At 6:07 p.m. today, I submitted my Research Paper, and to be finished with this assignment is absolutely WONDERFUL!
I began thinking about the project as soon as I read Dr. Wang’s IT648 schedule, but it was approximately four weeks into the course that I actually started reading and searching for material on my topic of choice. Finding sufficient material to write the paper was my first concern. I learned how to use the USM online library and began my exploration.
Psychology has always fascinated me—what people think, how they feel, why they do what they do. So, I chose as my topic, “Psychology of Using Online Communication.” My goal was to attempt to explain how the personalities and characteristics of individuals affect communication in an online environment. It was no simple task, but after having the topic approved, I began organizing my thoughts and jotting down ideas which I thought might “fit” in the paper’s outline. In the most unusual places and times, something would come to me. One evening I was having dinner with my family, and some comment triggered an idea, so I jotted it down on a napkin. Yes, I had some strange notes to compile when the actual writing began.
Last Saturday, I cleared my schedule, postponed laundry and cooking, and sat in front of my laptop for about six hours (with small breaks intermittently, of course). By this time, all my research was completed. I had read and made notes to support my ideas, and this was the day that the writing began. It was interesting to see blank pages transformed into pages filled with thoughts and ideas. At first, the writing was tedious. I decided on the main concept of the paper and tried to introduce the thesis as clearly as possible. Of course, my outline helped, but it was changed as I began to write. The day ended with my having written almost seven pages.
My goal had been to completely finish the paper Saturday, but I realized that it needed to be put away for clearer thinking the following Monday. After teaching two classes, I came home, opened the Word doc, and started a fresh read. The conversation I had with myself went something like this: “Did I really say all that? What about changing this sentence to express this other view? That doesn’t make sense. I’ve used that word too many times.” To be honest, I probably rewrote about half of what I had begun Saturday. Hopefully, it made it better. I will know after Dr. Wang reads it. :-)
This was definitely an assignment that called for creativity, research, following guidelines, and spending a lot of time thinking about what needed to be included. It was not nearly as formidable as I had once thought it was going to be. Once I developed my plan of action, the paper materialized. At least, the next one will not be dreaded so much.
Artifact: Term Paper
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I always find myself having more difficulty doing these "research from documents" types of papers than in doing the much more involved research papers (that literally involve doing a research project, like in IT742 and REF601). I think it's because I find it hard to really pull a lot of individual, original thought out what is, essentially, a literature review.
ReplyDeleteBut Dr. Juneau taught me something that helped, and your mention of your plan of action reminded me of it. She told me that the first thing I needed to do was figure out my thesis statement and the general ideas I wanted to write about, and write those down on a piece of paper first, then find research that fit into that framework. That way, I would be led around by the articles I found, but would have a clear course of action for my paper.
I hope I've been able to follow her advice with this paper. We'll see.
Thanks for your insight via Dr. Juneau. I completely agree that working from the thesis helped tremendously. Once I had a clear direction for the paper, I was able to get it written.
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