More Defense Thoughts

This morning I learned that my other paper did get accepted into Major National Conference--cool. I also got to read the reviews of the paper that was rejected. Most of the reviews I agree with. I had attempted to slim down my first case study into a paper and I didn't do a great job. That chapter hadn't yet gone through revisions so it wasn't the most coherent paper in the world--it needed some reorganization and the reviewers indicated as much. Cool. Also, I'm creating in my dissertation an entire new way to look at Black women in my field--so at least one reviewer indicated they needed to hear more about my framework. Understandable. The first review was completely unproductive for me--it had no detailed comments--just one sentence that said "this paper would have been good if the author had used an accepted method." Very frustrating. I am so tired of arguing why the "accepted" methods in my field don't work because they do not take into account the realities of race AND gender. I know that I have to do this work, but it is a never ending uphill battle. My entire dissertation is based on an unconventional methodological perspective for my field and that just increases my anxiety going into the defense. This is one of the areas in which my feedback on the diss has been really vague and to further answer timna's question--this is yet another reason why my thoughts about the defense are not 100% positive.