Showing posts with label Research Tips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Research Tips. Show all posts
A little something about interview trancriptions
A new year has arrived, although between yesterday, today & tomorrow means no more than time is closing in on me!!
Anyway here are some interview tips (For making transcription easier) for friends out there considering interviews in their studies:
1) Get a decent digital audio recorder, and set them up properly. Use the Noise Cut function but Avoid using the Voice Over Recognition (VOR) – it paused when there’s a pause in the conversation, which sometimes cut off some of the beginning of a conversation. You’d be left guessing what it was
2) Ask the most relevant question in one recording based on your Interview Schedules (make one - highly recommended!!)
3) During the interview you may find interesting issues that you’d wanted more info, note them down, so you’d remember, but avoid asking about it then. Ask them later, after all the main question have been asked and answered, preferably use a separate recording
4) Most of the time, Wait until the respondent answer/ or ask a question – don’t cut in to avoid unclear / mumbled up words because of cross conversations, you are not in a debate! Although some respondents tend to do that…
5) When in doubt - Use your instincts!
Some Mechanics of Transcription to consider:
1) Get a software that allows you to -
a. Use short keys while transcribing – the usage of mouse really slows you down, and cause ergonomic problem to your palm!!
b. Slow the pace of the conversation, really important for some people who talk rather fast and for people like me who are slow typist (or slightly pekak badak) ;-)
c. Divide the audio recording into several files, to save time from locating where you last stop especially for breaks in transcribing process
2) The above (which I found in the Sony Voice Editor version 3) helps boost your morale in the process. And believe me, when I tell you, your morale can be very, very, very low after some times. For instance the function to divide the files, allows you to divide the files where you last stop, and you may keep the original recordings. You can divide them for instance into 3 files at different intervals of the audio conversations, and listen to each one of them separately. Once you’ve divided them, you may delete the ones that you have listened to, hence it would leave you with the balance of the recordings, giving you the impressions that now there’s lesser time to listened to on the original recorded audio. The help of the software avoided me from feeling nauseous he..he..he..but I do feel rather sleepy at times, especially if you listen to someone who can drive you to dreamland :-D
3) If some of the interviews needed translation (where the parties spoke in English & Malay intermittently), do it in one go. Although if the interviewee spoke fully in Malay, it’s advisable to keep one in that version for reference first. I believe translation process is easier than transcription, once you have everything on paper. You really want to avoid going back to the tapes again!
4) Backup is not enough, print a copy every time you finished one interviews. (I lost one of them from over backing up actually!!)
5) Ask for help! If you can get some… Although I can tell you, no amount of love would make anybody do it for free :-P
6) Keep your sanity intact, cry when you need to, and go for breaks when there are some major achievements, and completing one or two transcription doesn’t cut it, do 10 then go on holiday ;-)
With all the above technique, minus all the cooking, eating, sleeping, play no so desperate housewife time, I manage to finish 31 interviews roughly in less than 3 months. It could take even less time than that if not due to my laptop ram problem and my exhaustion. AND EXHAUSTED I AM!
That said I have to be back at work...Happy New Year everybody :-D
Phd Experience - Malaysian Version
Now at least the experiences of my Malaysian Phd counterparts were researched and documented! Interesting findings indeed from the eyes (and mind of 18 PhD candidates in UPM). The study focused on the qualities and strategies of the supervisory relationship in particular.
One quote basically summarised (partly) what those experiences were:
"From this last year, I now know what I don’t want to be when I become a supervisor later on. I know I don’t want to be like her…. (Allison, PhD student)"
You can read it in full here.
Saving Safely
In the midst of my interviewing activities, I have forgotten to update on my previous post. Anyway, my respondents have now reached 20 plus people. I am actually cringing over the thought that the numbers might reach 30 or even more. Transcription as have been expected is a different story altogether. I am ashamed to admit the numbers of transcription that I have completed (or not completed). What made it more complicated, when some of the interviews were bilingual. This means I have to do a double transcription for each and every one of those interviews. I would rather play with the children than DOING THAT!
