Posts Tagged ‘frustrations’

Ann Wysocki is hard to find

{ February 12, 2008 @ 1:48 am } · { literature review, resources }
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Well, at least her work is. I finally found the online, hyper-text version of “Monitoring order: Visual desire, the organization of web pages, and teaching the rules of design here, but I still can’t find “With Eyes That Think, and Compose, and Think: On Visual Rhetoric,” which I know was published in Teaching Writing With Computers: An Introduction by Pamela Takayoshi and Brian Huot. But I can’t get a hold of their book (unless I buy it, and I’m just too cheap/poor to do that when I’m not sure I will get any use out of the other articles). Halle Library doesn’t have it and neither do any of the hundreds of libraries in the MelCat system. *sigh*

Ann Wysocki, if you’re reading this, do you happen to have a copy of this article around? I would really like to include it in my literature review for my master’s project. Thanks.

P.S. I will be e-mailing her if I can’t find it in the next couple of days. I sure hope she doesn’t mind!

Methodology & Me

{ December 9, 2007 @ 10:55 pm } · { project proposal }
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I am absolutely and completely frightened of the Methodology section of my project proposal. I’ve worked on it a little, but Ann says it needs to be really detailed. What if I’m not even sure what I’m going to do to get to answer my question? What if I’ve skipped over revising and adding to this section the whole revision process and now am stuck doing it because I’m done with everything else?

Yeah. It’s going to be a long night.

Fightin’ the ?

{ December 9, 2007 @ 10:53 pm } · { Question }
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I feel like I’m fighting against my question–not working with it. I think I might have to change it to fit what I’m finding and am most interested in. I don’t want to give in, but I also don’t want to be fighting with myself the whole time. That would lead to a very long research process indeed.

Self-Doubt Knocking at My Door

{ December 6, 2007 @ 12:11 pm } · { personal }
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As I’m getting toward the actual work on the project, I’m starting to question myself. Am I ready for such an undertaking?

I know it’s only three credits, but it seems to be so much more than that. This is big. Really big. Bigger than anything I’ve done before.

I guess when it comes down to it, I wonder if I know enough to really write definitively about this subject. I have some experience from an internship this summer, a little work on it in a class last year, and a keen interest in children’s nonfiction publishing, but the vast majority of what I know I’ve read. What if I haven’t read enough? Eek! What frightening thought.

Ann says all researchers have self-doubt, especially when they’re writing about a subject they’re somewhat new to but are still fascinated with. I guess I’ll just have to see where this whole process takes me.

Oh, and I’ll be posting more now that I’ve got some of my work (somewhat) under control.

Lit Review Hell

{ November 5, 2007 @ 9:48 pm } · { literature review }
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I just completed the first draft of my literature review, and it was strenuous at best. I’m not sure why this part of the process is so grueling for me. Maybe it’s because I have no sources that directly discuss my topic: children’s nonfiction editing.

Or perhaps I’m getting senioritis. Crappy time to be getting it considering I just signed on for another year of grad school in order to complete another Master’s. Yup, I’ll be doing all this again in a year, but this time, it’s going to be a thesis. This blog is going to be getting a serious work-out then.

Frustrated with (a Lack of) Resources

{ September 30, 2007 @ 1:55 pm } · { resources }
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The hard thing about researching in a field where not a lot has been written is that there is nothing really to read. I’m getting frustrated as I try to find resources for my proposal and project. I’ve been trying different search terms, even getting to the point of using “book + editing.” That brings nothing! Even “user-centered + design” is bringing not a thing. I’ve tried general Google searches to see if I’m missing any pertinent words, but they’re just as useless as the rest. Any tips on getting something useful out of library article databases?