Data Collection
Your
first draft of the process essay is coming up, and I want to make sure
everyone is taking an approach to gather some significant personal data
about their own writing process. There are two approaches I suggest for
gathering data. The first approach calls you to do a think-aloud
protocol. This involves recording yourself talk aloud as you write a
different paper. You might do a think-aloud protocol by recording
yourself for twenty minutes as you compose your contest essay. Of course
if you are taking another class and have an essay assigned for that
class, you can do your think-aloud protocol for that other assignment.
Please review Sondra Perl's article (pages 191-214) for a concrete
example of how a think-aloud protocol might work.
After completing your recording, you are expected to transcribe the recording (this means that you listen to the recording and copy everything you say word for word). Your transcription should not be edited at all, so if you accidentally use a curse word in the moment of thinking through your essay, you should include the exact curse word in your transcript.
Your other choice for collecting data for your process essay is to develop and keep a writing log for at least five days. Your task is to log and organize all of the writing you do for a period of five days. From grocery lists to text messages and tweets, you must compile and organize everything you write for the five day period. Additionally, you must develop a method of organization to help you manage this data. One possibility is to use a spread sheet and identify the writing situation according to the rhetorical situations you are writing for. You might create several columns including the following headings to identify purpose, audience, location where writing happened, and so forth.
What's important is that you develop a way to examine your writing practice from a somewhat objective perspective. Obviously, there is no such thing as perfect objectivity, but your protocol or your writing log should give you a different perspective regarding your writing process.
For this posting, you are called to work out the details of how your self-study will work. I want lots of details about how you will undertake this project. If you are doing the think-aloud protocol, you might want to develop a simplified version of Perl's coding system on pages 196-198 of your text. If you are doing a writing log, you should clearly show how your log will be organized.
You grade for this posting is determined by how detailed you are in explaining and showing how your protocol or writing log will work. Simply stating that you will be following closely with Perl's protocol procedure will not cut it.
After completing your recording, you are expected to transcribe the recording (this means that you listen to the recording and copy everything you say word for word). Your transcription should not be edited at all, so if you accidentally use a curse word in the moment of thinking through your essay, you should include the exact curse word in your transcript.
Your other choice for collecting data for your process essay is to develop and keep a writing log for at least five days. Your task is to log and organize all of the writing you do for a period of five days. From grocery lists to text messages and tweets, you must compile and organize everything you write for the five day period. Additionally, you must develop a method of organization to help you manage this data. One possibility is to use a spread sheet and identify the writing situation according to the rhetorical situations you are writing for. You might create several columns including the following headings to identify purpose, audience, location where writing happened, and so forth.
What's important is that you develop a way to examine your writing practice from a somewhat objective perspective. Obviously, there is no such thing as perfect objectivity, but your protocol or your writing log should give you a different perspective regarding your writing process.
For this posting, you are called to work out the details of how your self-study will work. I want lots of details about how you will undertake this project. If you are doing the think-aloud protocol, you might want to develop a simplified version of Perl's coding system on pages 196-198 of your text. If you are doing a writing log, you should clearly show how your log will be organized.
You grade for this posting is determined by how detailed you are in explaining and showing how your protocol or writing log will work. Simply stating that you will be following closely with Perl's protocol procedure will not cut it.
I plan on doing the read aloud. I feel that this will allow me to complete the task in a timely manner without taking longer to analyze it than actually writing a normal paper. I plan on continuing on from the ideas that Sondra brought up, including knowing the differences in planning. I like the idea of having different symbols for each kind of planning, such as the use of the letters [PL]. Originally this was the code for general planning, but it did not include planning the next action and discussing changes in drafts. It purely covered organizing thoughts and choosing how to proceed. In my version [PL] would only stand for all of the planning I did. This is mostly because I don’t tend to do many different types of planning, and you can deduce how my planning goes from that one category. I would keep the [C] for comments. I tend to sigh, complain, and tell everyone how much I don’t want to do the essay. Here’s where things change however, I would combine the [I], [RD], [RQ], and [RS] to [I]. I feel the interpreting point is when one tells what exactly you plan on writing and exactly what it says.....to interpret the prompt/question/or topic of the essay you plan on writing. I would keep the [Q]. This is because i feel questioning is a crucial part of essay writing. When I ask a question about my essay, I'm actually internally correcting and asking myself and those around if this sounds right and/or is the best fit for that part of the essay. I am questioning even if it should be included. I also think it's detrimental to specify when I am writing silently and when I am writing and talking at the same time. I plan to keep the symbols [W] for writing silently and [TW] for talking while writing. I chose to keep these mostly because when I'm talking, I tend to tell the reader exactly what I'm writing. But when I'm silent, I am really thinking about what I'm writing and how it fits with the rest of the essay. I would also like to keep the [E] for editing, but plan on simplifying it to just editing. I tend to not edit until the very end. The only exception I have is when I repeat a sentence to make sure it sounds right and fits into the context appropriately. The last thing I would like to include is the symbol [S] for periods of silence. These are the times when I feel like I am thinking the most, and are important to record. All of these can help bring a new outlook on the way I write and may help me preform better as well.