To add to those complications, I have issues in arranging and save-keeping orderly and privately the audio files and transcription documents. I recently got the scare of my PhD ‘data collection’ life, when I lost track of one the transcriptions. I finally decided to upload all the files in Google Doc and put a lock & password on it…pheeewww….I now can keep track of the files safely and ensuring all the data privacy, even if - Allah forbids - I lost my physical storage in whatever forms that I have now.
I guess I should have done that a long time ago, even with the chapters I’m writing. It’s fairly very easy and up to a limit of 1 GB, everything (well most of everything) can be uploaded for free. I am using Google, since I have an account with them. There are basically a whole lot more place/space you can do it in the web, some with a small amount of premium per-annum/month. Happy saving!
To add to those complications, I have issues in arranging and save-keeping orderly and privately the audio files and transcription documents. I recently got the scare of my PhD ‘data collection’ life, when I lost track of one the transcriptions. I finally decided to upload all the files in Google Doc and put a lock & password on it…pheeewww….I now can keep track of the files safely and ensuring all the data privacy, even if - Allah forbids - I lost my physical storage in whatever forms that I have now.
I guess I should have done that a long time ago, even with the chapters I’m writing. It’s fairly very easy and up to a limit of 1 GB, everything (well most of everything) can be uploaded for free. I am using Google, since I have an account with them. There are basically a whole lot more place/space you can do it in the web, some with a small amount of premium per-annum/month. Happy saving!
Intricacies of Interviews in Malaysia
Interviews requires a certain amount of skills & techniques. Lots of references out there will discuss most of those skills & techniques. However, when conducting interviews in Malaysia, there are some other matters that needs 'extra' consideration.
I personally think, in Malaysia most of the time when you are given the interview appointment, you are halfway there in your data collection. Once the appointment is given, most informants will not be holding back. They would usually share with you all the information you required from them.
But to get the consent to be interviewed is another story altogether. A lot depends on who the informants are or more specifically who they worked with.
TBC...
I personally think, in Malaysia most of the time when you are given the interview appointment, you are halfway there in your data collection. Once the appointment is given, most informants will not be holding back. They would usually share with you all the information you required from them.
But to get the consent to be interviewed is another story altogether. A lot depends on who the informants are or more specifically who they worked with.
TBC...
The Ethics in Research Interviews
When discussing about conducting an ethical research, especially qualitative interviews, there are some issues that never crossed my mind before. For instance:
Do you know that, you can't approach a participant through his boss directly? Meaning you can't ask the boss to point out A, B or C and specifically ask them to participate in the interview. It will impose or unduely forcing them to do the interview, or else ...since it is the boss implied 'order'. The boss can only forward your participant invitation letter, but it's up to the potential participants whether to response to the invitation. This way the boss will never know who amongst his subordinates did or did not take part in the study - hence no adverse consequence to them.
Do you know that you can't simply record your interviews in audio or video format or even in writing without the respondents' explicit consent and assuring that if they do consent, the records of the interview will be stored securely and be disposed of, once the study is completed? It's the respondents' rights not to be recorded and if they do, for the data to be treated confidentially.
Do you also know that you have to give the partipants the right to withdraw from participation, even after the interviews had been conducted with them? It's the respondents' right to do so, but in order to be fair to both parties, (since it will create extra headache to the researcher, if everyone starts to withdraw after all the data have been included in the study's report) the researcher may include a 'sunset' clause, whereby the respondents is given up to for instance, 4 weeks to withdraw from the study, and lose the rights after the 4 weeks is over. This way, the respondents still have the right to withdraw in 4 weeks time and the researcher can start including the particular data into the analysis after the 4 weeks is over.
Hmmm...seems like a lot of work...paper & bureaucracy work :-(
Setback...temporary?
