Week 8

This was the last week of 8500. I turned in my final paper on Wednesday ( an entire day before the deadline!)  I felt both panic and relief.  The process of writing a literature review was much more involved than I originally anticipated.  However, after seven weeks of reading, researching, writing, organizing and editing I feel a sense of excitement because I now have a Literature Review.   

This week I thought it was important for me to take a few days away from my literature Review in order to have a fresh pair of eyes for my final edit. After re-ordering my headers so that the Literature Review was more cohesive I decided to make my final edits and APA corrections.  Once again, I was constantly referring back to the APA Citation Book and online reference tools.  I will continue to utilize these resources and tools throughout the rest of the program and future assignments.

As I reflect on the semester I have learned a lot about myself in terms of my strengths and weakness as a writer.  It was interesting to see how my topic changed and developed over the course of seven weeks.  I can finally begin to focus on the topic for my dissertation and further research I would like to pursue. What precisely I would focus my research on has kept me up at night!  I would constantly go back and forth on various topics that interest me, but finally zeroing in on a topic  that I am passionate about provides me with a sense of relief and excitement. 

 I now know that things will change and transpire throughout the writing and research process. 

If this is any indication of how my dissertation will be I know that I will need to be flexible and extremely organized.

Like I have stated in my previous blogs I have found that organization and time management is extremely important when writing a literature review. My advice to someone who has to write a literature review is to stay organized set deadlines, give yourself breaks and most importantly, have a second pair of eyes edit your work.

 I personally felt that hardest task of the literature review was selecting a topic. Once a topic was selected I started off broad based on the heading that Dr. Weaver and I agreed upon which allowed me to start off broad and then become more specific and focused. I would almost compare the process to an inverted triangle of research.  

I also recommend using reference tools, such as Refworks, to assist you in organizing references and generating a reference list.   I regret not utilizing Refworks as much as I should have.  In future assignments I will definitely make a conscious effort to utilize this tool in order to save time.

I find that I am constantly improving my writing.  I feel that as I writer I am improving after every assignment, with both my expertise writing scholarly and personally.  Having others provide insight is extremely helpful and I look forward to having more peer reviews and constructive criticism in order for me to improve as a writer, both for my professional and academic career.

Week 8

Week 8

This week my focus was to make the final edits to my literature Review. I also had the opportunity to make the necessary changes that were provided to me by my Peer Reviews. I found that I had a few APA errors (for example adding in a comma between author and year).

I also met with Dr. Weaver via Google Communities to discuss my literature review.  We discussed the necessary edits, as well as rearranging my heading so that my Literature Review was more cohesive.

This week I finally saw that the end was sight; however, I understand that my Literature Review is still a work in progress and changes will be implemented while conducting my dissertation. In any event, this week the main focus of my final edits was to:

•       Reorder paragraphs;
•      Follow the new outline for headings;
•      General revision edits; and
•          Introduction add two paragraphs
•   How I went about conducting the Literature Review; and
•  Advanced Organizer introducing the reader to the sections.

I took the suggestions from all of my peer reviews and made the necessary edits.  I would look at one peer review at a time and make changes. I found that by breaking these task into smaller steps it was much more manageable and not as overwhelming.

As I found throughout this course, stepping away for a period of time allowed me to clear my head and be more productive throughout this daunting task.  I will follow this small piece of advice throughout the rest of my coursework.

I once again utilized an outline that was called “Next Steps List “, which I created with Dr. Weaver during our meeting. This list was a bullet point outline, which listed all the changes I needed to complete prior to turning in my final Literature Review.  This Next Step List took five minutes to create, but it probably saved me a few hours of work. Utilizing this list kept me focused on the task at hand. As I would complete the changes, I would check it off the list and move onto the next edit. 

I am becoming more confident with APA citations; however, I will always refer to the Owl Perdue website and my APA Manuel.

I can also conclude that I now have a solid understanding of Running Heads!

In the future I need to utilize Refworks more. I had a basic understanding of the program, however, I wasn’t utilizing it to its full potential.  I think proper usage could have organized my references and saved myself hours of time (rather than using a Google Doc).

