Long Posts
I Robot, You Jane
True story, the “I Robot, You Jane” episode of Things of Bronze is the episode I’m most excited about recording. That episode of Buffy captures so perfectly what it was like to be a teen computer girl in the late 90s.
Your Website
Hey friend! Do you have a website and/or blog? I want to visit it! Tell me about it, please.
Instant Pot
Bought an Instant Pot at the urging of fellow co-working parents and I don’t know how long it’s been since I was this excited about a purchase.
It's my birthday.
I’m 37 today. It’s a number that sounds grown up. I think I felt more grown up at 27, though.
Maybe I’m Benjamin Buttoning. (Making that reference dates me. The fact that I’m pretty sure I’m repeating a joke I think I’ve already made on this blog and don’t care is also proof of my age.)
It only just occurred to me that reverse Benjamin Buttoning is just normal aging.
I have neither read nor seen The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
I find myself craving inspiration in the form of people sharing their stories with humility. I’m over gurus and authorities.
I long for stories of vulnerability and authenticity.
I miss distant friends.
Yesterday I found out that my thyroid is out of whack again. I’m trying to remember everything I learned before, not just about how to heal, but also how to cope.
I feel despair often, but then there’s this:
My kid is giggling in the tub right now and there’s no better sound in the world.
A good night
Tonight I went to Goth night at a Tarot-themed bar/lounge. I ate delicious Indian food from the restaurant next door. I got a spot-on, meaningful Tarot reading, for only $5. I had a strong drink. I danced to dark alternative music with my dreamy spouse and lovely sister while my friend spun records. For a brief time, I let my stress fall away and felt like a well person living in the world.
It was beautiful and I hope to do it again.
I've forgotten how to feel better.
Most of my adult life has been impacted by chronic illness. I’ve got two: Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and polycystic ovary syndrome. (I also have depression and anxiety, but they seem to be symptoms of those two physical illnesses, because when those are well-managed, the mental illnesses are barely noticeable.) I spent many years learning to manage them, and they were fairly well-managed before I got pregnant and for the first two trimesters of my pregnancy. Most importantly, I developed several strategies to use when I feel like absolute garbage.
I can’t remember any of them.
Breastfeeding is a funny thing; it basically takes whatever you knew about your hormones - whether they were affected by PCOS or not - and makes all of that invalid. Now your estrogen is suppressed, you’re producing prolactin, and when it comes to menstruation, all bets are off. So you might, for example, find yourself having your period for 4 or 5 weeks in a row, then not for a week, then again for several more days.
Which might, purely hypothetically speaking, leave you feeling fatigued, lightheaded, and with a sensation of pins-and-needles in your feet.
Perhaps from anemia.
I have, in fact, found myself in this situation, and I have seen my doctor, and she has assured me that yes, this is probably related to breastfeeding, and we’re doing blood tests to figure out next steps in fixing my symptoms, even if the menstrual wonkiness persists. So I’m doing what I can, medically.
But let’s say she puts me on an iron supplement tomorrow. (Likely.)
It’s still going to take some time to feel better. And I don’t know what to do in the meantime, because I can’t just retreat from life.
How old is my kid even?
I’ve been saying my kid is 22 months old for a few days but I’m just now realizing he’s only 21 months old. This is going to be so much easier when I can just say, “Two.” Right now, “One” doesn’t seem to give him enough credit for all the growing he’s done in the past 9 months.
Headcanon
At age 22 months, M. is generating Curious George/Pigeon crossovers, so yeah, definitely my kid.
What Kimberly Wrote, Through 7/9/18
My makerspaces lit review is now at just over 15 pages. It’s mostly cutting and pasting from synthetic notes rather than new writing. That feels a little like cheating but it also feels really nice to know that all the writing I’ve done since January is actually useful. There are lots of wacky little comments to myself like “Do a better job paraphrasing instead of quoting here,” and a few places that need to be better synthesized or fleshed out. Goal 1 is just to get it done. Goal 2 is to go back and make it better.
