When I have finished all this I will relish the opportunity to write about something other than studying!
Posts archive for: 8 July, 2009
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It's tough
@ 2009-07-08 – 18:52:04
I have done a lot today but I feel like I have only done a tiny fraction of all the work I need to get done. Where did the day go? I have realised that text analysis takes ages and my plans may have been ambitious. I have sorted out lots of the problems with the classification system mainly by beeing ruthless and making decisions I am not sure about because I haven't got time to think anymore.
I have used the taxonomy to analyse two texts and I have the data in a raw form. I feel daunted by the numbers and I am not sure how to go about making sense of the data and looking for patterns in it. I am trying to create an Excel chart that will help me with this.
I am also not convinced that the data will help me find out one of the things I want to find out - that is differentiating between phenomena and comment on phenomena in student essays. I think I will concentrate on making sense of the data tomorrow morning. I also need to present to the study group tomorrow, so I might present the taxonomy and the problems I have with analysis and sorting out the data.
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Time to focus
@ 2009-07-08 – 10:01:41
I am pretty sure that one of the researchers we read in the Written Language class said that good writers tend to be able to shift between long-term and short term planning. Is that right? Was it Bereiter and Scardamalia? Anyway, yesterday I was a bit startled when I realised that I only have two weeks until I go to Cyprus, so I need to really focus. Here are my long term plans:
1. Finalise the taxonomy to be used for the analysis (hopefully almost done).
2. Complete the analysis (or a large part of it)
3. Look for trends
4. Write the literature review taking the results of the above into account.
That's a lot to do in not much time. I plan to
1. Analyse 4 texts a day
2. Complete the analysis by this weekend
3. Start writing on Monday
4. Write about 1,000 words a day.
If I follow this plan I should have a day before I go to Cyprus to sort everything out so I don;t feel too rushed. I know I can write 1000 words a day if I have a clear idea of what I am writing. The problem might be that my ideas are not that clear and I will have to keep referring back to the reading. Let's see. For now, on with the text analysis.
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