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Mathemagenic on personal productivity in knowledge-intensive environments, weblog research, knowledge management, PhD, serendipity and lack of work-life balance... |
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Mathemagenic
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 Affectionate writing reduces cholesterol
Came across today at Torill's blog: From the journal Human Communication Research, vol 33, number2, April 2007, 'Affectionate Writing Reduces Total Cholesterol: Two Randomized Controlled Trials' by Kory Floyd, Alan C. Mikkelson, Colin Hesse and Perry M. Pauley. This is also a good reason to write on research topics you care about :) |
24 June 2007|
First steps of independence
Alexander is starting on solids. When I cooked and mashed his veggies today I was sad as he was going to leave the house and get married tomorrow. I know that babies are supposed to grow up and that slow process of gaining independence is a part of it, but it feels sad to start with the first steps of it. Fortunately, he is still too young to get married, so we have a bit of time together ahead of us (and he wasn't that happy with the veggies :) More on: parenting
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23 June 2007|
On things that hide behind typical formats of reporting research
Another quote: Agger (1989) has informed us that the typical article format in sociology is used to claim scientific validity. Techniques such as the citation of authority and the display of methodology convince the reader that they are partaking of an undistorted view of reality. [...] Merton (1968, 4) complained that sociologists do not inquire into "the ways in which scientists actually think, feel, and go about their work," and as a result there is little public discourse concerning how social science is actually done. Moreover, Merton (1968, 4) believes that textbooks on research methods exacerbate the problem by teaching: Ronai, C. (1995) 'Multiple Reflections of Child Sex Abuse: An Argument for a Layered Account', Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 23: 395-426. Given that the quote on lack of inquiry into "the ways in which scientists actually think, feel, and go about their work" is from 1968, I guess I should check is there is any research on those things. Also: I never really realised how the format of reporting research is inded used to claim validity. Now I realise that in her discussion of quality criteria Ulrike Schultze brings the format of writing explicitly as an evidence of plausibility [check when at work!]. I never questioned it... However, if you look into that it looks suspucious - the difference in reporting style doesn't really change what you did in your investigation. Or does it? If it does not, then using the "right" format to claim quality is pretty much hiding behind the words. If it does, then writing itself is an added value activity, rather then "just" reporting. And then we are back to writing as a method. Something to think about... More on: methodology writing
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21 June 2007|
Time flies: 5 years, 5 months
Today is five years since I blog. Time flies. Writing to a weblog gives me an extra evidence of it - time becomes more tangible when you see it as a timestamp on a story that feels so recent. But having it there, written, also gives it depth - showing that the path between then and now has been long.
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20 June 2007|
You either live, or write
One more on writing, from Gabriela (emphasis added, I just loved this nesting): A lot of people have blogged about reboot - I gave up the idea because I wanted to focus on what was going on. A Romanian writer said once: "you either live, or write", which might seem a bit odd to a blogger. We're living while we're writing - or is it vice versa? writing while we're living? Anyhow, this time there were so many better bloggers around, that I felt like letting go! Also: Real-time conference blogging: reporting vs. reflecting More on: blog writing writing
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Writing as a method of data analysis
Pretty much on what I tried to say in Mangrove effect: the value of making things explicit - but narrowed down to writing as a method of data analysis: I use writing as a method of data analysis by using writing to think; that is, I wrote my way into particular spaces I could not have occupied by sorting data with a computer program or by analytic induction. This was rhizomatic work (Deleuze&Guattari, 1980/1987) in which I made accidental and fortuitous connections I could not foresee or control. My point here is that I did not limit data analysis to conventional practices of coding data and then sorting it into categories that I then grouped into themes that became section headings in an outline that organized and governed my writing in advance of writing. Thought happened in the writing. As I wrote, I watched word after word appear on the computer screen - ideas, theories, I had not thought before I wrote them. [p.970] And another one, just because it takes to the extreme some of my feelings (=I'm more moderate about audit trails and data saturation :)
Both quotes are from Richardson, L. & St.Pierre, E. A. (2005). Writing: A method of inquiry. In N.K.Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed., pp. 959-978). SAGE Publications. Wikipedia entry on rhizome in philosophy: I don't understand much, but the fact that Carl Jung used the word "to emphasize the invisible and underground nature of life" is intriguing. More on: invisible methodology writing
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18 June 2007|
Trustworthiness of messy research: using research audit?