Dealing with government can be a hassle, dealing Malaysian government can be .......???
Sometimes giving them too much information can be a disadvantage instead of an advantage...
Sometimes they don't even know what they have and do not have...
Sometimes they ask for all sorts of things or require all sorts of process that even they themselves would like to skip or avoid...
Sometimes it's your own mistake...
Sometimes it's an error of judgment on their part...
Sometimes ...sometimes...sometimes...
But I consider this a temporary setback! I'll go around it somehow, Insya Allah.
Perspective, Hearsay & Context
I am at UKM to get another current perspective of Malaysian family law and the issues affecting it from an academician view, after several attempts to get one from the practitioner met with a deadlock. However, PM NAMA has been working with several committees of the relevant government department, so her views may be a bit generalize, but an accurate generalization of the current situation. Instead of being too 'right' or 'left', she believes in getting a practical solution to problems based on what is on the plate as much as possible and if it’s impractical suggest a solution that make sense practically and legally.
She stressed on the fact that in establishing the context of the problem, I must not based my argument on hearsay but on proper statistics and if there’s none, conduct my own survey on the current situation. It means more time needed to be spent establishing and proofing the research problem rather than head straight on the solution that I plan on suggesting. :-(
She was right when she said that postgraduate students needed to do some groundwork before embarking on their chosen area/topic and their PhDs. But truth be told, a lot of us, including me, are groping in the dark because my young career background has not exposed me to a lot of contact and network. We have various reason for choosing to do PhD, choosing the area and the topic we ended with. Whatever it is, at the end of the day, we hoped to find some light perhaps the harder way, but finally finding our way …home.
She stressed on the fact that in establishing the context of the problem, I must not based my argument on hearsay but on proper statistics and if there’s none, conduct my own survey on the current situation. It means more time needed to be spent establishing and proofing the research problem rather than head straight on the solution that I plan on suggesting. :-(
She was right when she said that postgraduate students needed to do some groundwork before embarking on their chosen area/topic and their PhDs. But truth be told, a lot of us, including me, are groping in the dark because my young career background has not exposed me to a lot of contact and network. We have various reason for choosing to do PhD, choosing the area and the topic we ended with. Whatever it is, at the end of the day, we hoped to find some light perhaps the harder way, but finally finding our way …home.
Formalities
If you want to improve your formal letters writing skills, Malaysia is the place to be. So far I have and 'need' to send almost 10 letters of various forms of request and permission, even if some of the people you request to see don't mind seeing you or some of the documents you requested are not even confidentials.
That does not include thinking of what kinda 'sweet talk' sentences you need to include in those letters....Arggghhh it reminds me of SPM all over again! Nasib baik aku lulus dgn jayanya...ha..ha..ha.
It's a mental exercise, even with templates because you need adjust and edit the contents to suit the person/people you sent the letter to...silap haribulan, you might address them as merely Dato' instead of Yang Berbahagia Dato', or worst addressing them as Tuan, instead of Puan (when clearly the person is a she)...isk..isk..isk... I almost did that. Nasib baik perasaan...Ok, back to letter writing activities ;-(
Academic Coffee (Tea) Session - The 3rd
My family & I attended the VMPGA Third Academic Coffee Session today conducted as usual at the Malaysia Hall, starting from 2.15 p.m. to almost 5 p.m. The presenters were:
Rohani Mohamed (Ph.D. Student, University of Melbourne)
Title of thesis - Secondary Mathematic Teachers Assessment Practice
Wan Fauziah Wan Yusof (Ph.D. Student, Victoria University)
Title of thesis - Characteristics of Board of Directors Members, Board Effectiveness & Corporate Governance
Hoo Chiew Ping (Ph.D. Student, La Trobe University)
Title of thesis - The United States and Northeast Asia Security : The Dynamics of Korean Peninsula on Regional Strategic Stability.