My final step will be submitting my final copy.  I will then submit this to Dr. Lowther, Dr. Weaver and Dr. Mims for additional feedback during the process of writing my dissertation . I will also ask for additional feedback from my peers.  Writing a Literature Review is much more difficult task than I anticipated.  My best piece of advice for writing a literature review is staying organized! I particularly liked this statement: “It is important to keep control of the reading process, and to keep your research focus in mind.” Rudestam and Newton (1992) remind us that the aim is to “Build an argument, not a library.”  Unfortunately, I often found myself printing off and reading so much information that did not pertain to my Literature Review topic.

Week 7

This week’s assignment was to complete peer reviews of my fellow classmates literature reviews. I completed two peer reviews that focused on: TrainingVolunteer Mentors Working With Youth and  

Teacher Self Efficacy and Student Self Efficacy: Should they be used in determining the achievement of Common Core State Standards? This task took longer than I anticipated.   I was constantly re-reading and rewording. I would often have to remind myself that we all have different styles of writing.

This task was extremely difficult I kept reading over the literature and questioning APA citations.  However, after the opportunity to read my fellow students literature reviews I was able to reflect upon 

my own literature reviews.  I realized I changed my APA citations by deleting a comma. This was an error I realized before to receiving feedback from my peers.  I’m sure this won’t be the first or the last unnecessary error. Peer reviews have many benefits, perhaps the most important of is the ability for a write to strengthen their own writing by contemplating the responses of an actual reader and receiving that feedback. Peer reviewing allows a diversity of opinions to be brought to the table. I have completed peer reviews but only in my doctoral studies.  I think it is a skill that develops with practice.

Having a rubric to refer to throughout the review process was a great tool that helped to keep my focus.  I would like to have a rubric provided for every assignment. Dr. Weaver provided the class with a rubric that allowed me to focus on reviewing the paper. The rubric provided set guidelines for peer-reviewers which asked us to complete specific tasks: examples include indicating the strongest part of a paper; areas that need focus; and indicating sentences or paragraphs that seem out of order, incompletely explained, or otherwise in need of revision.  This allowed me to comment on another's writing in a specific and constructive way. It’s easier said than done to take constructive criticism, but peer reviews are essential part of the writing process that all successful writers engage in at some point.

  

Even though I was somewhat hesitant to provide constructive feedback to my peers, for fear of offending them, I am actually looking forward to hearing what they have to say.   Hopefully, they share this opinion!  I’d rather get the feedback now rather than later. Thus, this assignment provided me with the opportunity to work on the constructive feedback I could provide and  receive based on my second draft and have a broader audience’s perspectives on my writing.   

I also found that using word track changes is much more user-friendly than  Googledocs. I can’t imagine editing papers on a hardcopy!

This specific assignment allowed me to better comprehend the criteria used to determine whether a paper is well written. I am prepared to begin the editing process once again. My first focus will by my APA citations! I think the million-dollar idea is an APA online checker!  I wonder if anyone has created a program for that yet?  

As I reflect on this process and my next step I think its always important to have a second set of eyes look over your work. However, I need to plan more in advanced. Often times I have a week deadline, life happens and before I know it a paper is due. In the future I going to make a cognitive effort to have a second set of eye look over my work.  I often know what I mean to say but sometimes it doesn’t always come out that way. 

Week #6 Reflection

This week my second draft of my literature review was due. I had a very very rough first draft.  This particular topic is becoming quite a challenge to me due to the limited research on using social media to increase parental communication.

The prior week I just compiled notes and research. I didn’t really begin the true writing process; however, I was fully prepared to devote every second of my time to writing the second draft of my literature review. Unfortunately, a wrench was thrown into my plans in the form of massive lake effect snowstorm. I live in Hamburg, New york, which is south of Buffalo. We got blasted with 80 inches of snow in two-day period. I was snowed in from Monday night, November 17^th to Sunday November 23^rd confined to my house eating the remnants of food in my pantry.  This made for a great opportunity to dive into the literature review, in between shoveling of course.   