Annette Markham, here (emphasis is mine): Years of studying, utilizing and teaching many methodological approaches helped me realize two important things about qualitative enquiry. First, very few textbooks detail the actual process of doing research, including all the activities that disappear in the published report, such as making mistakes, revising research questions, changing the method of analysis, and other emergent activities inherent to qualitative enquiry. Second, what we call simply "method" is actually a multilayered set of inductive and non linear processes, guided by the context and research questions. The challenge is stopping at critical moments or junctures in the project to reflect on what one is actually doing so as to: find a good fit between one's activities and one's theoretical premises, balance learned procedure and new contexts, and alter methods of interpretation so to better suit the contingencies of the situation. One of my long-term frustrations with scientific methods is that many of those (the easier to defend ones) require a plan-ahead structured way for analyzing your data. Even with more exploratory methods, eliminating the "plan-ahead" element to a degree (e.g. grounded theory), the analysis stage still requires using a specific set of procedures and rules. Somehow for me this doesn't fit the way I see (experience and read in papers) how knowledge is constructed (in a broader sense, not necessarily as part of scientific tradition) – with a space for uncertainty, implicitness, intuition, recognising patterns in a mess, conversations and dependencies. Scientific knowledge, at least in complex domains, shouldn't be that different. However, with scientific knowledge you want to make sure that the results of a study you lay down on a paper are also trustworthy. One way to do it is to use a proven methodology, following the steps that others took and successfully defended. In this case you have to prove that you had a good reasons to go for a particular methodology and that you followed it well (or deviated for reason). Another option (as I has been told by multiple professors ;) is to be very transparent about what and how you did, allowing others to judge by the detail. Taken to the extreme, that would involve research audit*, where an external auditor can examine the decisions and actions of a researcher. In my case that would be a way out, however, there are a few issues around it.
I'm thinking of comparative alternatives, but that would take a bit more time... *If you want to know more about research audit you can start from the work of Sanne Akkerman:
More on: emergence methodology PhD
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13 June 2007|
Flow
I almost forgot how does it feel - when ideas run in your head back and forth waiting for you to catch them and to turn into a text. When you don't think much about things that might not work, but, instead, focus on making things happen. And that I actually feel like writing after evening play - bath - milk - sleep routine with Alexander :) |
12 June 2007|
Tools to find similarity between two texts (weblog and papers)
I'm playing with an idea of comparing (parts of) my weblog with some of my published papers (and with the dissertation as a whole when I'm done). So far I'm interested in two things:
Thought of a couple of ways to do so:
Any ideas? |
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Blogger thought group and attributing ideas
Browsing my archives and realising that I'd better quote those comments to Context and attribution (12 Feb 2004!) in a blogpost, which is easier to find later. By Alex Halavais (#): This is, arguably, easy enough with words, but much harder when it comes to ideas. I came up with some thoughts that, I will assert, are my own. Someone noted that these followed closely some things you had written about in your blog. I am a regular reader of your blog, and I think it is likely that these entries--at the very least--prompted my thinking in a particular direction. This tendency to remember the ideas but forget their source--the "sleeper effect"--has been shown in communication research several times over the last 50 years. By Piers Young (#): Crikey - all sounds like we're beginning to enter the murky world of Intellectual Proprty Rights. Have a few brief comments: 1) that this trail is happening at all is a good thing. It underlines the fact that there is value (however intangible) in blogging. 2) I don't think the "thought group" idea's is quite enough. Most, or at least many blogs have a "thought group" anyway: a blogroll. Most, or at least many bloggers have diverse interests: they may be into KM and skiing, KM and whiskey or KM and needlecraft or - you get the picture. One of the great things about links is that it allows me to get an idea which blogs most interest me. Without specific citations, I - as let's say a needlecraft afficionado - would have to wade through a whole load of stuff on marketing, whiskey and skiing. Links, along with a whole load of other good things, help you filter. 3) That said, I agree there has to be a limit. In many cases it just isn't practical to search all the citations and make all the links. But surely you do as much as you've got time for? And with the joys of trackback, bookmarklets etc, you almost by definition have time for one. Alternating between typing, reading, browsing my weblog and walking around (usually means writing flow :) |
08 June 2007|
Parenting: traditional wisdom and modern life
One of the highlights of Reboot for me was talking to Rob Paterson. Behind his slides on early human development (on that in a blog post) I saw traces of things that occupy my mind for a while now. Funny enough, during our conversation Rob recommended the book of Jean Liedloff The continuum concept, which came as a reference from someone from totally different context the day before we left Reboot. The book is based on insights about human nature that were a result of spending "two and a half years deep in the South American jungle with Stone Age Indians". I'm still waiting for my copy of it to arrive (=I haven't read the book), so this is how the concept is introduced online: According to Jean Liedloff, the continuum concept is the idea that in order to achieve optimal physical, mental and emotional development, human beings — especially babies — require the kind of experience to which our species adapted during the long process of our evolution. For an infant, these include such experiences as... The bold is mine. Another quote, from Who's in Control? The Unhappy Consequences of Being Child-Centered explains it a bit better: [...]the Yequana [the indians Liedloff lived with] are not child-centered. They may occasionally nuzzle their babies affectionately, play peek-a-boo, or sing to them, yet the great majority of the caretaker's time is spent paying attention to something else...not the baby! Children taking care of babies also regard baby care as a non-activity and, although they carry them everywhere, rarely give them direct attention. Thus, Yequana babies find themselves in the midst of activities they will later join as they proceed through the stages of creeping, crawling, walking, and talking. The panoramic view of their future life's experiences, behavior, pace, and language provides a rich basis for their developing participation. Now to my point. I believe in wisdom of traditional societies, especially when it concerns birth and babies. I also read modern research (e.g. recently finished fascinating What's Going on in There?: How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life), that confirms that early years are extremely important and explains why and how in a language of science. What I miss is a connection between those two worlds. Liedloff's observations are coming from the context that doesn't fit the way I live. There is no extended family around to share the load of caregivers (once in a while you have to do things incompatible with holding a baby in your arms). I tried to carry Alexander while "going about my business", but he gets tired easily from the noise of networking at events and gets bored while I sit in front of the computer and type. He is interested to look at moving things on a screen, but I'd rather show him the wind moving leaves in our garden (the only problem that 'my business' involves lots of typing in front of a screen).
