Cutting our Essays to Shreds

Can you believe that you're thisclose to finishing your research essay? I'm excitedly anticipating reading through your final papers! No, seriously, I am.

In case you missed class today, we channeled our second-grade selves by cutting our essays to shreds! Well, okay, not shreds. But scissors and tape were involved.

After you've completed Exercise 5.3 from The Curious Researcher, I want you to answer the following questions in your own blog post:

• Before completing the exercise, were you a skeptic or believer that disassembling your essay (as described in Ex. 5.3) would be beneficial?
• How did you feel about disassembling your essay? Nervous? Excited? Ambivalent? Worried? Determined?
• What was the outcome of completing this exercise? Did your essay survive mostly in-tact? Did you discover significant changes are needed? Did you have more paragraphs in your "Keep" or in your "Discard" pile? Did you realize a new way to organize your paragraphs?
• Overall, what did you learn from this exercise?

Happy blogging!

Procrastinate? Who me?

Are you putting off starting your draft? I hope not because --

Welcome to Week 4: Getting to the Draft!

Eighty-six percent of you agreed in class today that procrastination is deadly to a research project. Man, I must be doing something right this semester.

Joking aside, let's be honest: procrastination can be a dirty word in the academic world. While some may proudly procrastinate, the rest of us associate words like "guilty, lazy, inadequate, anxious, or stupid" to ourselves when we delay important tasks ("Overcoming Procrastination"). No one likes to feel any of those ways! So why, then, do we insist on procrastinating even when we know it's detrimental to our well-being, learning, and quality of work?

Professionals at Princeton University contribute an interesting psychological perspective to this conversation:

Procrastination...can be traced to underlying and more complex psychological reasons. These dynamics are often made worse by schools where students are constantly being evaluated, and especially in college where the pressure for grades is high and a lot can be riding on students’ performance. In reality, procrastination is often a self-protection strategy for students. For example, if you procrastinate, then you always have the excuse of “not having enough” time in the event that you fail, so your sense of your ability is never threatened ("Understanding and Overcoming Procrastination").

Understanding your habits, even from a psychological standpoint, is a good step towards implementing a new approach to successfully finishing your projects. If you need some practical advice for forging ahead (aka not procrastinating) with writing this week, Lifehack.org outlines a couple dozen strategies just for you. Check them out here.

And, as usual, happy writing!

Research, Write, Research, Write, Research, Write, Research, Write...

Welcome to week three of this research project! How's it going? I hope you're making good progress, feeling confident in your topic, and finding interesting and relevant sources.

To keep pace with this project you should be evaluating at least two scholarly sources per day between now and when your Annotated Bibliography post is due (Friday, April 4th). And remember, all five sources you list on your Annotated Bibliography should be scholarly.

Now, beware! Some people assume that finding a source through the library's website automatically means the source is scholarly. While our library provides access to many credible sources, not each one in your results list can be categorized as scholarly.

If you're still feeling a little confused about the difference between a popular and academic source, check out this info-graphic from North Carolina State University's library.

And, as you're researching make sure you're also writing; The Curious Researcher includes specific advice on how to incorporate writing into the research phase so that you're writing your essay as you go. No last minute procrastination for you.

Happy researching (and writing)!

Feel a Little Over Your Head?

Most of you, bright students, feel overwhelmed at this point in our little research project. Most of you are doing this academic essay thing for the very first time, and let's just all acknowledge truth here: there's a steep learning curve!

Whether you're still struggling to pinpoint your topic or struggling to keep from going cross-eyed at all these databases, let me assure you -- what you're experiencing is normal. Can I encourage you to lean into the struggle? Keep listening to Ballenger's advice in Curious Researcher; keep asking questions; keep looking for clarity. It will come!

But also remember where we started our semester with the mandate from our Creator to be cultivators and creators. You have the distinct honor of cultivating and creating something new through this research you're doing! You're gifting the world with your new idea or your brand-new perspective. Wow!

Tonight I was browsing the web and came across another blog post titled "Too Much Self-Doubt? Try Thinking Like a Creator" from The Chronicle of Higher Education. While this post is written to professional academics (graduate students and professors), you could rewrite the examples and advice to apply to you (and you should).

My favorite lines from the post maintain that "To think like a creator, however, is to always keep in mind what it is that you want to do, to build, to create in the world...[because] when you’re in the mindset of the creator you can more accurately evaluate what it is that you still need to learn and what you can do to begin making your own contribution."

So come up for some air, clear your head, and set your eyes on being a creator!

What? There's more to life than Google?

Most of you LAN101 students have a tentative topic and as Prof. Ballenger suggests, you need to develop working knowledge of this topic. Likely, your first thought is to Google your topic, which is a decent idea.

But, did you know that there's more to life than Google? To be more accurate, there's more to the Internet than Google will ever reveal.

Part of your job this semester is to become an expert on your topic and experts use various strategies to engage their curiosity about their topics. So, if Google is your only (or, might I suggest, even primary) strategy, you'll sell your research process short. You'll write the same old research papers you've always written. And you'll miss out on all the fun of learning new strategies and becoming a more efficient and more academic researcher.

The Open Education Database has an excellent article titled "Research Beyond Google: 119 Authoritative, Invisible, and Comprehensive Resources," which you should definitely read. Best of all, this article is subdivided into helpful categories like "Economic and Job Data" or "Law and Politics" or "Medical and Health," (just to name a few) so you can easily preview sources and search engines pertinent to your topic.

Take a look and let me know what you think about this source!

Blogging Etiquette

Today in class, Noah asked a great question: what is blogging etiquette?

Let's start with a definition of etiquette. According to Dictionary.com, etiquette is best understood as "conventional requirements as to social behavior; proprieties of conduct as established in any class or community or for any occasion." In other words, every context has rules, often known but unwritten, that people expect you to abide by. For example, in a college classroom, students are often expected to sit at a desk, listen to a lecture, take notes, and ask and answer questions. These expected behaviors could be classified as college classroom etiquette.

I encourage you to read Barbara Swafford's post "Blogging Etiquette - The Unwritten Rules" for a concise, helpful list of "rules" you should think about as you write your own blog this semester.

Happy blogging!

Getting Started

First, here are some easy steps to setting up your blog:

1. Start by clicking on this link here.
2. If you already have a Gmail account, click the "Sign In" button on the top right screen and follow the simple instructions from there. You should see an option to start a new blog.
3. If you do not have a Gmail account (it's free to sign up), fill in the requested information (starting with name) on the right hand side of the screen. 
• Click "Next Step" on each subsequent screen until you are given the option to go "Back to Blogger."
• Once you've selected to go "Back to Blogger," you will be asked to confirm your profile. Read through the instructions and then click "Continue to Blogger."
• On the next screen you should see a button to create a "New Blog." Click this button.
4. Whether you signed in with an existing Gmail account or created a new one, you will be at the right screen to set up your new blog for our class.
5. You'll need to select a name/title for your blog, a unique URL, and a template. When naming your blog, please either use your real name or an alias (if you choose a fictional name, please tell me). Fill in these three required fields then click "Create Blog."
6. You'll then be taken to your Blogger Dashboard page (this is not your public page). This is the page where you can create and publish all your blog phase posts. 
7. Before signing out, add my blog's URL to your blog's Reading List on the left side of the screen. Simply click the "Add" button, paste my blog's URL (http://findingyouracademicvoice.blogspot.com/) into the box, and then click "Follow." When you log into your account you can see any new updates I've made to my blog.
8. Before signing out, remember to click the "View Blog" button to go to your blog's public page. Copy and paste the URL from there as a comment to this blog post. 

Happy blogging!