Mohd Hanif Yaacob (Ph.D. Student, RMIT)
Title of thesis - Investigation of Nanostructured Tungsten Trioxide for Gas Sensing Application
I am really interested in the first two presenters, Kak Rohani & Kak Wan, because they focused on interviews as one of the methods of data collection. Kak Rohani had just received her green light from her ethics board. She discussed thoroughly the obstacles that she needed to face and the steps she took in order to get the approval.
Kak Wan had recently returned from her data collection in Malaysia. She interviewed all the top managing directors of public listed companies back home. Her data analysis was done in Excel instead of NVivo, very much suitable because her thesis is not exploratory. Well, it actually made her work much easier. She also mentioned some of the issue facing her when trying to get a ‘few’ government officers to be interviewed, such as bureaucracy, lack of response, no response or just being passing around. Hmmm…takutnya!
Most of everyone that attended also discussed on the problem in getting the approval to do research by EPU and what should we expect when applying to them. Hmmm…ngerinya! Semoga aku dapat menghadapinya sebaik mungkin…Insya Allah.
The Non Depressed Version of Literature Reviewing
I ended the week going to my two usual weekly seminar. All this classes, seminar & talks are a chance of a lifetime. I probably will never get the same opportunity again…listening to all these Caucasian giving their talks ..ha..ha..ha. But seriously, it don’t really matter who gave the talk, or even if it’s the same topic over and over again but given by a different scholar. You’ll be amazed how much different it can make, with a slightly different perspective at a slightly different time during your candidature.
For instance, yesterday’s topic at the Postgraduate Seminar is about “How to Write a Literature Review?” by Dr. Howard Nicholas. It was very insightful. I personally think that of all the talks I have attended on literature review, this one enlighten me the most. I have attached herewith the slides of the talk. Click on it, to see a zoom version. I had actually recorded the talk, but due to copyright and size issues, I don’t think I am able to post it online. If anyone is interested to hear Dr Howard’s talk, please email me & tell me how do I past it around personally. The size is just too big to go through email.
For instance, yesterday’s topic at the Postgraduate Seminar is about “How to Write a Literature Review?” by Dr. Howard Nicholas. It was very insightful. I personally think that of all the talks I have attended on literature review, this one enlighten me the most. I have attached herewith the slides of the talk. Click on it, to see a zoom version. I had actually recorded the talk, but due to copyright and size issues, I don’t think I am able to post it online. If anyone is interested to hear Dr Howard’s talk, please email me & tell me how do I past it around personally. The size is just too big to go through email.
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Inputs
Last evening, I spent almost half my day in talks & discussions.
The first one was a talk given by Professor Ron Adams on 'Managing your supervision'. I'm sure everybody has been to a version of one [hopefully;-)], so I won't repeat all the obvious advice.
An important point from his talk I got was PhD is just another project, albeit a long one, (and the fact you are own your own makes it even longer & tedious, of course). So as any other project you have to learn to manage it. And that includes your supervisor!
Another is this:
The first one was a talk given by Professor Ron Adams on 'Managing your supervision'. I'm sure everybody has been to a version of one [hopefully;-)], so I won't repeat all the obvious advice.
An important point from his talk I got was PhD is just another project, albeit a long one, (and the fact you are own your own makes it even longer & tedious, of course). So as any other project you have to learn to manage it. And that includes your supervisor!
Another is this:
Knowledge
Duration
The diagram represents your knowledge against your supervisor as time passes by throughout the Phd. The Red line representing your supervisor, and the blue line the student.
According to Ron, there will a point in time down the line that you will have a better overview of your topic than your supervisor. This is where it gets tricky to handle your supervisor(s) & their 'ego'. So you'll have to be prepared for that time and handle your supervisor 'delicately'. There's a whole lot of PR control in PhD actually, but you must be honest too, but not that 'honest' so as to declare you did nothing much toward your Phd last few days, weeks or months. That would be rather suicidal..he..he..he.