I don't want to sound too critical here. The books mentioned are well worth reading, but it takes a bit of imagination and lots of experiments to figure out how traditional wisdom could be applied in a modern life. Blurring work-life boundaries mean that being with your child while going about your business could be an option. Now the only "small" thing left is figuring out how exactly. Technorati: reboot9 |
07 June 2007|
'In Web 1.0 no-one had any children'
A quick detour from PhD work into Reboot stuff (I'll blog more on it, only now things are much slower). Ivan Pope in comments on my experiences of going to a conference with a baby: Here's my joke: Q: What's the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0? A: In Web 1.0 no-one had any children. Raises a lot of questions. Why kids are becoming more visible at work now? Is it web2.0 or something else? More on that later. Technorati: reboot9 |
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Bibliography conventions when writing on weblogs
One of the practical problem when writing scientific texts about weblogs is dealing with citations. Apart from ethical issues (e.g. blog research ethics, respondent identification) there is a practical problem of combining references to "traditional" publication sources with references to weblog entries. In my case weblog entries are also referred to in two ways - (1) as a reference to attribute an idea or support an argument and (2) as a data source used for an illustration - and it could make sense to distinguish between those two. There are also references to my own weblog, which serves an additional role of research diary. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do for my dissertation, but I'm collecting some inspirational ideas. Vivian Serfaty in The Mirror and the Veil provides references to weblog posts quoted in the footnotes. Bibliography section is split in a several categories: works cited, diaries cited, archives and webrings, political blogs cites, miscellaneouss. In Uses of blogs references, weblog links and notes are included in endnotes for each chapter. There is also a bibliography at the end that includes "key sources" (mainly published articles and books, but also a few online essays; weblog entries are not included). The reflexive thesis by Malcolm Ashmore provides another example. It's not about weblogs, but a good example of referencing all kinds of sources for his dissertation (published as a book in this case). Below is truncated version of TOC:
Any other suggestions? More on: blog research PhD writing
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04 June 2007|
Reboot 9: experiences of going to a conference with your baby
Context - 2 days of Reboot, mama, papa and 4 months old Alexander, ~700km by car to get there.
It's nice to feel accepted . Bringing your child to a conference still sounds strange for many people, so small signals that it's 'normal' are important. Seeing other people with kids, babysitting downstairs, general smiles and nodding make a lot of difference (I also loved the 'role-model' picture it gave to still-single-geeky-guys :). A few people I talked to said they would consider bringing their kids next year.Your primary channel is babychannel. Forget blogging, be happy if you manage to go to the sessions you want to go and participate in some conversations. I put my laptop away pretty soon after Reboot had started – it's an extra weight to drag around, my hands were usually occupied with toys and there were hardly any moments than I could give online world some attention. So I missed quite a lot. Not that much of the sessions, but mainly of networking around. There were extra things to do during the breaks and we had to skip some evening activities (including missing pre-/post-conference parties, eating in turns and need to 'evacuate' at the moment my dessert was served). But being there with Alexander also added a lot. Not only he was a great ice-breaker / conversation starter (from 'how old is he' to 'my kids are…' to blogging/technology/work :), but I also enjoyed moments of sharing parenting experiences with others. It was also about fun, closeness and feeling empowered experiencing that it is possible to be a parent and a professional at the same moment. Logistics at the conference
Logistics around the conference
Some other things
And, most important thing – I'm very happy that I get support of Robert in all this. The logistics around the conference make it too difficult to do it alone and it actually helps that there are moments to enjoy the conference 'old-fashioned-pre-baby-way' knowing that your child is happy at another session with your partner. Photo credits: Ludita, Ton Zijlstra, Mark Wubben |
© Copyright 2002-2007 Lilia Efimova 
This weblog is my learning diary. Sometimes I write about things related to my work, but the views expressed here are personal and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.
Last update: 09/12/2007; 17:18:18.
