on the tropic of capricorn

 

this is a pic of the education building on the cqu rockhampton campus. nice, no?

now, can I find it in myself to write another journal article before we break for xmas? I've been giving it some thought and I think i'd really like to have a go at writing about transcription. It would draw on a section of my thesis where I considered issues around developing my transcript. This was based on notes that i kept (intuitively?) as I went about the process. I had the feeling at the very start that i was making decisions about what to include and what to leave out, and I sensed that if I didn't keep a record then I would probably forget a lot of my decisions made along the way (although they were important ones, it seemed at the time). so, I wrote notes as I went and usually cited examples from the transcript in-progress to illustrate decisions made, issues that loomed, and so on. This resulted in a document that i was able to categorize according to the issues/decisions I made and was used to write the section in my thesis that addressed transcription. In hindsight, this was a valuable learning experience, in relation to something that will probably always be central to my work as a researcher. It also helped to "open up" the transcription process as an aspect of my research.

so, I'm interested when people make light of transcription (for what that tells), and particularly interested when people make a lot of it. This morning I read a very informative article about transcription:

Lapadat, J. C. & Lindsay, A. C. (1999). Transcription in research and practice: From stadardization of technique to interpretive positionings. Qualitative Inquiry, 5, 64 - 86.

This article is a conceptual review with a very useful list of references. It's a must read for researchers working with transcripts that represent talk and interaction.

uphill climb

 

I thought I was having a bad day! I found this preying mantis working its way up the railing of the building staircase. Anyone else ever have days when you feel like that?

can you find the moon?

 

I get up very early these Rocky days - usually around 5, if not a little earlier. This pic was taken from my decking one morning and "captures" a tree near my bedroom window. It also caught the moon.

I'm regrouping this week after finishing my draft journal article on Friday. I would like to write one more before we break for xmas but I would also like it to be something that I haven't written about before. So, this weekend I spent some time reading EM/CA articles and thinking. One idea I had would be to write something about questions of epistemology as members' concerns. I have a neat little bit of data from my PhD where the teacher asks a student HOW she knew how to write "sandwich". What follows is a neat account from Cathlyn. I did write about this in my PhD although the sequence appeared because it overlapped another that I was analysing that also involved the teacher.

Last week I received notice that I have conditional permission from ethics committee to begin my EM/CA study of young children and computer use. I have to make a minor change in relation to consent forms and that will be finished. So, that will be done today. I have a lot of articles to read around the broad area and I started that last night. I am determined to produce a journal article from the review of the literature. I haven't done that before.

road to work

 

This week I'm attempting to write another journal article (yes, it is getting a bit boring). I've had a bit of good news. i WILL be attending AERA in New York in 2008 as one of my proposals was accepted. Other fantastic thing, I have had my article published in Language and Education. I am absolutely thrilled about that.

slowly, slowly

 

Today I'm putting my mind to the next journal article. I thought of the Journal of Classroom Interaction. While I can't access any current or past issues, I was able to find out some useful information that will help me decide whether to target this journal for my next publication.

1. The journal has published a small number of EM/CA papers in the past:
Baker, C. D. (1992). Description and analysis in classroom talk and interaction. In Journal of Classroom Interaction, 27, 9 - 14.

Heap, J. L. (1992). Seeing snubs, and introduction to sequential analysis of classroom interaction. In Journal of Classroom Interaction, 27, 23 - 38.

2. The journal has an acceptance rate of 11% - 20%.

3. There are only two issues a year.

I think that this journal would be a good place to submit an article based on a paper I presented at AERA this year.

Davidson, C. (2007). From package to practice:Examining the Ad Hoc in a Statewide Early Literacy Program. Annual Conference of AERA, April 9 - 13, Chicago, USA.

In this paper I attempted to establish that effectiveness programs ignore the on-the-ground, moment-by-moment, interaction work of students and their teachers during lessons.

The thing is, of course, I was funded generously by my Faculty to attend this conference. I presented several papers, however, to receive further funding for an overseas conference in 2008 I need to publish one of those papers as a journal article. That's fair and it's good practice to turn those conference papers into articles. The AERA process helps a lot because the initial proposal is 2,600 words. That is peer reviewed and feedback provided. If accepted the final paper must be uploaded before the conference, in order for each session discussant to have time to prepare comments. So, that process gets the written paper pretty close to something that could be published.

Apart from needing to produce a published journal article from a conference paper, it saves time if I can. The analyses in the papers this year were all very carefully, and fully done. So, either I publish them as is, or I need to do some further analysis of other bits of data from independent writing, and THEN draft a journal article. The latter sounds like a lot of work, no?

dark day for Rocky

 

here is a pic taken at about 4.45 pm yesterday afternoon. We had a very nasty storm. This is a view from my side decking. As the pic shows, it wasn't possible to see much beyond the row of houses over the street.

Now the good news -I finished my journal article. FINALLY (and god speed - smile).

almost done

 

I finding writing hard work although it is getting easier. Most especially, I find it hard to FINISH. That is, those last few details seem to take forever to get right. one thing I've learnt about myself since starting to publish, is that I dread getting articles back where I have to make substantial changes. I like getting the feedback and it is always helpful, but it is really hard to make changes to work.

So, today I've worked to get a couple of points just right on the Not Telling article. I think i can pretty much send it on its way (mmm, maybe tomorrow).