the manuscript and much rewriting was necessary to accommodate their eccentricities. It would have been far better to quickly write a first draft and let the committee members have their say at that time. Don’t be worried that they will think your first draft is slipshod; since they didn’t write it, they’ll think that in any case.
