Tag Archives: writing

Literature review: a note to self

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Tonight I have been working on the literature review and input coded snippets of literature into my draft structure. Some literature couldn’t just be copied and pasted in as I still need to process it to come up with the words and understanding. Strategies I have put in place this time round seem, for the most part to be working so far. One example is using my research journal to write out my concerns and thinking. I feel that I have done a lot more preparation for drafting the literature review than last time. I feel more organised. I’m happy with my structure. I’ve budgeted my word count so the beast doesn’t look so daunting. I’ve mapped literature to the paragraph. I’m hoping that with this preparation, I have given myself a clearer idea of what I’m aiming to achieve with each paragraph, the point I will be making, so I won’t be writing aimlessly. I’ve tried to set it up to make the writing process less painful and more enjoyable.

My next action is to suck it up (you know, all the anxiety, doubt and mysterious sudden loss of confidence) and start in the middle where I can gain the most momentum for the rest of the literature review. I’m going to start with fleshing out the few empirical studies in my research area.

I was just wrapping up some work for the evening with a bit of a pep talk to myself in my research journal when I thought I’d share it here. My notes turned in this direction….

Keep calm, keep a clear head. You’ll get there.

Don’t worry about quality at this stage.

Write the story! Get it out!   (a bit of creative writing mindset here)

Put the ‘big girl’ shoes on.

I’ve done enough to this point to tackle each section individually.

Now stop skirting around and write!

Lose yourself, have fun learning about it!

At this point of the literature review process I’m more than happy to kick my own rear end. I know I should be writing by now, or getting it together into the one document. But I have been writing. Truly. I wrote about the empirical studies last week without even realising it. This is what I need to get going.

The last point is also true. I need to remind myself that my research project is important, super interesting and I’m super keen to find out more! So here goes.

Research progress: lessons, strategies and moving onwards

Posted on by acrystelle
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My research supervisor recently reminded me how big of a year it has been for me. I have been so ‘head down, bum up’ this year, focusing on completing this darn Masters thing, that I failed to realise this myself. Somewhere in between becoming my own professional and finding my voice in the research space, I’m currently completing my next research project.

Firstly, a bit of a catch up.

Reflecting on my experience with my last research project in evidence-based library and information practice (EBLIP), I learnt an incredible amount.

(I haven’t yet closed the door on this project as I’m polishing up a journal article for submission with my supervisor who will be co-author. Exciting stuff!)

Valuable lessons from my first research project include:

  • Research always takes longer than intended. I could put in place the most beautiful Gantt chart (and I love a good Gantt chart) but in reality, it would not be able to foresee or make allowance for all the hiccups, the hurdles, the tantrums or the times when I’ve just wanted to throw it all in. I’m behind in my schedule for this project already, but I’ve learnt that the plan I’ve put in place is flexible, it’s a guide. I’ve just gotta roll with it, allow myself to absorb, process and keep going.
  • Just friggin’ write! Oh. my. goodness. The number of times I’ve wanted to look down at myself and scream FFS, just write anything! It’s not that I didn’t want to write or complete the assessment requirements. I was afraid to. I was afraid of not doing the literature justice. Or my ideas justice. Or that my writing wouldn’t be perfect. This anxiety reflected in my writing being overly complex at times. I would also jam too many ideas into the one sentence or paragraph. I wanted to make sure I covered it all! My lesson here is writing is a form or method of processing the literature, ideas and thoughts. I’ll need to remember this when I write up my literature review very soon.
  • Keep a safe space. My research journal has assisted me to be more aware of my progress, which made execution of the research project much better than what it could’ve been. I’d recommend this strategy to anyone. The journal helps me to nut out an approach to a problem or hurdle, come up with next actions to get through a tough spot and to record notes on meetings and general progress.

Another strategy I have employed this semester is keeping a project notebook. This is in addition to my online research journal. There is just something about hand-written notes and scribbles. This is an approach I developed in my role at work where I use my notebook as a bit of a journal in itself, documenting my time, tasks, projects I’ve worked on, notes from research, etc. For research purposes, I can see how my thinking has developed over time. I have also recorded the books I’ve needed from the library, literature search strategies and anything else related to my research I jot it down. I keep a pile of scrap paper on my desk at work. When I’ve scribbled an idea, I’ve pasted this into the notebook. I have my project schedule glued in. I review it every week and I record when a task has been completed. Basically, this little notebook keeps everything together.  (Oh, and it helps when the notebook is pretty. I grabbed a pack of three A5 notebooks from Kikki K.)

So what’s the research project I’m up to this time?