The next was a discussion on 'Writing at the Doctoral Level' at the Law Department by Dr Robyn Thomas. Again one of the points Robyn highlighted & I kept hearing over & over again, even by Prof Ron, was you have to start writing, NOW!
Robyn also simplified a Phd thesis as a 'point of view', put in a persuasive argument. So if I keep track of what is my overall point of view, I'll get this Phd done in time for my fourth child...he..he..he.
Library Training 2009
I continued my library training today. I missed the one from last year because I arrived one month after the semester commenced.
Some might argue what's the point, you can always learn to find things at the library on your own...Well, I beg to differ though. There's so much more to learn from the workshops. In fact today I learnt several new things that I didn't know existed (after 7 months here) in the library homepage.
The Borchardt Library's collection is marvellous actually. Even if it's not in their collection, at a few click of some tabs in the library website, you can have any books throughout Australia delivered to you (at the library). The range of databases oo la..la.. are unlimited. You only need one Id & password, that is your student identification number and you can access all sorts of databases all over the world. The library's collection and services are a far cry from what I'm used to back home....beyond comparison indeed.
Hmmm....I wonder if I can retain my priviliges once I graduated.
A Search with Index
I finally get to meet with Dennis Warren our Law Librarian again, after several days of being in 'limbo'. The need to backtrack all my articles searches have left me wondering whether I should include a review methodology section at all.
But since I have already started it, so I might as well learn from it and try to make the searches be as systematic, explicit, comprehensive and reproducible as possible.
All this while I have been using either Google Scholar or HEIN. Dennis is not too keen on both of them, simply because one is merely a search engine and another is a database that do not have an index.
So it looks like I have to start over, using databases that have appropriate indexing so that I would not be wasting time being bogged down with hundreds of materials that is basically irrelevant to what I'm doing.
Maybe all this while I have been avoiding Indexes because they look kinda boring in appearance. But with the right technique, they save you a lot of time, actually. That's one lesson I learn in this Phd journey, perhaps the long way...;-)
Illusion of Time
When you thought, you have all the time in the world, do you perform better? Or you have this illusion that there'll always be tomorrow...
I thought that I have no such illusion, but deep down that's just what's happening, hence the lack of momentum. Worst, quality writing takes time, sometimes it comes in an instant, sometimes it takes days. You need to understand what you're reading, put them in context of your research and tries to design them in the most accurate, scholarly words possible, avoiding plagiarism along the way. It is painstakingly exhausting. Plus of course, when there's a whole lot of other things you'd rather do, than reading, thinking and wrting!
Writing the theses, requires a balance of quotations, paraphrases and summaries with my own fresh 'visions'. It's not suppose to be a mere repeatation of the idea of others that I stich together with a few sentence of my own.
I think, I work faster when there's more things to do, from several perspectives, that is. Phd and Phd and Phd are just one perspective. Anyway, my supervisor relayed that whatever the task is, you must always multiply the time by 3. That way, you'll know that there's no such thing as 'there's always be tomorrow'.
I thought that I have no such illusion, but deep down that's just what's happening, hence the lack of momentum. Worst, quality writing takes time, sometimes it comes in an instant, sometimes it takes days. You need to understand what you're reading, put them in context of your research and tries to design them in the most accurate, scholarly words possible, avoiding plagiarism along the way. It is painstakingly exhausting. Plus of course, when there's a whole lot of other things you'd rather do, than reading, thinking and wrting!
Writing the theses, requires a balance of quotations, paraphrases and summaries with my own fresh 'visions'. It's not suppose to be a mere repeatation of the idea of others that I stich together with a few sentence of my own.
I think, I work faster when there's more things to do, from several perspectives, that is. Phd and Phd and Phd are just one perspective. Anyway, my supervisor relayed that whatever the task is, you must always multiply the time by 3. That way, you'll know that there's no such thing as 'there's always be tomorrow'.
Note Writing vs Typing In
There's just so many ways of doing Phd theses out there. Some would do their data collection, then start writing, some start writing right from the start, some would write a bit then collect data and continue on writing.
