May 11, 2010 12:04 PM PDT
This paper just about broke me last week.
The way I set this project up turned out to be a massive amount of work when it came time to match raw data to the measurement tool then input that into excel. I was having a panic attack at crunch time and had to be convcinced by a classmate (math major) to randomly select 6 of the 36 contributors as a smaller subset for the analysis. My professor thought that was sage advice as long as my sample analyzed 30 patches. The 6 random selections turned out to have 99 patches total, so that worked in my favor.
Other thoughts?
- I decided I hated excel with a vengeance before finally making peace with it (I'm a visual person, the neat tables and colored charts/graphs helped).
- Citing sources is new territory for me, I found it to be painful and confusing... I will have to get better at that as I have many more papers in my future (*whimper*).
- I had no idea what to write for my hypothetical examples but I did it anyway.
- The analysis part... that took quite a bit of time. I had to read dozens of papers on my selected theory (Agenda Setting) to find three examples that fit the idea of patches as a media so that I could cite it, analyze it and compare it to my original idea. Each analysis becoming more closely matched to my topic.... I did what I could with that. (it didn't help that I first started looking for another theory "uses & gratification" before switching over to "agenda setting")
- I think perhaps I put too much of my own self into the work too. The peer examples the professor shared with us included personal commentary so I did the same, I might have taken that a bit far.
In the end, it did prove challenging but in a way that should have been expected (ok it was) because my professor informed me no other study with this focus exists.
My only real disappointment is it seemed a really cool idea in the beginning, but the final product is a very complex scientific document.
If any of you are interested in seeing it, it's too large to post here (32 pages), I would happily send it to your email as an attachment if you send me a PM with your email address.
I didn't have time to do a post-mortem with my instructor after submitting the paper and before the close of the semester but I emailed him to ask if he would review it with me in the fall to let me know what he thinks could have been done differently.
OH.... my grade for the class? A
I owe every one of you a great debt of gratitude!!!!
May 11, 2010 12:44 PM PDT
Glad that it all ended up working out, congrats on the 'A'.
May 11, 2010 12:46 PM PDT
Buffy
That is awesome you did wonderful!!!
May 11, 2010 12:57 PM PDT
Buffy...... "A" That is so awesome !!!! Speaking for your whole Cyclefish family....... Ya made us proud girl !!!!!!
Congratulations on a difficult and all consuming job well done. You did good girlfriend!!!!
Your present insight in the Cyclefish family far exceeds the perception of the majority of the people who offered the view into the bikier life. You now know us better than we might believe. Great job on a very complex undertaking.
Dedication and desire goes a loooooooooooooooooooooooong way; way to go Buffy.