Week 7 Writing and Revising

Reposted from Lost in the Maze of Languages

Wrapping up Week 7

This is a long overdue posting. I have decided to focus on writing and revising my paper rather than logging my progress on the blog daily. So now I’m writing this one because I have made major progress in the two sections of my paper: Results and LITERATURE REVIEW!!! I can’t help screaming for joy (on the screen with all caps and the exclamation marks) because as I have said many many times already, I just am not good at literature review.

I have read a couple of books that would help my literature review skills but the one that helped the most was no doubt Foss & Walters’s Destination Dissertation: A Traveler’s Guide to a Done Dissertation. I referred to their literature review chapter for the lit review of my paper. The whole book is absolutely awesome (although I haven’t finished reading the whole book) but the lit review chapter is unbelievably helpful! I have read a book that solely focuses on doing literature review but I think Foss & Walter’s lit review chapter is a lot more doable and novice-proof. The contracted version of this chapter can be found in one of my favorite academic blogs Get a Life, PhD. If you are struggling with literature review, I strongly recommend you using Foss & Walter’s approach.

Anyhow, I was able to finish pretty much the most important section of my paper (i.e., Results) and the most daunting part of my paper (i.e., Literature Review). Introduction and Discussion have their own challenges of course, and I’m by no means good at writing either one, but still wrapping up the Results and Literature Review made me feel that I figured this out. With these, I think the first draft will come out anytime soon. So excited!