ReplyDeleteFor my essay, I plan on using a writing log. I will be compiling a log of literally everything I write. This includes the texts, status updates, other class papers, and much more. How I will go about collecting the data is by using a software like Microsoft Excel, and will be using different columns like what the activity is, the rhetorical situation, and many different objectives. The reason I chose the writing log is because I feel that personally a writing log is easier to plan and write out compared to the talk aloud strategy.
ReplyDeleteFor the process essay coming up, I plan to record my data by keeping a writing log. I believe this method for me will allow me to get accurate date, as I can analyze better the results compared to the other method. I plan to have a journal with me everywhere, log each time I write, text or make any kind of lists, and in addition I will document the audience and purpose. After the five days I will sit down and organize my different writing into multiple ways (probably Microsoft Excel), then look at which data clearly shows my writing process (either by audience, purpose, or writing type). I also will make notes in my journal to try to document what I am thinking when I am writing a specific thing. This will most likely be more prominent in my schoolwork writing, since I do not make much effort in text messages. But I will document everything and analyze every aspect.
ReplyDeleteIn order to create an accurate catalog of my writing process, I will be using the think aloud protocol. This will be the most natural and accurate way to gather information about my writing process as it will basically be me writing whatever I’m thinking in my head. The easiest way to record my voice will be through a sound recording program called audacity that will use the microphone inside of my laptop. From there I will listen to my writing process and proceed to write down everything that I say for about 15-20 minutes. I will then break down my writing process and color code it for various stages of the writing process. Red will be for talking and writing (TW), blue for writing silently (WS), green for interpreting (I), gold for assessing (A), orange for questioning (Q), and finally purple for editing (E). I think that this will be the best way to analyze my writing process as it allows for multiple different aspects to be recorded and analyzed.
ReplyDeleteFor my writing process essay, I will be using the think-aloud protocol. I believe think-aloud is better representation of my writing process as it literally states what I am thinking during writing. Whereas I find the writing log just represents what type if writing I partake in not necessarily my writing process. I will record my think-aloud session for 15-20 minutes, on to a mp3 file on my computer. Then I will adjust the mp3 file to play approximately 50% speed so I have enough time to encode it while listening to the recording. I will most likely encode with a simplified version of Perl’s coding system. I can’t use color coordinated with my monochrome printer. I will listen/encode to the recording roughly 2-3 times to make sure encoding is flawless. For script portion I will test out a speech-to-text software on the mp3 file before it was slowed down. Then, I will listen to the recording another time to check the scripts accuracy and make changes as needed. I believe this to be the better method as it will show my writing strategy throughout my writing.
ReplyDeleteFor my writing process essay, I will be using the think-aloud protocol. I believe think-aloud is better representation of my writing process as it literally states what I am thinking during writing. Whereas I find the writing log just represents what type if writing I partake in not necessarily my writing process. I will record my think-aloud session for 15-20 minutes, on to a mp3 file on my computer. Then I will adjust the mp3 file to play approximately 50% speed so I have enough time to encode it while listening to the recording. I will most likely encode with a simplified version of Perl’s coding system. I can’t use color coordinated with my monochrome printer. I will listen/encode to the recording roughly 2-3 times to make sure encoding is flawless. For script portion I will test out a speech-to-text software on the mp3 file before it was slowed down. Then, I will listen to the recording another time to check the scripts accuracy and make changes as needed. I believe this to be the better method as it will show my writing strategy throughout my writing.
ReplyDeleteIn order to develop a good process essay I will use the think aloud protocol. This will be tough considering speaking while I'm writing is not something I do when writing papers. This should help me to understand my overall process of writing. I will use this by recording myself in writing a lab report for twenty minutes or so. After listening to the record and typing it into word to get an overview of my process. I will use a color coding system for assessing my essay. The color codes will be; typing(blue), thinking(red), unrelated tasks(purple), editing(green), and talking(light blue). Using different colors for each process will help me understand things I do well and things that are hindering my writing.
