I'm not sure how I ever came up with a research project in my first MA. It seemed like the idea was just always there, and maybe I'd discussed it enough along the way that it felt pretty fully-formed when I came time to write about it. Right now I'm having the opposite problem. Perhaps moving from one field (English) to another (Information? Library Science? What field am I in, anyways?) is what's holding me up, or perhaps I just lucked out the first time around. In any event, I'm now dealing with a fear that I have an interest (or interests), but they are too vague to make into a research proposal of any kind because I simply don't know enough. (I guess I should be "reviewing the literature" as Luker suggests in Chapter 5, but we've got that paper due and then a presentation next week and it all seems like it's mounting up already. How did this happen?)
It sounds like Laura and Alisha are having similar problems. Knight's assertion that all small-scale research must be "super-pragmatic" (48) has me slightly paralyzed because of the scope of the problems to be tackled. I'm working out, per Luker's exercises, what these problems (ie. what might research question) might be. At the moment I'm trying to tease out two potential topics to see which takes me further. Hopefully by next week I'll be able to write about one, but so far they are too jumbled for me to feel comfortable making public.
Is anyone else who has taken a few years off school finding the transition slightly bumpy? I feel like I've forgotten some secret way of thinking that used to be second nature.
Showing posts with label school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label school. Show all posts
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
How much information do we take for granted?
After reading Luker's Salsa Dancing into the Social Sciences, I took a look back on my journey through school. From kindergarten (well, what I can remember) through my first year of my Master's degree (I am a 2nd year student.)
I remember when my elementary school purchased its first computer. I remember the technician who taught the entire grade 1/2 split class how to use the mouse. I remember my first computer; do you remember entering C:/ to play "Doom"? I do! I remember when Microsoft made it possible to turn on the computer and not need to enter tedious C:/dos/run's.
I don't remember when I was able to maneuver so easily through the computer's software; nor do I remember when it became so easy to search through a library catalogue. I have never looked into my life with the perspective that we live in a world of information overload until I started reading Salsa Dancing. As Luker stated, information used to be scarce; scholars needed to research "the literature" and information had to mutually reinforce how one thought about research. We are now in an age where information is literally bursting at the seams.
I think we all have noticed a change in how information has become so readily available. Remember when we were in elementary school? Before a computer was in nearly every household? Remember when we had science fair projects that required us to travel to the local library? I now help my cousins with their science fair projects and they are able to search online for visual instructions on how to make a volcano, or weight machine, or how to complete a simple electricity circuit.
It's mind-boggling how much information is available and literally at our fingertips. It does beg the question though...does the amount of information available to us make us as dedicated and knowledgeable in our field as someone who was educated in the "scarce information" eras, or do we simply fly by the seam of our pants?
Christina P
:)
I remember when my elementary school purchased its first computer. I remember the technician who taught the entire grade 1/2 split class how to use the mouse. I remember my first computer; do you remember entering C:/ to play "Doom"? I do! I remember when Microsoft made it possible to turn on the computer and not need to enter tedious C:/dos/run's.
I don't remember when I was able to maneuver so easily through the computer's software; nor do I remember when it became so easy to search through a library catalogue. I have never looked into my life with the perspective that we live in a world of information overload until I started reading Salsa Dancing. As Luker stated, information used to be scarce; scholars needed to research "the literature" and information had to mutually reinforce how one thought about research. We are now in an age where information is literally bursting at the seams.
I think we all have noticed a change in how information has become so readily available. Remember when we were in elementary school? Before a computer was in nearly every household? Remember when we had science fair projects that required us to travel to the local library? I now help my cousins with their science fair projects and they are able to search online for visual instructions on how to make a volcano, or weight machine, or how to complete a simple electricity circuit.
It's mind-boggling how much information is available and literally at our fingertips. It does beg the question though...does the amount of information available to us make us as dedicated and knowledgeable in our field as someone who was educated in the "scarce information" eras, or do we simply fly by the seam of our pants?
Christina P
:)
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