Cross-fertilising…

There are some really nice synergies and cross-fertilisation between what’s taught in this unit and other unit I’m taking (MNG03011-Business Research Project). As part of my assignment for that other unit, I have to come up with ways to address my written skills (narrative, reflective writing sty;le) as well as self management skills! and the journal that I’m keeping as part of this unit’s assessment, has very much helped me to work on those two aspects quite nicely.

As part of that other unit’s recommended reading list, we were given these three books to read:

• Holly, M.L. (2002) Keeping a Professional Journal. Sydney: UNSW Press.
• English, L.M. & Gillen, M. A. (Eds.). (2001) Promoting Journal Writing in Adult Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Moon, J. (1999). Learning Journals: A Handbook for Academics, Students and Professional Development. London: Kogan Page.

I have borrowed all three from the library to have a look at what they have to offer. I must say my favourite was English and Gillen’s book titled “Promoting Journal Writing in Adult Education”. So much so, that I even bought my own copy. Much of what is touched upon in that book is relevant to this unit, so I’m keeping it close and refer to it often as part of this journal writing experience (thanks Kath!).

Preparing for Assignment 1…

Ok, so assignment 1 is due soon (in 4 days) and perhaps it’s time to put down some reflection on that process so far. To quote from the unit’s notes (so as to remind me of what this assignment is about):

“…This assessment will require you to be familiar with a range of strategies and software
applications that could be applied to your research. You will need to choose at least
four new strategies or ideas you haven’t used before, try them out and then evaluate
their usefulness to your research. You must choose at least one type of software
application and one organisational strategy (i.e. you must have a mixture of the two)…”.

Despite the fact that I’ve used and trialled all sorts of software and tool sand strategies out there, I have very rarely (if ever!) really sat down to think about it is that I like or dislike certain tools, and more importantly why. I wanted to make the theme for this assignment “EFFICIENCY” and so I picked software tools and strategies that I believed would help me improve on that. The next bit was to come up with the criteria for evaluation, which again centred on efficiency – so once I had that focus, it wasn’t that hard at all.

My choices for evaluation included: Master Documents in MS Word, MS OneNote, NVivo and EndNote integration, and the use of Covey’s Quadrant Matrix for prioritising tasks. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, OneNote is a software application that made a rather late debut in the planning process of this assignment, but one which I’m glad I tried again and included it as part of this assignment.

Overall, it has been a fairly straight forward process so far, once I got the criteria sorted out and methodically applied it to all my selected software and strategies for their evaluation. By the way, that criteria involves 4 attributes:

1. Quick learning process – was the learning process for this strategy relatively quick and easily accessible?
2. Ease in applicability – is the strategy or tool easily applied, or does it involve extra dedicated time, concentration and effort?
3. Overall perception of time saved – how did I perceive my time to have been spent learning and applying this strategy? Was it worth the time invested?
4. Transferability – how applicable is this strategy for a range of activities or situations?

---

The next bit, perhaps the hardest bit of all, is writing it all down in a systematic manner!! …and being the visual kind of person I tend to be, I felt that a single figure or illustration that would present the finding succinctly would also be very useful.  I came up with the concept of a matrix, colour coded for best presentation. I have it drawn up and ready to insert into the Assignment document, once I get to that section of the assignment.

Really not long to go now, so best to get the writing done. Thinking bits are done, now to write it.

Writing and editing…

When it comes to the word processor, there are features in it that are useful to me for improving my research writing task. For instance, for my PhD thesis to start taking shape, I’ve attended a recent workshop at my university on how to work with Master Documents – the course was very impressive, as I realised then that word processing in MS Word could involve more than just typing. So, I figured it would be useful for me to be able to bring together all sorts of docs and notes I have regarding different aspects of my research (each would go under different chapters). I’ve started by setting up the template with all the required styles etc, so now I just have to piece the thesis together – we’ll see how that works. Also, as Kath mentioned yesterday in the Elluminate Live session, I really should think about a contingency plan in case it all falls into pieces! (cross fingers won’t need to, but important to at least have another plan of action).

There are ways to make the writing process more enjoyable. Purely from a physical comfort point of view, and therefore hopefully assist in making the writing task itself more enjoyable, is to improve my typing efficiency and use more shortcut keys as opposed to the mouse all the time. I’ve printed out a little list of Control+Shift/Alt commands and clipped that to the side of my screen so I can easily refer to it as I type while I get used to ‘memorising’ these commands. Also, would like to download a typing training software (if it exists), and improve my typing so I can use all fingers more effectively and efficiently. The whole writing task would definitely more enjoyable if I can reduce physical tension and pain!

For editing, I like using ‘tracked-changes’ in MSWord, because it date stamps when the comment or changes were made and by whom. Once I’ve done a fair bit of editing and I’m fairly happy with the version (and/or I get sick of looking at the screen!!), then I print it out and have a read on paper with pen in hand to underline or make comments along the border if I need to. I do like the idea suggested on page 254 of the book, which talks about the one-page list of editorial decisions (rules for capitalisation, number formatting, use of hyphens, etc etc)…and sticking with it for the entire document as it is being written and edited – I think that would be a good method for me to create greater efficiency, as I’d be applying the rules first go as opposed having to go through the document post-writing stage and into the editing phase and finding several inconsistencies in the text.

Journey into journaling…

Part of what we’re asked to do for this unit, is to record our learning experiences as a journal or diary – perhaps more suited to write in the first person narrative form….so hard to do! I find it extremely hard, especially when my thinking can sometimes be way faster than my typing. But nonetheless, there are some positives to this style of writing – I feel there is a sense of freedom in that I can be myself through my written expression – I find this quite liberating, not sure exactly how, but my best guess is because in using “I” I can really just express what is on my mind without trying to find justifications, because these thoughts just ‘are’. Writing in the third person is certainly quite different, in that one is somewhat external to what is being said and so the need for having some evidence for what is being written about – not sure, but this is just my first thoughts on why I feel so much more liberated in the first person – there cannot be any right or wrong, because it just ‘is’.