Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Chapter 6 in process
The second third of this chapter is building up. At first working with so much data made me feel a little lost. How was I to organize myself? There were so many things to talk about! So I started to look for themes, following Gee’s recommendation. He stated, “look across the whole interview for themes, motifs, or images that co-locate (correlate) with each other; that is, themes, images, or motifs that seem to ‘go together’” (Gee, 2005, p. 153).
I decided to reduce my data, so that I could identify themes in an easier way. From the beginning, I had threaded discussions raw data (126 pages) that was organized into stories: taking each threaded discussion, building tree diagrams, and converting the tree branches into separate stories (99 two-column pages). Gee suggests identifying the components of each story into six story parts, and that I did. Even more, he suggests identifying stanzas, units of language that consider a single idea. So I took the stanza titles alone and was able to reduce the data set to eighteen pages. From here, themes were easier to identify because stanza titles were similar. So now, I am using both, my themes and stories to write.
It was hard to start writing. I remembered hearing my professor talking about the importance of an outline to organize your ideas, the same I tell my students. So I looked at the outline from the previous chapter and started thinking of how this chapter had to be organized. But this did not help either.
I then decided to write an introduction to the second third of the chapter and this was what got me started. The paragraph sounded more like a summary and from it I was able to organize my ideas in an outline. The next step was to write the sections for each entry of the outline, and that is what I am working with right now.
My goal is to finish by Friday – I am afraid to say. This would keep me on track to finish by August.
Reference:
Gee, J. P. (2005). An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and methods (2nd. ed.). NY: Routledge.
I decided to reduce my data, so that I could identify themes in an easier way. From the beginning, I had threaded discussions raw data (126 pages) that was organized into stories: taking each threaded discussion, building tree diagrams, and converting the tree branches into separate stories (99 two-column pages). Gee suggests identifying the components of each story into six story parts, and that I did. Even more, he suggests identifying stanzas, units of language that consider a single idea. So I took the stanza titles alone and was able to reduce the data set to eighteen pages. From here, themes were easier to identify because stanza titles were similar. So now, I am using both, my themes and stories to write.
It was hard to start writing. I remembered hearing my professor talking about the importance of an outline to organize your ideas, the same I tell my students. So I looked at the outline from the previous chapter and started thinking of how this chapter had to be organized. But this did not help either.
I then decided to write an introduction to the second third of the chapter and this was what got me started. The paragraph sounded more like a summary and from it I was able to organize my ideas in an outline. The next step was to write the sections for each entry of the outline, and that is what I am working with right now.
My goal is to finish by Friday – I am afraid to say. This would keep me on track to finish by August.
Reference:
Gee, J. P. (2005). An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and methods (2nd. ed.). NY: Routledge.
Labels: data analysis, dissertation writing, Gee's Discouse Analysis
Friday, May 23, 2008
Starting Summer 2008
Fall semester is over, classes are done, finals are graded, and grades are posted. My desk is ready - it only talks about my research work, inviting me to sit and work a little more.
As I review the work I've done with chapter six's data, themes become evident, jumping out of the data set, and becoming part of the analysis. Little by little, this chapter will be done soon :)
As I review the work I've done with chapter six's data, themes become evident, jumping out of the data set, and becoming part of the analysis. Little by little, this chapter will be done soon :)