Now: July 2018
Here’s a complete list of everything I’ve got going on right now. And by “going on,” I mean a level of intensity ranging from “thinking about maybe doing it” to “seriously working on it.” (Categories come from the Integrative Nutrition Circle of Life exercise.)
Spirituality
- Lindsay Mack's Tarot for the Wild Soul July Tarot challenge
Creativity
- Things of Bronze podcast
- Blogging
- Indiewebifying kimberlyhirsh.com
Finances
- Reducing grocery spending via using my Soda Stream, freezing leftovers, and eating out of the pantry/fridge/freezer
Career
- Writing culture online curriculum module for Project READY.
- Reading the archives of YALSA’s The Hub ya lit blog and trying the books mentioned there
Education
- Working on the Makerspaces section of my comprehensive literature review
- Developing workflows that will allow me to chip away at the other sections while im still writing this one.
Health
- Visiting my doctor for my quarterly follow-up
- Focusing on hydration
Home Cooking
- Cooking meals from the PCOS Diva Summer Meal Plan
Physical Activity
- Swimming with the Total Immersion Effortless Endurance self-coaching course
Home Environment
- Putting together a list of tasks for the handyman
- Reading Unf*ck Your Habitat
Relationships
- Celebrating my 9th wedding anniversary
Social Life
- Planning birthday celebrations
Joy
- Watching GLOW
- Playing video games
- Delighting in my kid's ever-improving communication skills
A Start-to-Finish Literature Review Workflow
Remember how I was going to read Chris Guillebeau’s Side Hustle and see if it had any lessons for treating grad school like a side hustle? It does! One of the things Chris recommends is developing workflows for your side hustle. I’ve been tweaking my literature review workflow for a while, but as I write up the current section and start planning the remaining sections, I’m finally feeling like I have a handle on things. Today I’m ready to share it with you, in hopes it will make your own writing go more smoothly.
Before we begin, please note that this process draws significantly on what I learned in Dr. Barbara Wildemuth’s course Research Issues & Questions (aka babydocs) and from Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega’s blog post about preparing for comprehensive qualifying exams.
Let’s get started!
Step 1: Identify a topic.
If you’re writing the literature review for a class, this might be assigned to you. If you are developing a research proposal, then your research question will inform what needs to be in your literature review. You might just be interested in something and want to learn more about it. Regardless of how you arrive at your topic, make it as specific as you possibly can. Here are some examples, based on actual literature reviews I’ve written, of general topics vs. specific topics.
| General | Specific |
|---|---|
| Makerspaces | Makerspaces in school libraries |
| Archives | The role of archives in K-12 education |
| Cataloging | Describing and organizing information for children |
| Leadership | School librarians as leaders |
| Gaming | Tabletop roleplaying game library programs and teen identity development |
| Everyday life information needs | The everyday life information needs of young adults |
| Information retrieval | Designing information retrieval systems for children’s use |
| Scholarly communications | Library professionals as practitioner-scholars |
Step 2: Set up a process for capturing literature once you identify it.
For the first literature review I ever did, back in 1999, I photocopied journal articles and used index cards to write down citations. Now, I much prefer some sort of reference manager with a browser plug-in. I’ve tried RefWorks, Zotero, Mendeley, and am now using Paperpile, which I learned about from John Martin. Find one you like and work it. I loved Zotero for a long time, but the most recent versions kept being finicky for me. Plus, Paperpile was designed to work with Google Docs and that’s where I write now, so it was a more natural choice.
Step 3: Set up reading storage and a reading environment.
You may have to poke around for tutorials on the best way to do this with your reference system. You may just prefer to print everything on paper and take notes that way. I use an Android tablet, Xodo Reader, and the “Starred Papers” feature in Paperpile to put papers in a Google Drive folder, download them for offline reading, and read and mark them up. If you’re using Zotero, definitely investigate Zotfile. However you go about it, you’re looking for a system that will let you easily find, read, and annotate your readings.
Step 4: Identify potential literature.
And we’re finally at the place where most advice on literature reviews begins!
