Well this has been a very useful week. I was able to get the time off so I could sit down and WRITE and I did that! I submitted one draft and one final version today, and that feels really good. I have one more to complete which is not due until June 13th because as a reflective essay it should incorporate the writing process for the final essays. I am always wary of saying how I feel about these things until I get feedback, because I've got it wrong plenty of times in the past. The high school exams I found easiest gave me the lower marks and the ones I thought I bombed out on were my best marks. Upon reflection I guess that means that what I worked harder on gave better results, and that makes sense to me.
Don't we say if it's worth doing it's worth effort? Hopefully I have now been critically analytical enough, it really does get hard to tell because every sentence we write becomes our 'precious'! I did learn this week to slash and burn though, and I don't miss those whole paragraphs I got rid of.
The last reflection I wrote was much better than the first ones I did. Partly because now I get it, and can see how to write reflectively, and partly because I have been practicing in here as well.
So, dear diary, where to from here? I'm not going to share much about my first 2 essays today, other than they are both very different even though they started out with the same introduction, and that I am quite surprised that the process for writing each one has turned out to be very different.
I tried a different tactic this time as well. My class notes were so confused that I really couldn't see what to do with them. I printed them off, cut them up and stuck them onto big sheets of A3 paper that I divided up into the Criteria, and started to add in the thoughts and themes I had running round in my brain.
Bingo! All of a sudden I had a plan! Actually 2 plans! and it was nice just to hand write in different colours and highlight things, and be away from the screen as well. I am not quite sure yet if I want to do mind mapping electronically. Today someone drove into a power pole just down the road - it needed to be replaced completely so I ran out of laptop battery by 3.30, and would have been stuck if it wasn't for good old pen and paper, and I have now set out my last essay for this trimester. ( when I saw the pole so bent and broken I just hoped they were all right, it was pretty bad)
What else has worked to keep me on track?
I love that Linda gets us to put together a summary of where we are at. Not only is this grist for our reflection essay, but it really got me thinking, so, really, where am I and where am I going with this essay of mine?
Part of the fun has been putting together the reflections, in PowerPoint form and styling it, also to see what visuals I can use, the word clouds are a bit if a thing with me - here's my latest one showing some of my learning these past 3 months:
Here's my Special Topic Summary too:
Monique Special Topic Summary 2
It's 6.15pm and I better take a look at what's for dinner. I've come a long way this week and I'm feeling pretty good about things, but there is still tomorrow and one more essay to draft out, this one too, needs to relate not only to my learning but link with relevant theory. I think I'm getting a handle on how that works, and I think I like the effect of that - am feel more able to share what and how I am learning, and I no longer get as nervous as I used to, when it comes time to share.
Goals for the next two weeks:
1. write a decent draft of the reflective Patchwork essay
2. finalise the Special Topic essay when I get feedback
3. take the time to tidy up my Mendeley pdfs, they are pretty good and I want it to stay that way!
And that will do for now!
2/5 - 7/5
I've had an interesting week in my Special Topic. We've been told we are in effect, doing a literature review, so I went back to Gina Wisker's Post Graduate Research Handbook, and looked that up. Here she tells me to consider using a referencing machine that can help sort out the pdf files I've been gathering which sounded good to me. Happy to search that out.
I settled on Mendeley which is super easy to use and copies references into a Word doc without any fuss, unlike End Note which can cause formatting issues. It also lets me save my reading notes on a couple of formats which are transferable to my word doc as well. Feeling excited!
Then I found these 2 websites which gave me a good idea of what a Lit Review can look like, and recognised them in some of my sources, so proceeded to make one of my own like that. Feeling quite pleased and clever.
So far so good....
http://www.literaturereviewhq.com/guest-post-how-to-get-your-literature-review-to-write-itself/
http://phdtalk.totallyvidya.net/academic/the-four-cs-of-literature-review/
I even looked at a writing tool!!!!! but Scrivener costs US$40.00 after the first 30 days so not really an option at this point. What I am needing to do as these 2 blog posts suggest, is more active note taking. I made a good start with the Mendeley programme for referencing and I will use those notes on the side to be a part of my Literature review. If I'm right I can drag and drop this notes which are attached to the highlights in the PDFs I have stored in there. Not feeling smug yet, but getting close....
8/5
Upon going back to the criteria (a day later!) I see that I have not been critical AT ALL and need to address that, so go and look for examples of how to go about that as well. Feeling worried I wasted time.
9/5
BUT NOW!!!!! oh dear I think I am getting bogged down in the idea of a proper Critical Literature Review! And I am sure that is not the intention! There's still time to unstick myself, and I have heaps of notes - I just need to opinionise and sort them into more coherence for my topic. At least there is plenty of evidence to be found for my topic!!!! Still feeling worried, started an email to Linda. Time to re read the criteria with more attention, I think.
Saving the mail as a draft - I seem to be answering my own question - but a second opinion is always a help. Feeling a bit confused.
Sent the email, feeling better about that.
Wondering if I should be feeling sheepish or can I just not see the woods for the trees!!!!
Goals for this week:
- Get the critiques sorted!!
- get stuck into the Research Essay by Wednesday since that one also needs to be tended to sooner than later.
- Keep this blog going, I am finding it useful to keep setting down my thoughts, but concentrate on writing how it helps me learn - still struggling with that.