My style would be the third one. At least that was how I design my research. So now is the phase where I must write...write...and write. Well, that's easy said than done, actually. Do you know how many hours you must spent to write a solid paragraph or two? Give the claim a reason, evidence and when necessary a warrant. On top of that, I have over 2oo++ references in my Bibliography, and I have to meddle through all of them to find the evidence to my claim, so that my reason for making such claim would sound plausible. No wonder procrastination is a favourite past time of PhD Candidates.
Anyway, I've discovered that I can no longer do note taking everytime I read an article. I think note taking for the first few months when you are still contemplating your research topic would be a good practice. It keeps a chronological overview of what you are trying to do. But once you have pass that phase, discard the note book and start typing in whatever points that is relevant from the articles you read.
Design a mechanism of where you type them in, perhaps based on themes, the table of contents, the outlines and so on. It saves you a lot of time and headache later on. If you don't know how to paraphrase them yet, then just type in a direct quote and identify them as such clearly. You can always come back to edit them later. It also gives you a motivational boost, seeing how you work is being assembled systematically in front of your eyes instead of seeing a pile of articles on your workstation that has nowhere to go...yet!.
Other than that I think, we'll just have to pray that Allah gives us Ilham and makes us Istiqamah in this PhD journey and life in general.;-)
Literature Review
How do you actually do a literature review?
I think it's not so much about the review that gives me the headache, but arranging where and how I put them in writing in the chapter and linking them together. And knowing myself, I can't write anything, until I can see the frame of the chapter, the logic of them all, the flow, the overall picture. So I spend lots of time developing a signpost for every chapter so far. I am no expert nor highly philosphical, so pretending I am one and writing like one is out of the question. The least I can do thus, is to put everything in order (at the very least try to), before a proper review is done.
There are lots of advices out there, but at the end of the day, it all depends on what you are researching. Some goes by chronological order, some categories, some themes and some like me who must go on a combination of all three. Tell me about going crazy...and the thing is, this would only be the first draft. I will keep seeing this chapter over & over again throughout 2 more years...talk about wanting to throw up! :-(
EndNote X2
After five months, and when it seems that my endnoting activities could not cope with my "article-printing" activities (but not actually manage to read everything, yet), I finally resort to EndNote X2. The previous version X, was rather 90s in its appearance. It's rather stable, except for its Cite While You Write (CWYW) feature. X2 looks refreshing and it has better features which makes managing my references easier than X.
Nevertheless, one of the problem with me using EndNote is, its inability to use footnotes/notes in almost all its styles output. In law research and writing, footnoting is almost a must. Luckily, Australia has already developed its own legal citation guide (AGLC) and style output to be used with the Endnote software. But you need to rig it yourself (with some basic instructions) to make it work.
I have been looking into it for the past week, and it seems that it's working and I think I am getting the hang of it. However, in order to speed the software up, I deleted almost all the syles output in the styles folder, except for the ones I think I'm going to use. Furthermore Latrobe Uni provided their students with a free CD of the program for personal use, so I can easily reinstall any of these styles in the future. Once, that's done, it runs much faster with Word. Imagine, there's thousands of styles in the program, no wonder it's so slow.
Anyway, the rule is never to totally rely on the program, it has its flaws. Sometimes the flaws comes from you in entering the data. Another important rule, is always to back it up, in 3 DIFFERENT places (your C drives is not counted as a different place) in both the ens. file and the rtf.file. Print the list of bibliography everyday after you updated it.
Nevertheless, one of the problem with me using EndNote is, its inability to use footnotes/notes in almost all its styles output. In law research and writing, footnoting is almost a must. Luckily, Australia has already developed its own legal citation guide (AGLC) and style output to be used with the Endnote software. But you need to rig it yourself (with some basic instructions) to make it work.
