I’ve come to the conclusion that collaborative writing kind of sucks.  I sent the conference paper off to Chair this evening but realized based on his comments and my attempted revisions that we are prioritizing certain arguments differently.

The result is that he crossed out things I thought were important and put in an entire section on something that I specifically thing is NOT relevant, especially given what he crossed out.  And of course, as the graduate student in this relationship, I lose.

Moreover the draft he handed back to me had an awful lot of rewrites that were less about the point of the sentence and more about our different writing styles.  The point didn’t change, and he made the sentences longer as often as he made them shorter.  I don’t think there was a difference in clarity between the two.

To some extent this reinforces my desire for more independence.  I want him commenting, not editing.  Telling me where my argument is unclear or I say something that seems out of place, not changing sentence structure.  How can I develop my own voice when what I’m mostly learning is how to write in HIS voice.