Well, I’m looking into innovation in archival institutions. Publicly funded, Australian archival institutions to be precise. I want to understand what it looks like, how it’s taking place and in what areas of these organisations. I want to know what’s happening right now, what are the conditions like in these organisations for innovation to happen, and I want to explore influences associated with innovation, such as drivers and pressures. I’m seeking to capture a snapshot of current innovation efforts. I only aim to scrape the surface. I have to do all this in a semester after all.

I hope with the evidence generated by this small scale study will assist archival institutions to set reasonable objectives, further embrace innovation and communicate and negotiate expectations with their stakeholders. Archival institutions are not there to make money. They exist to serve a social purpose. Archival institutions are not there to satisfy shareholders. These organisations have a number of stakeholders who will have their own ideas of what innovation is, which may be completely different to the organisational environment, characteristics and capabilities. That is why I believe it is important to understand how innovation relates to this context.

I’m currently in the throes of doing the literature review and I await with bated breath for my ethics approval to come through. Data collection and completing the literature review are my next big tasks for this research project. And I have so much share on this topic. Stay tuned.

Surviving a literature review

Posted on by acrystelle
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I’m a little excited. There are a number of reasons why. One of them is my research project this semester. I’ll be looking into the role of innovation in archival institutions. I’m looking forward to the findings. And I’m looking forward to graduating. But that’s another story, and not the point of this post.

As I start to figure out my research question, objectives, outcomes and how I’m going to approach it, I pulled open my desk drawer for some paper to write notes and memories flooded back to me. Last semester, a key deliverable threatened to bring me down – the literature review.

It was a nasty, NASTY beast. Though that might be partly due to the enormous pressure I placed on it to be absolutely brilliant. And just so you know, I don’t believe it was brilliant at all, but I survived it.

The piece of paper I discovered in my desk drawer was a blog post idea about how to survive the literature review. I jotted down some dot points about what was working for me. Surviving the literature review isn’t just about making sure you’re organised, the literature search strategy, or the structure. Sometimes there is so much focus on how to do these things, that the other stuff is forgotten. The stuff that help with making life a little easier, more comfortable, and quite frankly, allows for some of the sanity to remain intact throughout the process. Not only does the literature review need to be completed, but the aim here is to not go insane in the meantime.

Here are the dot points I wrote down when I was in the thick of it, tearing my hair out and trying so damn hard to remind myself that I enjoyed my topic and that was the reason why I was doing it.

  • Mood music – I like to write with either jazz or classical music in the background. I can’t have recognisable lyrics because my mind will wander. But I draw the line at Michael Buble. I can’t stand that over-rated karaoke singer. Music makes the writing a little more fun. When it’s upbeat, I feel a shift in my mood to having a little more confidence.
  • Dance it out. Seriously, do it. Don’t judge me, but I felt great after dancing out some frustration to ‘Do you love me?’ from Dirty Dancing. Dance, shake it out, grab a cuppa then sit your behind down again and write.
  • Back up! Make sure you back up your work regularly. After every writing session, I saved the version both to the hard drive and Dropbox, then did a full system back up once a week or fortnight. As for versions, save one for every session or day you’re working on it. This way, if you had a stroke of brilliance one day, scratched it out the next, then realised that really was an awesome paragraph, you can go back to it.
  • Tea is for alertness. Wine (or other alcoholic beverage) is for creativity and inspiration. I tend to get all ‘wise woman’ with a nip of scotch and feel like a writer with a small glass of Pinot Noir. I don’t recommend any more than two though. It’s all downhill from there.
  • Pick out a favourite mug. Believe me when I say that this makes a big difference. I have a study mug. It has Winnie the Pooh on it in ‘thinking’ poses. I bought it was I was 10 on a gymnastics trip. I’d recommend having something a little special or something you like because when you have a cuppa with it, it says ‘I’m studying right now. I have thinking to do.’
  • Don’t be a slave to the literature, your way is more fun. And probably better for your argument anyway. I remember having an epiphany about my literature review. I allowed the literature to take me where it wanted to go. No, don’t be a slave. The literature is there to answer your questions. You be the boss. It was amazing how empowering this perspective was for me.
  • Have an outline knowing full well it won’t happen. Then try anyway, get frustrated and throw out the outline. Start again. The literature review is a process. Allow the process to happen. You need to go through it to come out the other side.
  • Have pen and paper handy for moments like these. When inspiration strikes, I like to have scrap paper within reach to quickly jot things down. This serves two purposes – 1) you won’t forget your amazing thought because you wrote it down, and 2) you can relieve your mind from remembering that thought and you can go back to whatever it is that is demanding your attention and focus.

So there you go.  A moment or two of thought has turned into a blog post. I hope these survival tips are helpful to those struggling with a literature review or even assignment writing generally.  These are lessons learnt from my last research project and no doubt will put them in action for this one.