I have been looking into it for the past week, and it seems that it's working and I think I am getting the hang of it. However, in order to speed the software up, I deleted almost all the syles output in the styles folder, except for the ones I think I'm going to use. Furthermore Latrobe Uni provided their students with a free CD of the program for personal use, so I can easily reinstall any of these styles in the future. Once, that's done, it runs much faster with Word. Imagine, there's thousands of styles in the program, no wonder it's so slow.
Anyway, the rule is never to totally rely on the program, it has its flaws. Sometimes the flaws comes from you in entering the data. Another important rule, is always to back it up, in 3 DIFFERENT places (your C drives is not counted as a different place) in both the ens. file and the rtf.file. Print the list of bibliography everyday after you updated it.
POST MORTEM - WEEK 2 (7 Secrets)
Week 2 just confirmed week 1's activities. Lucky me, Monday evening, I was saved by a Seminar - 7 Secrets of Highly Successful PhD Students by Hugh Kearns & Maria Gardiner. I think most postgrad students would have heard of this course.
Hugh giving some explanation.
So I tried changing my routine Tuesday morning, instead of going straight to the office, I went somewhere else to do some reading & logging down my thoughts for the first 2 hours , then head to my office. Guess what, got lots of things written down. A whole lot might be crap, but at least it's a visible crap to look at and improve on later on.
2 hours working rule
Hugh giving some explanation.So I tried changing my routine Tuesday morning, instead of going straight to the office, I went somewhere else to do some reading & logging down my thoughts for the first 2 hours , then head to my office. Guess what, got lots of things written down. A whole lot might be crap, but at least it's a visible crap to look at and improve on later on.
Some very important tips from the seminar I got were:
2 hours working rule
- When you first start working every day, you have to spend the first 2 hours on work (reading & writing), before you open your EMAILS, or better still before you go ONLINE! In other words, DO NOT EVER..EVER..EVER go ONLINE before the first 2 hours of quality work is done.
- In order to sustain that 2 hours, you need perhaps to follow that (10+2)*5 technique or the 30 minutes Unschedule technique or any other technique that suits you, so you have proper breaks & all. But you must not take too long a break, 5-10 minutes would suffice. Please factor in that break time in your 2 hours too.
Writing Log
- Have a writing or thought log besides your workstation at all time. Jot down everything related to your research, because you might not remember them in the future. You can always polish those ideas later on.
Meeting Tips
- Meetings with supervisors must be regular and have a specific agenda or else you'll ended up chatting and lost the original reason for the meeting.
- Email them your understanding & reflection of the outcome of the meeting, because they might not have the same idea as to what's the conclusion of the meeting. This avoids future misunderstanding & miscommunications.
Feedback
- Ask for specific ones from your supervisors, not a general question of "What do you think about it?" "Is it any good?" Be specific if you wanted an anwer of more that a tick or "It's fine" or "It's RUBBISH!".
5 Things You Learn As A Postgraduate Student
Karen Hall a Graduate Education Officer from UWA, in Perth stated in her research workshop for graduate students that she had never expected to learn these 5 things as a postgrad.
Well, as a postgrad student myself, I couldn't agree more with her that:
Well, as a postgrad student myself, I couldn't agree more with her that:
- Being pragmatic about what you need to know & planning on how to find it out is more important than knowing everything
- Supervisors are not psychic - and this could be both a Good & Bad thing for you
- Warnings about taking breaks from staring at the computer screen & stretching do actually apply to you too
- Procrastination can take you to very & various strange places
- Finishing is as scary & daunting as not finishing
POST MORTEM - WEEK 1
Well, finally week 1 is over. The UNSCHEDULE timetable proof what I feared most... I don't spent enough time on work. It other words, lebih banyak 'melengung' drpd buat kerja! I know that, even before I started this program, but to see the total number (or lack) of hours being splattered on the schedule, is rather disconcerting. It makes you want to work more. So that's the point of the program. I'll see how it goes this week, then.
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