Back in the Office

Today I am here at work. I just now printed off my writing sample to take one more look at it in case I notice something I think needs to be changed before I send it out anywhere else.

Yesterday I wrote a page that sums up the approach I plan to take in the first chapter. I think it's not unrealistic to think that I could be turning in two chapters to Tony by Friday. And, of course, I'll be sending out more job materials then too.

Finished the Writing Sample

Today I put the finishing touches on my writing sample and sent out two more applications. It took a good amount of work to shape the writing so it stands on its own rather than looks like it is plucked directly out of a dissertation with no context or motivation. Doing this also made me realize that I should be able to turn it and another chapter in next week to Tony, my major professor

In the Study

I have been working on developing a writing sample to send to a few schools. One of the things I have been struggling with is the extent to which I wanted to include myself as part of the write up. In other words, in things I have written in the dissertation I have included chapter reflections in which I discuss how the things I have written about my participants relate to me. I keep going back and forth about this. But today I decided that I will include those reflections in the writing sample I am sending out to some schools. Hopefully that will not be the thing that reduces my chances of getting an interview. It's the last thought that gives me pause.

There's a Bug in the House

Recently the Purdue School of Liberal Arts winows machines have been affected by some sort of meltdown caused by hackers stealing information. Well, today I was ready to ask a secretary to send some letters of reference, via the liberal arts website, and couldn't do so because the system is down. And the secretary said she didn't plan to get to it until Monday or Tuesday anyway.

So much for being on top of the process.

Applications

Today I spent a lot of the day printing off job ads. There must be a hundred in my stack. And I hope to apply to no more than 40, preferably 30. Tonight I have to check a few more places and keep printing and sorting. And, then, I have to start sending out applications this week, a few at a time.

Chapter Submitted

Today I turned in a first chapter to Tony, my major professor. I think that if I can keep up a once a chapter-a-month pace I can defend in April. That's not unrealistic.

Unfortunately, I felt quite sick this afternoon and came home to sleep. That means that tomorrow I need to get on the hump, so to speak, with sending out job applications.

There's a Band in the House

Tonight I found a quiet spot in a coffee shop and started making progress on my methods chapter. Or so I thought. Twenty minutes after I came in, a group of kids came in and started dragging in amplifiers and other instruments of aural destruction. They are still plugging things in, but this doesn't look like it is going to be conducive to studying once they start their ritual.

Reading

This morning has been largely taken up by reading sections of Adam's dissertation.

This afternoon I hope to make more progress on the methods chapter by closing the section about ethnography. Last night I made the mistake of starting that subsection with a definition of ethnography and then starting to define culture. While that might not be a bad idea, I quickly realized that I was in danger of trying to write about everything but the kitchen sink.

Emics and Etics

I've been working on the last two sections (I hope) of the current chapter. Myrdene Anderson has helped me out here a lot with giving me ideas for how to express what emic and etic are. Essentially, emic is the view one within a culture has whereas etic is the view of one outside the culture. The goal of any ethnographic enterprise, at least in the classical sense of ethnography, is to get at the emic in order to understand what the participants think and feel about the subject of the study. In my case, I intend to show a group of real L2 writers with real names who express their opinions on what they think of the writing that they do in their professional lives.

Success

A couple weeks ago I installed the newest version of Microsoft office on my iBook -- that was a mistake! The problem is that the new version of Word lacks the integration with Endnote that Office X had. So, today I reinstalled the old version of Office, and now I can easily insert my references. Anything that improves my dissertation writing is a good thing.

Last night I finished the first two sections of chapter 2 of the dissertation. Perhaps today I could finish one or two more. If I do, then I will make my goal of finishing this chapter by the end of the week. Since I started looking for academic jobs I have really started to feel the pressure to make progress on this project.

Scissors as Research Tool

In the ethnographic literature, several people have commented on the need to find themes in the data. One of the common techniques for doing so is by taking the notes and identifying the themes. After that is done then each paper is cut with scissors so that you can make a different pile for theme.

Today I am using this technique to move my dissertation chapter along. I have a number of themes I want to discuss in this chapter, but they seem to be spread all over the chapter -- perhaps a result of making myself write something without worrying about what I write until later. So today I am chopping up this chapter and rearranging it on the floor in more useful piles. Then I can take the real cutting work and go back to the word processor and paste the virtual words in the right places in the document.

Isn't dissertation writing fun?