The writing itch

Posted on by acrystelle
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Writing by Jonathan Reyes - http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpaxonreyes/5034760960/in/set-72157625343177739

Writing by Jonathan Reyes – CC BY-NC 2.0

 

I did a silly thing last week. When I was packing for Melbourne, to save space and with the intent of being realistic, I didn’t pack my writing journal. I thought I’d have no time or head space to write in it. This indicated to me that writing just wasn’t a priority at the time. Silly billy, I was.

It turned out that after three days of not writing, not so much as an entry in my diary each day, my writing itch needed to be scratched. I felt a need to quieten my mind and empty it of my ideas and thoughts. There was a reason why I picked up a couple of Moleskine notebooks from a bookstore in St Kilda.

I initially thought I had made a mistake by buying the wrong notebooks. They were plain and I wanted lined. Oh how wrong I was (again!). In my first entry in one of the notebooks, I wrote about keeping an open mind about the unruled pages. My writing can be big so I tend to go for ruled notebooks because a) I can probably fit more on each page, and b) I liked the structure. I told myself the experience could be liberating to my writing. This, in part, has already been realised.

I started writing in the notebook because not only did I really need to write about something, but also I didn’t have any other space in which to write, and so I kept it on me for the rest of the trip. This notebook has quickly become the ‘whatever’ notebook.

To give you an idea of what I write about when I get the itch, in the couple of days I had my notebook in Melbourne, I had written about:

  • my need to write;
  • being okay with needless mobile phone interruptions (Twitter, Facebook, etc) during time spent with my partner (again, boyfriend, defacto, whatever) but not okay with reaching out my notebook and writing while at a restaurant or watching TV in our hotel room, interrupting our time exploring the city together – must rectify, there’s a shift in perspective required here;
  • reflecting on my RAILS presentation;
  • a table for one (in a restaurant) and the benefits of dining alone, and
  • a to do list.

So you can see, what I write about when I get the itch is random. I’ll pick a trigger, an idea or prompt and write whatever. Writing has become a habit, a need and a very good one to have. The important lesson to take away here is to always have a notebook with me, no matter what.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda

Posted on by acrystelle
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I wouldn’t normally discuss my life outside of professional things here, but right now I have my cranky pants on. This post is partly inspired by carolbycomputerlight’s cranky pants #blogjune post, which made me feel comfortable enough to reveal my cranky pants episode.

Where did this day go? I can’t seem to get past what I’m feeling right now, so I’ll just write about it, get it out of my system and move on with the next task.

Today was meant to be “research project day”. And I’ve spent only four hours on my RAILS presentation, never mind my draft report. I’m really peeved. I was looking forward to today for at least a month. A whole day to get stuff done and not on a weekend day. Nope, you really can’t plan for things like…..

….a recall on your partner’s car.

A few days ago I received a call from Mazda, mostly because either my partner is always in meetings, not at his desk or doesn’t feel his phone buzzing in his pocket, and my phone number is the second contact.

“I’m calling about your CX-5.”

“You mean <partner’s name>.”

“Yes, we need it in ASAP for an outstanding recall.”

…..ummm okay. This followed immediately with me offering to take it in because it’s the only chance we’ll have in the next few weeks or so. My thoughts were to just get it over with.

Initially I was going to sit at Mazda and work. This, as it turns out, would’ve been the sensible option. I could’ve demanded a powerpoint, internet and endless cups of tea. As I was doing my partner a favour, he felt bad that I couldn’t go anywhere if I needed to and offered to chip in. So we took both cars to the dealership, I took him to work. Back home. (1 hour and 20 mins) I went out to see my Mum at her work which was really lovely (this was planned). At home for four hours. Then back to pick partner up from work, back to the dealership, then drive back home (1 hour and 30 mins).

There is the three hours I needed to complete a reasonable day’s work. But I didn’t get it. I had also planned to do a little research on Melbourne and see what potential travel blog posts I could write while I’m there. You know, my hobby I’ve neglected all year. I love travelling and want to make the most of my time in Melbourne this weekend.

I should’ve stayed at the dealership.

Now I’m not packed. I’m stressed yet again. And the day’s gone. Things. I. do. One of my worst habits is time travelling. I have a tendency to think back and try to undo the decisions I have made, wishing I had made the right one so I can feel better. But this only makes me feel worse. I over analyse. I can’t change what happened today. So I’m behind again. I need to move on and do what I can (even though I had looked forward to chilling out tonight).

I’ll feel better once I’m at least half packed. I’ll go back to my work later on tonight to see if I can do anymore processing / thinking through / writing up of my research findings.

Far. Out.