Adventures in Dissertating

 I actually got more accomplished today than I expected!  The 6 messy pages I had were really 5 messy pages and 1 "clean" page (meaning perhaps understandable to someone other than myself).  Now I have what I would consider 3 "clean" pages. I spent a lot of time going back to the articles where I had found the quotes and reminding myself of the context of the concepts.  It was a reading/writing back and forth, but it was productive :) 

 

 I am working on my Methodology and Methods chapter.   My primary methodology is narrative inquiry, but narrative (inquiry) is also a theoretical orientation toward studying human experience.  Therefore, before I can get to the "Methods" (Who, When, What, Where of Data Collection), I need to write a short literature review on Narrative Inquiry as a theoretical orientation, methodology and mode of data collection. My goal is to write the "lit review" part of this methodology chapter this week.  I currently have about 6 pages of disconnected text--basically quotes and notes.  Goal for Day 1:    On Day 1  I'd like to "connect" at least 2 pages of this disconnected text. 

 Hello!  My name is Tamar and I am assisting and attending Dissertation Camp 2022 as both a writing consultant and a fellow graduate student/dissertator.  I have been teaching English language courses, college writing, and teacher education courses for the past 20 years.  Over the past 10 years I have also worked in four different writing centers (at 3 universities) as a writing consultant.  I am getting my PhD in the College of Education in Language, Literacy and Culture.  In my dissertation work I am looking at the lived experiences of graduate student writers (that's us!) and exploring these experiences through narrative inquiry.   I live in Iowa City with my husband, Matt, and my daughters Amaya (9) and Simone (7).  We have four cats: Jojo, Starlight, Cinnamon & Spice.   I look forward to writing with you all for the next 2 weeks!!!