REALLY freaking hard!

The newest protocol for the comprehensive exams has replaced the proposal (traditionally about 12-15 pages, though some people have exceeded 30!) with the "field statement". Why? Well, for one thing, they probably don't want to read those long proposals anymore, but even more disturbingly, because a field statement leaves them far more room to maneouver in asking questions. If your field is Victorian Literature, for example, any text that could be considered Victorian literature is fair game, as is any of the major critical approaches to those texts.

Big area! Really. Freaking. Big.

Okay, so here's where it stands: they decide to make this change this year. Not next year, for the class of smart kids. This year. When I'm the one who has to try to pass these exams.

Being a guinea pig profoundly disturbs me. It makes my innards feel like I just went off a cliff.

At least I won't set the bar too high for anyone who follows!

So, okay, I've got to deal with this change, and although I think it spells bad news for me, I'll have to suck it up and deal with it, right/eh? My problem is that I took a stab at the field statement this weekend. Now usually, my problem with writing stuff is that I don't have anything intelligent to say, or that I don't actually understand the stuff that I'm supposed to be writing about. I've spent the last eight or nine years trying to fill up page requirements!

For the field statement, it goes one further. I have to summarize the entirety of a theoretical field, or a century (and more) in 250 words.

If you haven't had to word count lately, to give you an idea of what 250 words is, go to Word (or another word processing program), open a new document, and start writing about your favorite subject - Star Wars, gardening, scuba diving, soccer, poetry, photography, comics, you name it - stop at half a page (about the equivalent of ten minutes of typing, depending on your speed). Now give it to an expert, someone who gets paid based on the subject matter you wrote about.

Did you cover everything having to do with your subject? No? What do you mean no? There's too much to say? Posh! You should be able to encompass everything within that field in a half a page. What? No, it is not a ridiculous request! Easy-peasy. What? Have I ever done it? Well, no, but there's no reason why it can't be done. Such is the rationale.

I've written for the newspaper - I know how to be succinct (no, don't look to my blogging for conciseness - here's where I get to cut lose and yabber away), but this?

This is really freaking hard!