Monday, July 14, 2014

a dissertation (& health) update

this is likely the longest i've gone without updating this blog, but i've got quite a bit of updates, which i will lay out (for now) in bullets.
  • in late spring, i got all my data completely transcribed.  since i was taking notes (in a prezi) throughout my transcription process, i used those notes to develop a pretty exciting outline for my dissertation.
  • i may have mentioned in an earlier post that my dissertation research focuses on how academic support staff experience the workplace, specifically looking at how they write at work and how they experience power in the workplace.  i ended up having a lot of notes about different aspects of writing in the academic workplace, as well as lots of notes on how people experience/construct workplace identity and experience power, and then, lots of notes on how people experience/participate in/construct the workplace as an organization.  and i used these as the big ideas to outline my "data chapters."
  • i had a plan to have large chunks of my dissertation written this summer, and i have pretty well-formed outlines of my first three chapters.  one is a short introduction chapter, which begins with a story from my data collection experiences.  the story kind of highlights how support staff experience academia as an institution, how delicate the nature of studying one's workplace is, and also, the importance of listening to and creating space for the telling and retelling of workplace stories.  and these three ideas kind of build the strains for the next couple chapters, which are (1) a chapter on foundational ideas/frames and (2) methodological choices and research methods.  so, each of those chapters have lots of well-developed outlines/notes/etc.
  • i began analyzing my transcripts in early summer, but have yet to get through the mountains and mountains of them, but it is incredibly interesting to go back through them and re-read.  it's also interesting, having reviewed literature on organizations and on narrative/storying/remembering, to reread the transcripts through those lenses.
finally, i should say that while i had this exciting plan to finish writing my dissertation in the fall and defend it in the winter, my health has been really poor in the past month and after talking with my family, doctor, advisor, and lois, GSE's assistant dean of student affairs, i've decided to take a leave of absence from school for the rest of the year until i can really manage my health and get it under control.  i was incredibly sad to make this decision because i'm really loving my dissertation work and i was excited to sort of finish this piece of my journey, but i know that this is the right thing to do for my health.  that said, i'm hoping to keep updating this blog as i continue to think on my work.

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