Blog while you are reading
I’ve started reading the required material for the upcoming Doctoral Seminar 2 course I’ll be doing in July. This is my way of preparing myself for the intensity and study-focused time I’ll spend on this course. Despite my reluctance and angst over the subject matter, I know I will learn from this work. While quantitative research may not factor into my own dissertation research design, it’s important for me to be able to critically analyze both qualitative and quantitative search with a scholarly voice. As I begin this reading, I’ll be keeping notes and using a hypothesis diagramming template to make sense of the research reports I’ll analyze and synthesize.
The framework comes from Hoy & Adams (2016) p. 76, which I’ve slightly adapted to reframe some of the vocabulary used.
Hypothesis Diagramming Table
| Research Hypothesis | |||
| Independent Variable [presumed cause] | Dependent Variable [presumed effect] | ||
| Name of Variable | |||
| Kind of Variable (continuous or categorical) | |||
| Elaboration of variable | |||
| Specify relationship | |||
| Unit of analysis (object of study) / (participants) | |||
| Research site | |||
| Null hypothesis | |||
| Statistical test of null hypothesis | |||
| Questions, comments, issues, Results Does this study | |||
This, along with the four sentence summary framework I’ve been using since it was introduced in DS1, will make my reading summaries more ‘on-point’ and succinct. I will work on rephrasing rather than quotations, to hone this skill for future literature review writing that I will need to do.
Four Sentence Summary
| Author’s thesis in a “that” clause introduced by a rhetorically accurate verb, e.g., argues, claims, explains. |
| 2. A brief but accurate explanation of how the author develops or supports the thesis, usually in the same order as the main points in the source text. |
| 3. A statement of the author’s purpose or motive (answering the question “Why did the author bother to write this?” or “So what?”), followed by an ‘”in order to” phrase that identifies what the author hopes to achieve, that is, the author’s goal in writing. |
| 4. A description of the methodology (to strengthen the contribution) or a description of the intended audience for the argument or questions that remain or where the author believes we should next put our attention (what should the next round of research attend to?) |
This is my reading work flow for the next several weeks as I move through the course syllabus:
- read all the articles for a particular day or theme
- write the analysis – 4 sentence summary, hypothesis diagram – and save individually along with any evident connections, insights or questions from the articles as they are representative of that topic
- bring into the analysis any additional reading or writing on similar topics
- print; collect in a binder; ready for that day’s work
