chairing thesis committees myself, years later, that I understand what she meant -- and I wish to hell she'd been able to communicate it to me clearly and unambiguously much earlier in the process. It's about mastering rhetorical strategies, yes, but articulating your own point-of-view and argument in relation to Scary Well-Known People in Your Field. Regularly and often. Way more often than any student thinks is necessary (because, of course, everyone is bound up in his or her argument and doesn't realize how often the argument needs to be rearticulated to an outsider). It's about writing it down, no matter what. It's about drafty drafts that, full of holes or not, mean at least you HAVE a dissertation to revise.