Here are the things I do, learned in the aforementioned Research Issues & Questions class:
- Consult with a trusted colleague (advisor, mentor, disciplinary expert, etc.)
- Search databases. I start with those directly related to my discipline (library and information science), but because I often am working on youth services or school libraries questions, I tend to incorporate education databases as well. Most research databases have a wealth of features that go beyond the simple full-text search box that is the default. I highly recommend meeting with a librarian and learning more about these features. Subject headings, search modifiers that let you exclude unhelpful things, and especially search alerts will make your life much better. Search alerts keep you up to date on the latest literature related to your search terms. A librarian can also help you identify the best search terms to use to begin with. And you can probably learn all this stuff without meeting a librarian face-to-face: your university and public library probably offer some form of online research services via email or chat.
- Search Google Scholar. This will turn up all kinds of stuff you may not have seen in the databases (especially if you're looking at open access journals). But it can also be super overwhelming. Be sure to look on the left side of the search results page and use any filters that seem helpful.
- Follow citations backward. As you find useful readings, look at their reference lists.
- Follow citations forward. My favorite way of doing this is to just type a reading's title in Google Scholar and click the "Cited by" link. But you can also check with a librarian to see if you have access to this feature in ISI Web of Science or Scopus. Those are both very powerful but not especially intuitive, so I would definitely get a librarian's help with them if I were you.
As you find citations using any of these sources, capture them either manually or automatically. Most reference managers have a browser extension that makes this a one-click process. Obviously, if you’re using paper, that’ll be a more manual process. Reference managers will often capture the PDF/full text for you, too. Definitely get a copy of the readings if they don’t.
Step 5: Identify and eliminate stuff that's outside the scope of your literature review.
Sometimes a title will look like a good fit, but then when you dig in to the abstract, you’ll realize it’s actually not relevant to your work at all. Quickly skim the abstracts for all the citations you’ve identified. If it doesn’t fit with your current work, set it aside. I usually keep a subfolder in my reference manager called “Don’t Use” and drop these in there. That way they’re not lost if I change my mind or expand my scope.
This process will help you decide if you’ve got the right scope, too. When I was first working on my literature review, I grabbed everything about makerspaces and learning that I could find. At this stage, I realized I’d never finish if I tried to use all of them, and decided to limit my scope to only those studies that look at making in library settings.
Step 6: Read, highlight, and take notes.
Oh hey we’re here! This part can be really fun or really tedious. I recommend using Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega’s AIC extraction method. Read the abstract, introduction, and conclusion. Look for the context and rationale for the study. Identify the research question. Find what you can about the methods, especially the setting, population of interest, sample size and selection methods, data collection methods, and data analysis methods. Then grab what you can about the findings. Do this quickly. Use highlighters, take notes, whatever works for you. I highlight and add notes directly in PDFs.
Step 7: Write synthetic notes.
Another recommendation of Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega’s methods. Write notes based just on your existing highlights and notes. This might just be one sentence, or it could be multiple paragraphs. It will depend on what you have time for, the depth you need to go into, and how useful the particular reading is. Make a note of whether you want to read the study more deeply later.
Step 8: Add each study to a master list.
I like Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega’s Conceptual Synthesis Excel Dump.
Step 9: Create a concept map, grouping different readings by big themes.
I use bubbl.us, which I learned about from Dr. Summer Pennell, for this. Here’s what the one for my current lit review looks like (click it for full size):
You can also do this same process using index cards or pen and paper if you prefer.
Step 10: Create an outline.
There’s a ton of advice on the internet about this already, I’m sure. It’s worth noting that bubbl.us will actually create an outline for you if you want. I think you’ll still need to generate your own to get you ready for writing, but it can help you if you want a more linear visual once you’re done with your concept map.
Step 11: Write.
Get it out. Identify gaps. Find the places where your notes on a particular study don’t give you enough information, and go back and skim or read the middle of it. Make more detailed notes on that, perhaps writing a memo and then putting some of that in your paper draft. Leave yourself funny little comments like “MORE HERE” and “Not sure if this fits here.”
