<HTML>I agree with Chuck's conclusion, but necessarily with his reasoning. Finish the fuckin' dissertation because it is a life project, and you will find it hard to move on without it finished. And you need to move on -- graduate school is not limbo, it is purgatory, and it is psychologically painful. My own theory is that a dissertation, when properly done, serves the purpose of intellectual self-clarification. It orientates you in the intellectual world. Finish it, and you should have a pretty good idea of where you stand, and of where you would like to go. Depending upon your sub-field in the social sciences, not only is a finished Ph.D. a prerequisite for a permanent, full time [ie, tenure track] position, but so is publication. I chose political theory, which like philosophy, is extraordinarily overpopulated and very competitive. Not every sub-field is that bad, but given that I went to a Canadian university outside of the old boy's network, it was clear I would have to publish before I even had a chance to perish. I decided that I was not going to limit myself in that way; having finished a good dissertation, I had proved to myself [maybe this is something particular to working class kids, but I did need to prove it to myself] that I could do it, and that was enough. <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Just for the record, as I said a couple of years ago. Write the fucking thesis---quit stalling around. Like the straw man in Wizard of Oz, you don't need a brain, you need a diploma. It may not mean much economically, but it means something IF you ever want to do research on a grant, manage a project, or teach in a community or city college out here. You also need it to write books that claim to be Sociology. I don't know what a PhD means in the social sciences. In the physical and biological sciences, it is an absolute entrance requirement. No PhD, no science, period. Chuck Grimes </BLOCKQUOTE> Leo Casey United Federation of Teachers 260 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869) Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. -- Frederick Douglass -- </HTML>