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.