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Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category

What does a good literature review look like?

Posted in Being a scholar, Dissertation, Writing on June 13, 2009 | 1 Comment »

It makes sense for a dissertation writer to start with the literature review;  It forces you to think about your topic holistically and understand the context of the area of study you are entering and helps to clarify your thinking about both your question and your methods.  But what is it really and how is [...]

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Side Note: Technology Experiment

Posted in Technology, Writing on June 7, 2009 | Comments Off

One idea I did pick up from my writing group was the idea of writing notes while reading.  She wrote them in the margins, which won’t work for me because they aren’t searchable, but I understand the immediacy of picking up a pen and writing something down.  However I have absolutely no intention of  buying [...]

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Organizing a literature review

Posted in Being a scholar, Graduate school, Organization, Writing on June 7, 2009 | 3 Comments »

With my chair’s approval, I have begun working on my literature review, and one of the first questions I came up against was how to organize all that “stuff”.  The literature spans a wide variety of media; journal articles, think tank reports, books, popular media articles, etc.  How do you keep all that stuff straight?
Ideas [...]

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New Semesters, New Deadlines

Posted in Academic life, Education policy, Organization, Productivity, Teaching, Writing on January 19, 2009 | Comments Off

Tomorrow the new semester begins, and I had today off from work so I spent some time thinking about what I needed to do and how I would get it done.  Key things about this semester:

Working full time at day job, who has laid off half the company in the last 3 months so I [...]

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Articles to support dissertation writing

Posted in Academic life, Being a scholar, Dissertation, Writing on September 28, 2008 | Comments Off

I stumbled across a couple of really good articles this week that I wanted to share.  They are mostly focused on grad students and academics, although I can see others who they might apply to. 

The 29 steps to writing a dissertation.  The first step to finishing anything is breaking it down into managable parts, [...]

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Papers: Class vs Conference

Posted in Graduate school, Writing on September 21, 2008 | Comments Off

This week the difference in writing between a class paper and a conference paper was driven home to me.  The hard way.
I have 2 conferences coming up for which I need to write the papers.  They are variations on the same theme, so the background research is all the same, which will save some time, [...]

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When deadlines collide

Posted in Academic life, Education policy, Research, Writing on August 2, 2008 | Comments Off

I’m not dead yet (best heard in your head with a cockney accent) *grin* I have just had far too many immovable deadlines over the last few weeks, leading me to prioritize everything else over blogging.
First I went to a history of ed conference in Newark that was awesome.  I practically got giggly when I [...]

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ACCEPTED!

Posted in Academic life, Being a scholar, Writing on May 26, 2008 | Comments Off

MY PROPOSAL WAS ACCEPTED!!!!!!!
This is exciting for 3 reasons:

I’m the sole author.  Just me.  No Chair, not really even a mentor in this area.
It’s in my new specialty, the area I intend to do my dissertation in and work in, so this will give me some credibility in the field.
This is the core of the [...]

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How many times can I rewrite a 2 page proposal?

Posted in Academic life, Writing on May 21, 2008 | Comments Off

I have just sent off a form of my dissertation idea as a 2 page proposal to yet a 3rd conference.  I have 1 rejection, 1 not answered yet, this is number 3 and I have to write up a longer version for AERA.  Each version only barely resembles the prior, and the ideas are [...]

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Culturally relevant school, religion and school choice

Posted in Education policy, Religion, Writing on May 2, 2008 | Comments Off

I’m an atheist.  I believe
that most religious/spiritual beliefs are superstitions, totally
unfounded and indicative of a less questioning  mind.  I generally
believe that, at least in the US, religion is “mostly harmless”.  (The
exception is things like intelligent design, but that regularly gets
trounced in court.)  
I am also a strong believer in
individuality.  I do not believe that any [...]

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