Making as a Means of Processing and Reflecting

...or, my return to working with yarn in the name of research.

This week, I needed to knit something. It didn't matter what it was, though with a toddler I knew it needed to be easy and interruptible. I decided on a chunky scarf in garter stitch, using mondo needles so it would be fast, productive work. I was feeling productive -- feeling as though I simply had to make something with my hands. So I started this project.

I am also immersed in reading for a research project I am working on about the field of library and information science (LIS), and more specifically, the positioning of information literacy within it. This research will hopefully turn into a journal article soon after the new year.

On my second day of working on the scarf, it occurred to me that it might be very productive to alternate reading sections of challenging LIS theoretical scholarly literature, with knitting several rows of my scarf. The goal would be to use the knitting time to process and reflect upon the reading I just did, and then return to the reading refreshed and ready to tackle the next set of ideas.

And so, I tried it... and my goodness, talk about the perfect marriage of two activities. I don't want to say too much about it yet -- I'm not yet in a position to try to figure out why doing these two things together is so successful for me. I need to do it more. And so, I shall.

"LIS, Method, and Postmodern Science" by Ron Day in Journal of Education and
Information Science Education 37.4 (1996): 317-324, and a chunky garter stitched scarf. 

I plan to link up with Yarn Along at Small Things for as long as I am using knitting as a means of processing and reflecting upon the reading I am doing for my research.

So, this week's knitting project: the beginnings of a chunky garter stitched scarf.

And this week's reading: an article titled "LIS, Method, and Postmodern Science" by Ron Day. To give a taste of the brain-twisting challenge this article and others like it pose in terms of reading, processing, and understanding, here's a representative snippet:

As a form of knowledge, LIS too must reflectively examine its own historical construction and its methodological procedures in terms of the information flows around and through it. But since information is both the object of study in LIS and is central to the process of postmodern science, the questioning of method in LIS is not simply a reflective gesture within the profession, but is centrally important for postmodern science as a whole. The relation of LIS to postmodern science is like a Möbius strip: the problem of the object involves the problem of the method. For the postmodern science of information studies, "information" constitutes both its "inside" and its "outside." (p. 321)

I just love this stuff. And knitting makes me love it even more.

AcWriMo 2013 Recap

November ended almost a week ago, and along with it my first AcWriMo experience. At the very beginning of the month, there was this:

#AcWriMo protip: don't try to declare your goals on the mondo Google spreadsheet w/ a toddler nearby. #oops #thankGodforundo #mommaprof
— Donna Witek (@donnarosemary) November 3, 2013

But once I got the hang of navigating the accountability spreadsheet to record my progress, I got nervous about user error resulting in parts of my log being deleted. So, I decided to archive my log here as well, for my own future reference and analysis (#metaliteracy much?). So, here below is my running log of AcWriMo 2013, as well as a declaration of my AcWriMo achievements, and finally a brief reflection on how I thought it went.

GOALS: 1 application for promotion completed and submitted; 1 journal article drafted; 1 article query sent; 1 co-authored book chapter drafted; 1 IRB application revised; 2 metaliteracy blog posts published; 1 masters thesis blog post published; 2 peer evals written and submitted

PLAN: work uninterrupted on at least one goal per work day for 1-2 hours

LOG:

1-Nov: wrote for 5 hours; application for promotion completed and submitted

2-Nov: signed up for AcWriMo and declared goals (including retrospective one from yesterday)

3-Nov: blogged my AcWriMo goals

4-Nov: live tweeted an event related to my research for the journal article; 1 metaliteracy blog post published

5-Nov: no progress on goals -- time overrun with meetings, ref desk, and IL appointments

6-Nov: no progress on goals -- time overrun with IL classroom session and IL one-on-one appointments 

7-Nov: 1 masters thesis blog post published; only worked toward goals for 30 minutes today

8-Nov: spent 1 hr 15 mins doing refresher CITI training course -- counting time twds my IRB app revision goal; spent 15 mins drafting AcWriMo recap blog post to archive progress on goals; spent 5 minutes responding to a metaliteracy-related blog comment; read preface to "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" for journal article; printed 7 articles to be used in journal article

9-Nov: read 6 chapters of "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" with highlights and notes for journal article

10-Nov: read 3 chapters of "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" with highlights and notes for journal article

11-Nov: performed lit review of articles re: paradigm shift in libraries for journal article, placed ILL requests and downloaded every article found, both re: paradigm shift in libraries and from BI to IL

12-Nov: no progress toward goals, except downloading articles received via ILL for lit review of journal article -- broke my toe yesterday evening!

