June 24, 2007

I have actually been making progress, though I haven't really had the chance to update here. What little work time I have is usually better spent actually doing the work. I can pretty much only work on weekends while my partner is taking care of the baby. And even that time has constant interruptions, so each hour is precious. It is really hard to try to do this with a baby, even with another caretaker present. There is no longer any such thing as an uninterrupted block of time--ever.


However, I find I am now at a spot where I need to stand back and get an overview of where I am so that I can know how to continue. I'm getting close to done, according to Dr. N. She thinks I can finish it by the end of this month, which would be ... today, I guess! I think the straggling ends of any project are often the hardest part to complete.


An undergrad assistant finished entering the texts of the short answers from the survey (the qualitative bit), so that's a good job done. I've encoded the texts and done some analyses on the coded responses.

I have one more variable that I think I will code as a categorical one. Other than that, I will treat the material as "therapy session" material as one committee member suggested: read it for patterns and common threads to pull out and discuss. I think there is some good material for my discussion section.

Many sections are basically done. The introduction section was mostly done already because it was pretty much my proposal. The method section is done, the results section, too. The additional findings section needs to be filled out, probably mostly with the qualitative material that I recently acquired. (Although I probably should add the qualitative methods into the method section itself, but the results into the additional findings section.)

I also need to just catch up with my dissertation committee, to let them know that I'm still here plugging away. One member doesn't seem to be very into email, so I should--what? Send a letter when I send emails to the other members? That would seem odd. But it's not someone I know well enough to casually call on the phone for a brief update, and I don't want a giant phone conversation. Well, I'll send the email and see what happens.

It might be easier to just copy part of my to-do list here; it's a bit scattered, but then so is this process these days.

_√?Rewrite paragraphs subsequent to hypotheses paragraphs in discussion section (easy!) (begin p.50 or so)

_√?Make figure-dense paragraphs into tables

_?_Integrate highlighted intro info into discussion section (ongoing)

_?_Systematically go through red notes and complete (ongoing)

_1_Enter some results of various operations into “additional findings” section

_1_Age findings

_1_Race findings

___Describe how qualitative data was treated and analyzed

___Add variable descriptives for qualitatives (important ones anyway)

___Write down impressions of qual data answers first of all w/out censoring

___Figure out where to put those impressions

___Code for influences (make a new variable with however-many conditions)

_2_Per Nina’s notes: for each lit review highlight, describe whether in accord with my findings

_2_ Per email to Nina: for each finding, discuss whether it is in accord with lit review findings (basically the same thing as above)

_3_Look over previous research notes to get ideas for discussion section

_4_Redo results figures with two groups for sex (only use for comparison of sexes sections)

_2_Additional sex findings

_4_ Find study re: depression/pathology and influence on perception (psychopath findings sect.)

___Use Multi draft as base from which to “pull out” and write other sections

_4_see if qual results such as “I’m not prejudiced” are related to engaging in “superficial social situation” (see p. 12, regarding T-S and F study)

_5_check verb tense agreement throughout

_5_look up all N = and change to n = throughout
___Add some material from the Racial Microaggressions article (discuss future directions, use for my findings?)