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September 25, 2013

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Innovation, Writing

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Literature review: a note to self

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.

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August 2, 2013

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Reflections & Learning, Writing

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Surviving a literature review

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.

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June 24, 2013

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#blogjune, Inspiration, Writing

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A meeting and a book signing

This evening was a big deal to me. I met one of my favourite authors, Raymond E Feist. Brisbane Square Library, with Brisbane Writers Festival hosted an event featuring the man himself, the discussion facilitated by John Birmingham.

My relationship, I suppose you could say, with Raymond Feist’s books began when I was in my mid-teens, when I threw myself into reading and studying, following the closure of a big part of my life. Admittedly, reading his books allowed me to escape (and not face) the troubles I was experiencing at the time. For the last 10 years I have enjoyed progressing through the ages on the world that is Midkemia. More recently, the joy I have experienced in immersing myself into the world of Midkemia and being endlessly fascinated by the strings of plot Feist weaves together, has been nothing short of wondrous. The connections I had made with characters that continued to endure with each book, have added depth and meaning to stories beyond the pages. Lessons of honour, duty, imagination, trust and faith magnify the qualities I’d like to see in myself and others. I love the way Feist explains the cosmology when the story comes to a critical point, the need to understand determining the end or the survival of the world and what it means to exist.

The event tonight had Raymond Feist at the centre, speaking about his writing beginnings, how he realised a skill set for writing he didn’t know previously. Feist is character-driven saying “characters are important to structure, narrative is organic”. He spoke about his characters as he saw them, as well as character development and the roles they play. A few announcements were made about books coming up and he shared his experiences with collaborating with other authors.

I’ve compiled a Storify from the event which highlights some of Feist’s key points from the discussion. I managed to have a book signed, his latest entitled “Magician’s End” and a photo. :)

 
[View the story "Meet Raymond Feist at Brisbane Square Library, 24 June 2013" on Storify]

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June 22, 2013

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#blogjune, Writing

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The writing itch

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.

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June 9, 2013

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#blogjune, Research, Writing

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Finding the calm

I have a deadline. A self-imposed deadline, but a deadline nonetheless. I need to have drafted my reporting for my research project by tomorrow evening. It is during these times I can struggle to find and maintain the calm.

Finding the calm is about having (and maintaining) a clear mind when faced with time pressures to accomplish something. Finding the calm means a possession of clarity of thought and the ability to write what it is you set out to write. Finding the calm is chipping away at a large task or a list of tasks, focusing on one thing (or paragraph) at a time and not allowing the worry to rise within self.

Finding the calm means having faith in a steady pace and the progress that is made. But most importantly, for me, finding the calm headspace maintains a level of confidence in myself and my ability to pull together the snippets of thoughts and ideas, some on post its on my desk that had come to me at a time effortlessly, when there was little pressure to do so.

Some of my strategies for finding the calm are:

  • making myself a cuppa.
  • creating a list of tasks, small and well defined, so at least that thinking is done and I don’t have to revisit what I need to do.
  • music, usually jazz or classical, something that won’t distract my mind away from the task. Lyrics don’t agree with this kind of writing.
  • journalling - doesn’t have to be my writing journal, just a scrap of paper to scribble a few words.

On that note, I’m due to make a cuppa. :)