Journal for Journals

Posted on by

Yesterday we had a session about networking and using library research tools to accomplish the task of researching. With the plethora of tools and resources available, it’s challenging to know where to start. From this session, we received a one page guide which hardly sums up the multitude of materials to be found through the library. The key is knowing where to go is recognizing that the one resource to tap into is the library staff – those individuals who have specialized training in just what needs to be done and where those elusive references may be found. Getting to know them by name, reach out for an opportunity to sit and search together, and ask them for help – their skills will be an invaluable first entry into my “explore & search” journal.

The one tip that was mentioned but not stressed was the need to keep a journal of the research strategies and techniques you’ve used, key words used, databases searched and resources found. This way you can either duplicate the search to refine, re-find, or avoid repeating previous searches. So I’ll need to set up another category here in this blog (now set up as ‘explore & search) to reflect the journal of all journals, the search journal.

Not to be confused with the research journal, which has a different purpose. Not to be mistaken with the reading or reflection journals which have complementary but dissimilar intentions. This search journal will strictly focus on the art and act of looking, seeking, finding, recording and archiving materials and resources for the purpose of a research project. This will become a rich repository of information, curated over time, and focused on topics of interest. But it can also capture the ‘rabbit hole’ dives and wondering wanderings of an elusive thread that potentially, but often does not, lead to new and illuminating texts.

I’m quite content now, knowing that I can wrap all these journals into one place and space, using tags and categories to structure these journals. This is my journal of journals, which will become my dog-eared archive of this PhD process. As Lather (2006) suggests, this will become, not a “Deleuzean landscape of ‘a thousand tiny paradigms'” (p. 52), but rather a convoluted PhD landscape of a thousand journal entries in this, my journal of journals.

Reference

Lather, P. (2006). Paradigm proliferation as a good thing to think with: Teaching research in education as a wild profusion. International journal of qualitative studies in education, 19(1), 35-57.