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.