I have been in contact with Dr. Dennis through email and met by appointment through Google hangouts. We went through the various library databases in search of (parent/adult/teacher/Educator/…training) She is also struggling to find research on my topic.  She is in contact with her colleagues trying to find articles, research and information as well as possible key search terms. 

As I write my second draft I feel as though I am constantly rearranging, adding, deleting and questioning myself. I am also fixing my APA errors as I construct draft two. This is a process once again that will be ongoing.  I look forward to my classmate and Dr. Weavers feedback and recommendations.

I once again used my outline to guide me through the writing process. I hope using the outline will assist me in keeping a coherent flow throughout my literature review. I am considering making a mind map to come up with some additional search/key terms, which I may have overlooked. I feel like I am researching more now that I did during the annotated bibliographies. I keep finding articles that steer me in different directions and hope I will find relevant research on social media and professional development.

It is imperative to take breaks after writing, reading, and researching.  After a few hours of work it was clear my writing would turn into incoherent thoughts. I found that a lot of the research I compiled never made it into my literature review.  This really frustrated me because I thought a majority of the information was very informative however it did not align with my topics.

I need to keep well-organized notes, and use keywords to refer back to the literature. I have compiled various pages of notes in Googledocs. However, there is no organization to it.  After reflecting on the past two weeks I found that it is usually better to research one very specific idea thoroughly than to attempt to tackle a big theme (or many ideas) and not be able to treat it (or them) in depth.  I am far from being done and I still have a lot of work to do!

Week #5 Reflection

This week I began organizing all of my annotated bibliographies and started drafting my Literature Review.  I also have been in contact with Dr. Dennis and will be meeting with her via Google Hangouts this Wednesday to search for more articles pertaining to how to guide teacher/parents to communicate using technology and social media. She said that I might need to make my own interpretations if we cannot find any research. The first draft is definitely a draft that will develop overtime.

The outline I created for my literature review has already been tweaked and revised.  I also realized I need to include the barriers and benefits of technology as well as the current statistics of social media and technology. 

I was once again overwhelmed going through all of my bibliographies and organizing them into topics.  I actually had more articles about using technology to communicate than I thought. However quite a few were outdated in regards to technology such as using voice mail and email as a communication tool.  I will continue to research studies to find more relevant information that pertains to my literature review.

I also had to return to printing paper copies of my articles. I tried to save paper and time however I had to return to my old habit of printing off a hard copy. This took sometime because I had to go search the various databases in which I found the articles. I can’t help highlighting, underlining and tabbing articles. My kitchen counter has been overtaken by articles, post notes and every highlighter color ever made.    

During the process of trying to do my work I began to empathize with my students who are now required to take all their common formative assessments online. I think that as a student technology is great tool but sometimes-traditional methods are also beneficial. Thus allowing students to have a hard copy as well as a virtual copy of the test would be more beneficial. We all have different learning styles and at this point in my career I am still learning my own styles, which can vary from assignment to assignment. Writing this literature review I will once again discover what works and what doesn’t for me personally that I can apply to my future research.


When I reflect on reviewing the literature from my annotated bibliographies it requires the ability to juggle multiple tasks, from finding and evaluating relevant material to synthesizing information from various sources, from critical thinking to paraphrasing, evaluating, and citation skills. After creating my outline I hope that it will allow me to organize the flow of the main body of the review so that the reader will be drawn into and guided through it.

I do feel that it is important to be up-to date on the research I use but it is also important not to forget the older studies. Some of these studies have valuable results that could be used in my future research. I quickly learned that not all research studies are created equal. Thus writing the literature review will allow me to recognize which particular studies have been the most important to the furthering of knowledge in their particular research area. For example, Joyce Epstein  seems to be the lead researcher in parental involvement and her studies have been well documented throughout the research I have been reading.

I am looking forward to writing and developing my literature review. This will obviously be an ongoing and ever changing process.  I realize that writing a literature review can be a lengthy endeavor I need to give myself plenty of time. It is important to bear in mind that my reading and writing will feed into each other. Through my literature review I look to compare the results from a wide variety of published research.