ReplyDeleteFor this assignment, I am choosing to use the think aloud protocol. Even though I have no choice to use this system, I still think it is the more effective of the two. This allows for me to listen to myself as I run through my process, and then recollect and refresh myself with the ideas and actions I was participating in while working through my writing. As for the coding, I am going to be doing what many of my classmates are or might be doing which is color coding. I will use 3 colors, blue for the times I am thinking about what I will be doing, green for the time I am writing and typing, all of my unrelated and unimportant to the writing actions in yellow. I am not including editing and revising because I do that while I write and directly after, so I consider it part of the green section. since I don't have an actual paper to write, I will be doing this while I am creating my website for my Technology for educators class.
ReplyDeleteAlthough both methods of collecting data appeal to me, I decided to partake in the Think Aloud Protocol. Generally the writing log would be more suitable for me because I'm used to keeping journals but I text and tweet WAY too much for me to record it all. That would be a 20 page writing log coming your way.
ReplyDeleteI plan on using my Think Aloud Protocol on my final draft of my Essay Contest. Because the essay contest is in the form of poetry and something dear to me, I know I'll most likely be talking to myself while I write. I'll include every biting of my nail and yawn into my coding. In order to take record of my coding, I will use my voice recording app on phone to record all of my talking and behavior. I get distracted very often so I'll definitely include all those mishaps. I'm hoping by doing this, it'll allow me to realize what I need to work on as a writer and how I can get better at staying deep into the zone and channel all of my energy into my pieces. I will use the same coding as Perl did in her protocol.
For this assignment I will choose to do the think aloud protocol. I chose this method over the writing log simply because I don't have enough days to complete the writing log efficiently.
ReplyDeleteI plan on using my writing method on a report that I am writing for my computational business class. To conduct this protocol I will be using my iPhone voice recorder which has the capabilities of being paused and rewound in case I missed anything. I will use a color coated system to divide my process into sections. Red will be for the sections that actually pertain to the subject will be talking about. Yellow will be used on non-fluencies as well as silences that happen throughout my process. Blue will be used for useless pieces of information that have nothing to do with the subject I am supposed to be writing about
I chose to do the read aloud using my literacy narrative rewrite. My coding will not be as complex as Perl’s. It will include 5 separate letter codes. P for planning; W for writing; R for reading; E for editing; U for unrelated. I will not be color coding. Planning would include all organization of thoughts and new ideas for the rewrite (i.e. themes, wording, and examples). Writing includes all actual writing in the paper. Reading is pre-reading the paper, proofreading it, looking at possible sources, etc. Editing includes all modifications or rephrasing on the paper. Since this is a rewrite, only changes in the new information will be considered editing. I am distracted very easily so unrelated behavior will be a frequent code. This includes all behavior or thoughts of anything not directly related to the paper (i.e. thoughts of TV, food, sports, girls, etc.). I believe this system addresses each part of my composing process and will effectively analyze my process.
ReplyDeleteFor my process paper, I intend to use the coding system that is similar to the one used by Perl but with my own spin.
ReplyDeleteHere is my codes "Key":
P- Planning
W- Writing
R- Revise
OT- Off Topic
N- Noise
Yellow- Things I feel are of little importance to the paper writing.
Orange- Things I feel have some significance to the paper writing.
Red- Things I feel are very important to the paper writing.
I intend on coding EVERYTHING (I took video and audio so that includes gestures), as well as make some form of a chart to evaluate mathematically the percentage that I do certain things.
In the process essay, I plan on using a writing log over the next week in order to keep my texts organized. As of right now the way I will be recording data, is by logging in my phone every time I write at that point in time. I chose to do this electronically because, like many other people my age, I almost always have my phone on my person. At the end of each day I will transfer this data into a more organized notebook so I can later analyze my writing in greater detail. I have not chosen exactly how this data will be presented, but I am thinking something along the lines of a graph containing every day in the week showing how often and when I am most likely to write.
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ReplyDeleteFor this assignment, I am choosing to use the writing log because first, I don't have a good recording device and secondly, when I think I tend to think in a different language, therefore it would not be accurate to put down things in Vietnamese and have to translate it.
ReplyDeleteThe writing log for me reflects my writing ability better, because I tend to have a lot to write throughout the day from social activities to school assignments, I think it would be a very good challenge to spend time on enhancing my writing process, and analyze how I can get better at writing. I have been compiling everything I write throughout five days into a diary, and especially I usually tweet and facebook so every little things should be noted, and even it is a personal tweet on tweeter. The length of the writing log is determined on how much I had to write a day and I think the way I write it will give me enough time to prepare for the actual writing of the process essay.