My Kingdom for a Grant

Now that the holidays are over I am back to work on the dissertation. Well not on the dissertation itself, but on applications for more funding. I've already expressed on this blog the frustration of spending a portion of your time on one grant applying for the next one. And that attitude has not changed. It's amazing how much valuable (and in my case limited) research time is devoted to these grant applications. But like trading in baseball, you have to give up something valuable to get something valuable.

I am currently torn between reusing a chapter I wrote for a previous grant or rewriting it based on new research I've discovered. The advantage of resubmitting the old chapter is that the prose is polished, thoroughly edited, and the order of ideas and exposition are clear. The con to the chapter is that the conclusions are frankly obsolete, based on a very early sample of sources I'd gathered. A new chapter could incorporate the newer sources, making the conclusion more credible. However, a new chapter would need to be restructured. I simply cannot append the new data.

Although I feel rushed and am hesitant to abandon the library for the next two weeks, I am leaning toward writing the new chapter. In the end, I will have to rewrite the chapter anyway. And as the grant is competitive, I need to put forth my best work. I also suspect that such a long hiatus from my sources at the library will encourage me to pick up the pace when I return in a few weeks, driven by my long absence. Another year of funding is too valuable to sabotage with a premature chapter.