Problems with coding.

So as I was reading Yin's article on case studies, it occurred to me that the discourse analysis I just peer reviewed is possibly a case study in that they attempt to examine "a contemporary phenomenon in its real-life context, especially when... the boundaries between the phenomenon and its context are not clearly evident" (59).Yin's article also mentions the case study which required field workers to "code" quantitative data into 202 categories (sounds labour-intensive), and this issue of "counting and coding" (more generally, I guess, just coding) also came up in the discourse analysis paper. Producing "coding" categories has to be tricky, because, as Yin says, those producing the categories often come up with too many categories to account for every detail, but I'd say researchers might also run the risk of producing too few categories and overgeneralizing. "Coding" seems to be an odd thing to do when you have very few categories, as they did in the discourse analysis paper. (I actually didn't really write about this in my peer review, but it occurs to me now that I've read the Yin article.) Their categories seemed entirely obvious -- support, opposition, neutral  -- and therefore the "coding" seemed a bit unnecessary. Perhaps if they'd included more examples of "problem" categories it would've seemed more "complete."

Rose coloured glasses. Or something like that.

Sometimes I feel like I was ruined in those philosophy logic classes they forced on us in high school and undergrad. I spent all of my time reading the article going (as I always do now) "really? What premise was that based on?". My roommate (whenever we're watching TV or reading billboard signs) always asks "what? Did they cite that? What sources are they using?", and we both always comment about how those stats aren't really saying that, but my own contribution centres around how that the premise is faulty (or, my personal favourite: "that's a Texas sharpshooter fallacy"). Sometimes I wonder how anyone ever watches TV with us anymore.

When writing the peer review paper, that's all I could think about. Even when they laid out their assumptions, I kept stumbling across other ones buried in the analysis that made me stop and think "what? What premise is that based on??". Hopefully I tied the questions into the whole 'hey-we're supposed to be talking about the research methods' part of the paper.

Makes me wonder, sometimes, though. There are all kinds of things we're trained to do, to the point that they become second nature and entirely automatic. Sometimes I'm afraid to take theoretical classes (like research methods) for fear that I will add yet another reason my family wishes I'd keep my mouth shut while home for the holidays.

I already point my toes when I jump over puddles. I already think to myself that it's "me" sometimes, and "I" other times, and it's ALWAYS the other person before you. I already wonder about if they're fooling anyone with those totally ridiculous "statistics" which don't actually say anything. And I already ask, far too often, what that argument is based on. If these are filters through which I see the world, then I'm far past "rose" and into full on "burgandy" by now.

Ethnography and New Media Studies to the Rescue!

Hi everyone,

Surprise! I'm blogging about the peer review. Good for you Laura, for taking advantage of this pedagogical experience. I took the other route, and chose the "ethnography" paper, given that we've been talking about ethnography in INF1001 as well this year. I'm actually pretty surprised that no one else who's blogged yet chose to do the same (or at least not that I can tell). Therefore, my only real contribution this week may not interest anyone, but here it is anyways:

"Useful resources: ethnography through the internet" by Giampietro Gobo and Andrea Diotti.

The name pretty much says it all; it's a list (comprehensive or not, I'm not qualified to say) of various journals, archives, famous speeches/interviews, newsletters, and whathaveyou, for doing ethnography through the internet. Not ethnography OF the internet, mind you.

And as a closing remark, I'd like to implore everyone to respect the humble hyphen. As Wheeler's article title (as well as the rest of her article) demonstrates, the hyphen is important. "Ethnography and the Study of New Media-Enabled Change in the Middle East" is clearly a paper about change enabled by new media. What Wheeler actually wrote, "Ethnography and the Study of New Media Enabled Change in the Middle East", reads like a newspaper headline announcing how by the miraculous powers of the academic fields of Ethnography and the Study of New Media, political reform has been brought to the Middle East. Just saying, if it's a character on your phone's slide-out keyboard, it must be important.

Peer Review

For the peer review, I purposely picked a paper that was outside my comfort zone, one focused on data (Danaher et al.). As I’ve said before, I’m more comfortable with the discourse analysis we discussed last week, but I decided I’d see how an article was written that was based on data. Plus the Danaher article was about television piracy, so I thought the subject matter would be at least mildly interesting.

The article was interesting enough to read, and did expose me to ways in which to write up a study based on data. Incidentally, I have taken statistics classes (and actually enjoyed them), but I haven’t read many articles that analyzed data, so while I at least vaguely understood the data itself, the way it was discussed was new. So I think choosing an article that I typically would not choose because it focused on data was helpful. I still may not do this sort of research myself in the future, but if I ever do, now I have somewhere to start.

Not the only one ...

Alisha, I'm glad that I looked at your blog post before I decided to write. My thoughts are very similar to yours (paranoia-wise)!!

I'm just completing my peer-review (Bergman) and I must admit I am feeling slightly inadequate. That's mostly because, as I've mentioned a million times before, this is my first experience with social science research. Also, there are so many methods and so many little details that need to be remembered. I just feel like 8 (almost 9 now) weeks isn't enough time for me to "master" research methods. Then I think, well who am I to criticize this author when they have way more experience and knowledge that I do.

I had the same problem with the interview we did for INF1300. While I was giving the interview I felt like some kind of fake. It was especially bad because they had us interview a friend or family member and they knew that this was my first interview (ever) and even though I was acting like I knew what I was doing -- that I really didn't. These skills seem like something that really develops with time and experience. I hope that with time I will gain confidence in using these methods.

We're All Mad Here!

I think I’m going mad. Well madder, I guess. I find myself in constant fear of accidentally plagiarizing. The reason for this is that is these days I can never seem to remember who said what and where it was said. Honestly, all the class readings and personal research is just starting to run together to the point where I don’t know which way is up anymore. The worst of it is I can’t figure out which ones are my own original thoughts! I mean, obviously all my thoughts, original or not, are invariably influenced by something I’ve read, seen or heard but its getting harder and harder to tell where my collected research/readings stops and I begin. To the point that twice now I have been absolutely positive that I read a really great point in a particular article yet when I look over the notes and couldn’t find it, basically reread the whole article and still couldn’t find it, until I read that one little section that made me realize it was my own bloody idea! It was simply that article that made me think it in the first place! Then of course I have the obligatory moment of existential panic in which I begin to wonder is this really my idea then, if its drawing upon someone else conclusions, should I sight it as theirs?! Its mad I tell you!

Oh BTW, did anyone see this?

http://ca.shine.yahoo.com/love-sex/the-dumpiest-day-of-the-year-december-6th-blog-45-shine.html

I read it an all I could think of is “I wonder what kind of research they used”.

Again madness.

Bulletproof your papers!

I think I have been so focused on finishing the peer review assignment that it has been consuming my mind! I looked at Barbara Bergman's paper for the assignment and was disappointed with her lack of data. After reading Robert Yin's article, I realized that the data we present as scholars must be "aggressive", if not our work will be criticized. This was the case with Bergman as her lacked validity as her chosen research method was weak. Her work would have been must stronger and her data more aggressive if she would have taken a quantitative approach and used more than one research method. This demonstrates how any work that is written by anyone truly needs to be "bulletproof" if not, it can come under heavy fire....as is the case with my review of Bergman's work.