Daily Organizing and Living
Everyone dumps on distance learning. But sometimes I need a refresher, maybe not the whole course, put just a part. And if I could get it online in video form so I don’t have to read an article that would be great. Espically for math. Thank goodness for Khan Academy, it is like Christmas for me year round.
Several years ago, I wrote to Merriam Webster about the need for an audio pronouncation tool. Why, becuase those prounication keys that are provided don’t do much good for me. Now, most online dictionaries have such a tool. I am not suggest that I helped create this change, far from it, but I certainly was one of the many who reaped the benefit from this tool. Today, I ran across another picece of technology that will change a view simple by sometimes diffcult aspect of my life. How to pronouce an person’s name. Yes, the website http://howtosaythatname.com/ claims to be able to perform such a function. To understand how important this tool will be, let me provide a few examples of the names that I encounter within my research efforts: Gobell, Awh, and Bouma. Now, hopefully, I can converse with my advisors without having to spell the researchers name.
A plan of action is what I need when I write. I sit down I stare at the blank screen and I think. I think, what the heck should I write. I typically place a great deal of emphasis on that first sentence of the paper. It is the kick-off for the reader, the welcome mat that welcomes them to the paper. But once they have entered, I am not sure I have a great layout for where they should go. In part because I don’t have a typically layout or focus that I use. Rather, as try and determine the central premise of the paper and argue from there rather than using a simply story layout. In our research writing class we recently described the layout structure for a social science paper. Those comments will be combined with the ideas that Paul Siliva presented in his book, “How to Write a Lot”. Both of these I hope to use in the future when consider my story format for the reader.
Introduction (2 to 3 pages - an overview of the problem)
- Overview: lay down the framework for the article.
- Purpose / Rationale: describe what motivated the study.
- Significance: Justify the existence of the article.
Theoretical Framework / Literature Review / Research Purpose (5 to 6 pages - review of the necessary theories and findings; and how your research will address the problem)
- Use subheadings (if necessary) to describe relevant theories, review past research, and discuss in more detail the question that motivated the study.
- Describe your experiments and how they answer your research question.
Research Design / Methodology (3 pages)
-Use subheadings such as Participants, Design, Apparatus, Measure, and Procedure
Findings / Data / Results
- themes about research questions
- report only the results that bear on your problem. Good results sections should tell a story.
- First, a result section that highlights the integrity of your results.
- Second, describe results in a logical sequence.
- Lastly, avoid clutter by using figures and tables.
Discussion
- Summarize the study’s findings and discuss how the paper informs the central question.
Conclusions / Implications
- consider the practical and theoretical implications of your results.
I do not typically listen to CSPAN radio. However, since NPR was having it’s annual membership drive (constant request for money rather than news) I found myself listening to Sprint CEO Dan Hesse talk about the wireless community at the National Press Club. While listening I picked up a couple of interesting tidbits that were related to the types of findings that human factors research often stress. First, he noted that the number one product return last year from Christmas purchases were smartphones. The number one reason given for these returns were that they were to complex. People didn’t have the time or energy to figure out how to use these devices. Hesse then briefly discussed two different actions that were taking to address the high number of returns for these devices. First, before customers left the store with their new device, Sprint employees taught users how to use the device. Sounds like training design improvement to me. Next, Hesse indicated that they worked with cell phone makers to redesign the phone to be usable. He had a specific phrase for this re-design but I can not find it on the Sprint website, and I can’t recall it now. If you are interested you can listen to the presentation at CSPAN. Now if they would only publicize these action on their website so that others knew what they were doing.