First, three non-academic comments:
1. Timbre, I think it's totally hilarious that you put your word count at the bottom, because I had already planned to do that in my post. Now I feel remarkably unoriginal.
2. Did anyone else feel like this was mostly a practical reading with a few brief theory breaks? One minute I'm reading about note card collection, and the next I'm being reading about cognitive reality vs. sensory reality. This seemed odd to me.
3. There were a few glaring and odd typos that annoyed me.
I'm going to be honest and admit that this reading is hard for me to really engage with because I don't feel there's a lot up for debate here. I think that this book is useful in terms of drafting a research project, but reading about the two card system and various types of random sampling procedures doesn't necessarily do it for me. Let me tell you the practical things that I did think about while reading, because that seems most appropriate:
1. I really hate to admit that when researching, I occasionally act like the doctoral student that Berg calls out as relying too much on the internet. I have never used a physical periodicals index to look up anything. I've never even browsed through physical periodicals before Darl's assignment. Granted, a lot of those physical indexes have online counterparts from the actual journals, but there are times when I've given up looking for an article just because my searches in the BYU journal finder didn't seem to yield anything. I think that relying too much on ANY method of research isn't helpful. I need to be more geometrically minded and allow myself to triangulate.
2. As I was reading about project organization and data organization, it occurred to me that for the past few years I've been carrying out a research project without really thinking about practical methods for cataloging the data I collect except to look for great quotes to use in presentations. Furthermore, I haven't even taken much time to consider what sorts of measurable outcomes we're researching in Hands on a Camera, or even what fundamental research questions we're asking. I know that Amy went through all of these steps, I've just allowed myself to focus more on the implementation of the project rather than the actual research (so maybe I should finish transcribing those interviews from last year...).
3. I'm talking about community stories and media creation with my students on Monday, and this quote seemed particularly applicable: "The world is a research laboratory, [and you] merely need to open your eyes and ears to the sensory reality that surrounds all of us to find numerous ideas for research" (24). Similarly, we are surrounded by stories to hear and stories to tell, we just have to be willing to listen. Yes, I know this is a bit of a stretch, but my mind really wanted to find something less systematic...
And on that note, let's take a theory break.
word count: 506, and at least 91 of them don't count.
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2 comments:
I think we’ve all been guilty of relying too much on the internet for research…it’s just so much easier. In addition, the idea of simply “browsing” journals seems like such a misuse of very precious time. However, it’s often in the happenstance encounters with text that I have found some of the most useful resources. So, like you, I accept the fact that I need to be more willing to expand my research source horizon. What’s funny about the whole thing is that I am religious about making my students find non-internet sources, so at the core, I really do agree with Berg here…I guess I just don’t truly believe that it applies to me. (Yes, the hypocrisy runs deep here.)
So, what do you guys think; what is the most effective way to do this non-internet research? How do we best go about zeroing in on texts quickly? I vaguely remember the days of research before the internet, but back then, my research was usually about things like “dogs” or “acid rain.” Not exactly the same kind of research now, is it?
I think that one of the best ways to find non-internet (and by "internet" sources I suppose I also mean any journal that is available full text online, though this is a more credible source than say, wikipedia...) sources is to browse the reference lists of other sources you've used. I've found some great books that way.
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