Of course I am not literally pregnant, just borrow this metaphor of "writing a thesis is like conceiving a baby", I'd like to keep a dairy on my master thesis.
And of course this is not my first day of writing, in fact, it has been more than 2 months since I have presented my research idea at the colloquium as the very first presenter of the whole group (yes, I am a typical Aries), and I have also wrote 3 proposals and met my supervisor for twice so far. The idea of documenting my process of writing has popped up for quite a while, but it never came to reality due to the lack of progress. Three things that helped me to make up my mind to start this dairy today. First, I just came back from a one-week "vocation" with tons of regrets, I checked my calendar and realized that I should do nothing but writing in the following 3 months if I want to graduate this semester, although I am still waiting for the answer from HD; second, I read an article from a partial acquaintance at 15 Yan (the Chinese version of Medium. Although I also think this is nothing but a tedious copy, everything could make sense on the Chinese Internet...) yesterday, he is doing his doctoral research in international politics at a renowned university in Germany, I had a mixed feeling when I found that I knew this author. This guy is really arrogant, but I have to admit that he has the reason to be arrogant after reading his article. Still, I hate him anyhow; last and most importantly, I read a very good book on academic researches for social science. There are so many handy advices with clear examples and useful information which helped me a lot in writing my 4. proposal, I really hope that I could find this book earlier!!! So here I am with this dairy, I will document all the books, papers, instruments etc. which inspired me along this lonely road. It is an urge and memory for myself, but if any mistake or progress I have made could benefit anyone for saving his time or amusing him in any sense, I would be very glad; if anyone could read my words and like to discuss with me or give me advices, I would be very appreciate. I will write this dairy both in English and Chinese, since my master thesis is about the Chinese audience research and the questionnaire I conduct will be first conceived in English and then translated into Chinese.
----------------------------------------------------- Day 1 ------------------------------------
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1. This super little book is called "Surviving Your Dissertation", a reference book with more than 1000 citations in Google Scholar. It will guide you through the whole process of your academic research.
http://book.douban.com/subject/2903676/
Maybe it is too fundamental for some master students, but for me it is quite helpful. Because in our "Research Design" course, our professor has chosen one book as the main reference, which is written by his colleague and applied very unfashionable concepts like"factor-centric and outcome-centric" instead of the popular definitions like "quantitative, qualitative or inductive, deductive". I really hate that book, because it is in English but written by German, and Germans have this ability to make every language difficult to understand;( So most of my energy in that course was contributed to the fuzzy concepts and obscure usages, such a sad story... Anyway, this book has filled my vacancies of knowledge with reader-friendly language, self-explained charts, handy advices, and many examples. By the way, this book is also a classic
http://book.douban.com/subject/4819469/
I finished reading 4 chapters and made an Excel table for literature reviewing today. Here are some bullet points which are most useful for me:
Differences between mediator and moderator;
How to generate research questions and hypotheses;
Differences between quantitative and qualitative researches;
How to do literature review;
How to write the statement of problem;
Some writing pitfalls. This page is highly recommended, even more handy than "The Elements of Style".
http://people.stern.nyu.edu/wstarbuc/Writing/Fussy.htm
2. Revised my reference list in Zotero and on cards
Build your own databank as soon as possible, Zotero is an outstanding free software that could save a lot of time.
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3. Revised my research questions and hypotheses, but I am still not sure about them ;(
4. Outlined my thesis
5. First draft of my questionnaire. I compared the SurveyMonkey and FluidSurvey and chose the latter. Wish to have some personal user experiences. And PayPal could not work, strange.