13-Nov: spent 30 minutes reading an article for lit review of journal article

14-Nov: no progress on goals -- overrun with IL appointments

15-Nov: no progress on goals -- overrun with IL appointments; did share link to full-text of Master's thesis with Library department colleagues and parish choir director

16-Nov: no progress on goals -- weekend and travel prep (plus recovering from broken toe and cold)

17-Nov: no progress on goals -- weekend and travel prep (plus recovering from broken toe and cold)

18-Nov: began writing one peer evaluation

19-Nov: finished writing and submitted peer evaluation started yesterday

20-Nov: AJCU VR Annual Meeting -- business travel

21-Nov: AJCU VR Annual Meeting -- business travel

22-Nov: AJCU VR Annual Meeting -- business travel

23-Nov: no progress on goals -- weekend

24-Nov: no progress on goals -- weekend

25-Nov: wrote and submitted one peer evaluation

26-Nov: no progress on goals -- early snow closure so I did not go into office

27-Nov: no progress on goals -- took [planned] vacation day for holiday

28-Nov: no progress on goals -- Thanksgiving

29-Nov: no progress on goals -- out of town visiting family

30-Nov: no progress on goals -- out of town visiting family

ACHIEVEMENT: 1 application for promotion completed and submitted; 1 metaliteracy blog post published; 1 masters thesis blog post published; 2 peer evals written and submitted

PROGRESS MADE ON: 1 journal article drafted; 1 article query sent

STILL TO DO: 1 co-authored book chapter drafted; 1 IRB application revised; 1 metaliteracy blog post published  

Upon reflection, I can see where I went "wrong" with conceiving of what goals I may actually be able to achieve during this particular month. Two weeks of the month were cut short -- one for business travel, and one for the Thanksgiving holiday plus a snow closure. I knew from the get go I would not be working toward goals (much) on the weekends, or on days I did not go into the office, what with Bookie and my husband being my top priorities while at home. This meant that there were only so many days during the month I'd be attempting my 1-2 hours of uninterrupted work toward my goals. I also broke my toe in the second week of the month!

In addition, I had a campus service commitment I made a while back, which required a lot of time this month reviewing and scoring grant applications. Finally, I did not anticipate the number of one-on-one information literacy (IL) appointments -- both planned and impromptu -- that would occur in the early weeks of the month. They wound up taking up my one block of 1-2 hours I have each work day to "myself" to do, well, academic writing.

All of that being said, I'm proud of what I did accomplish. I did a lot of footwork on the journal article, even if I didn't send the article query to the journal yet. But I also discovered a different journal that may be a better fit for the piece, so now I may query it in two places -- something I didn't anticipate a month ago, but a welcome development. I also plan to dive back into work on the article within the next week, with plans to prioritize the completion of a full draft in January.

The co-authored book chapter draft originally had a deadline of December 1st, but my research partner Teresa became sick late in the month (#frownie) and negotiated a two-week extension with the editors. She is leading on that project, but even with the extension, this item will be off the list by mid-December.

The IRB application revision fell to the wayside, and may not get prioritized until January. With everything on my plate, that particular data collection project may need to take a back seat for now, and I'm okay with that. I did update my CITI training though, so that's something.

This post will technically be the second metaliteracy blog post listed under "still to do", though I do need to write a proper post containing my final thoughts on the MOOC itself, even though I basically bowed out of it halfway through the semester. I hope to do this before the Christmas holiday.

While I don't have the brain right now to declare formal AcWri goals for December, I did submit a conference proposal yesterday (with Teresa) which I'm super excited about, and now this post is added to my AcWri record for the month, so all in all, I'm feeling good about my first AcWriMo experience and my resulting motivation to remain productive. So, cheers!