6. Started writing this dairy, really hope that I could keep it going till the end.
----------------------------------------------- End of Day 1 -----------------------------------
?當(dāng)然我沒(méi)有真的懷孕辜膝，而是借用那個(gè)常見(jiàn)的把寫(xiě)論文當(dāng)做生孩子的比喻，所以我現(xiàn)在做的只是記錄下我的碩士論文過(guò)程而已。
當(dāng)然今天也不是我寫(xiě)論文的第一天。事實(shí)上，從我作為整個(gè)課程的第一個(gè)在研討課上做了個(gè)囧囧的報(bào)告之后已經(jīng)過(guò)去兩個(gè)多月宾添，而且我也已經(jīng)寫(xiě)了3個(gè)提案，見(jiàn)了兩次導(dǎo)師。關(guān)于記錄我每天的工作過(guò)程的想法由來(lái)已久碧库，但是因?yàn)橐恢睕](méi)什么進(jìn)展也就擱置一邊了。大概有三個(gè)原因吧巧勤，最終促使了我今天開(kāi)始動(dòng)筆嵌灰。一是我剛剛從為期一周的”假期“中回到MA，本來(lái)要爭(zhēng)分奪秒的我在過(guò)去的一周內(nèi)幾乎什么都沒(méi)做颅悉，等回來(lái)看了下日歷我就只能”呵呵“了沽瞭。如果想這個(gè)學(xué)期畢業(yè)，那在可以預(yù)見(jiàn)的三個(gè)月內(nèi)我的生活將除了論文沒(méi)有其他剩瓶；二是昨天偶然在15言（雖然我也同意這是對(duì)Medium赤果果的抄襲驹溃，但是在中國(guó)神奇的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)世界中，什么東西都要有一個(gè)中文版本才合理）上看到了一篇文章延曙，發(fā)現(xiàn)作者竟然是一個(gè)我認(rèn)識(shí)的人豌鹤。此人在一所老牌學(xué)校讀國(guó)際政治，雖然很有才華枝缔，但是為人很傲慢布疙。我們認(rèn)識(shí)的過(guò)程也很有趣，但后來(lái)就相忘于茫茫江湖之中了愿卸；最后也是最重要的一點(diǎn)灵临，就是我讀到了一本對(duì)我很有幫助的人文社科類專業(yè)研究的指導(dǎo)手冊(cè)，實(shí)在是相見(jiàn)恨晚芭枯Ｈ甯取！所以我想用一個(gè)工作日志的方式把我每天讀到的書(shū)发钝、文章顿涣、方法波闹、信息都記錄下來(lái)，對(duì)我自己也是一個(gè)敦促和提醒涛碑，當(dāng)然也方便日后對(duì)資料的整理舔痪。如果能借此機(jī)會(huì)找到一些在相同志趣和目標(biāo)的小伙伴就更棒啦~~為了使自己“保持狀態(tài)”，每天的記錄都會(huì)有中文和英文兩個(gè)版本锌唾。
-------------------------------------第一天-------------------------------------------
1. 那本很棒的指導(dǎo)手冊(cè)名叫“Surviving Your Dissertation”锄码，
http://book.douban.com/subject/4819469/
，谷歌學(xué)術(shù)上有1000+的引用真的不是浪得虛名啊晌涕。它會(huì)手把手從頭教你如何確定選題滋捶，尋找文獻(xiàn)，研究方法余黎，寫(xiě)作技巧重窟，直到出版等等等等【宀疲或許對(duì)于一些碩士研究生有些太基礎(chǔ)了巡扇，畢竟里面的東西都不陌生，可是對(duì)我卻有系統(tǒng)性的幫助垮衷。話說(shuō)當(dāng)年我上“研究方法”課的時(shí)候厅翔，教授選擇了一本相當(dāng)小眾的書(shū)作為主要參考文獻(xiàn)，書(shū)中使用了生僻又難懂的“factor-centric, outcome-centric"等概念而不是其他書(shū)中都用的“定性搀突，定量刀闷，演繹，推理”仰迁。加之這本書(shū)是教授的同事也就是德國(guó)人用英語(yǔ)寫(xiě)成的甸昏，并且德國(guó)人實(shí)在是有一種可以把任何語(yǔ)言使用得及其難懂的天賦，所以這堂課的大部分精力都被我用來(lái)區(qū)分概念和查找生僻詞徐许。施蜜。這是個(gè)遙遠(yuǎn)且悲傷的故事。雌隅。但是直到我看到了這本書(shū)翻默，它用淺顯的語(yǔ)言、易懂的圖標(biāo)澄步、實(shí)用的建議和大量的例子填補(bǔ)了我多年的知識(shí)空缺氨ⅰ和泌！順便村缸，推薦一本同樣的經(jīng)典，
http://book.douban.com/subject/4819469/
武氓，可惜當(dāng)年在課上只讀了兩章就被那本討厭的書(shū)取代了梯皿。仇箱。
今天我讀了前4章，并且按照它的內(nèi)容做了一個(gè)文獻(xiàn)檢索評(píng)估表格东羹，下面是一些要點(diǎn)：
mediator和moderator的區(qū)別
如何產(chǎn)生研究問(wèn)題和提出假設(shè)
定性剂桥、定量的區(qū)別
如何做文獻(xiàn)綜述并且評(píng)價(jià)
一些寫(xiě)作陷阱。這個(gè)網(wǎng)站很棒属提，比E.B.White的那本更容易上手
http://people.stern.nyu.edu/wstarbuc/Writing/Fussy.htm
2. 重新在Zotero和卡片上整理了文獻(xiàn)
在我對(duì)比了幾個(gè)軟件之后权逗，最后選擇的Zotero真是太好用了啊啊
3. 重新寫(xiě)了RQ和假設(shè)，但是我還是不確定
4. 寫(xiě)了文章的大標(biāo)題和框架
5. 做了問(wèn)卷的初稿冤议，在SurveyMonkey和FluidSurvey之間選了后者斟薇，感覺(jué)更容易上手一些，如果能問(wèn)下有經(jīng)驗(yàn)的人使用體驗(yàn)就好了恕酸。還有就是PayPal竟然支付不了堪滨，奇怪
6. 開(kāi)始這邊日記，希望能堅(jiān)持到最后