Step 12: Revise.
Fix the gaps. Add more details. Do whatever your weird idiosyncratic comments tell you remains to be done.
That’s how I do it. I’m really good at literature reviews. I don’t know how many other scholarly endeavors I’m good at, but I’ve got this one down cold, and now maybe you do, too.
Too much/not enough
Isn’t it odd how it’s possible to feel simultaneously that you are too much and not enough?
What Kimberly Wrote, through 06/27/18
I haven’t been keeping track daily like I hoped to, but this chunk of my literature review now has about 6.5 pages written. Also, I’m finding that I can genuinely often just copy my synthetic notes whole cloth into the paper, which is huge.
A Goth in New Orleans, Day 1
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Embrace your cliches.[/caption]
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Our hotel has an amazing view of the river. This does not do it justice.[/caption]
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They’re giving out Magic: the Gathering cards at registration. Yes please![/caption]
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The one thing I HAD to do besides give my poster presentation was go to Cafe Du Monde and get beignets. Done![/caption]
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We rode the St. Charles Streetcar all the way to the end, through the Garden District. We passed one of Anne Rice’s houses.[/caption]
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Canal Street at Sunset[/caption]
I married well.
Just had a very serious conversation with my husband about our future as immortals and what type of vampire I should get to sire me while I’m in New Orleans this weekend, so… I married well, is what I’m saying.
On the eve of falling in love with a new city
I’m going to New Orleans tomorrow for the American Library Association conference and I already know I’m going to love it there.
Toddler Parent Responsibilities
In the interest of helping myself recognize what things I do as the parent of a toddler, I’m making a list. I’m just thinking through a typical day and every task that occurs on that day, plus every task that has to happen to make sure that task can happen. I don’t do all of these things - W. does a lot of them. But somebody has to do them.
Here goes.
- Changing diapers.
- Purchasing diapering supplies: diapers, wipes, diaper cream, diaper pail, trash bags.
- Researching diapering supplies.
- Toilet training.
- Purchasing toilet training supplies: toddler potty/toilet seat.
- Researching toilet training processes.
- Dressing.
- Purchasing clothing and shoes.
- Researching clothing and shoes: sizes, fabric types, cuts. (Ask a toddler parent about snaps vs. no snaps, overalls or no, and you'll see what I mean.)
- Feeding.
- Preparing food.
- Purchasing food.
- Meal planning.
- Researching nutrition.
- Playing at home.
- Purchasing books and toys.
- Researching books and toys.
- Playing out in the world.
- Identifying potential activities.
- Researching potential activities.
- Purchasing supplies for activities: sunscreen, bug spray, specialized clothing.
- Packing supplies for activities.
- Transportation.
- Purchasing transportation supplies: primarily a car seat.
- Researching car seats.
- Entertaining.
- Learning new songs.
- Vetting media.
- Soothing.
- Discipline.
- Researching soothing and discipline methods.
- Bathing.
- Purchasing supplies for bathing: soap, shampoo, toys, brushes, combs, cotton pads, cotton swabs.
- Researching supplies for bathing.
- Getting ready for bed.
- Dental care.
- Purchasing supplies for dental care: toothbrush, toothpaste.
- Researching supplies for dental care.
- Taking to the doctor.
All of these have to happen. And in addition to all of these, there’s usually a decision layer associated with each one: which food to eat, which clothes to wear (based on the weather or activity of the day), whether that fever merits a call to the doctor. There are several tasks that could be grouped, obviously: purchasing and researching different types of supplies happens again and again.
And most of these happen every day.
On radically reduced sleep.
Alongside all the normal responsibilities that come with being an adult.
And I wonder why I’m tired all the time.
Kids. They’re a lot of work. But they’re worth it.
Alternatives to "What do you do?" and "What are you going to do with that?"
It’s not that careers aren’t an important part of our identity, they just aren’t the only part.
When I took my first improv class a little over four years ago, I was careful on the first night of class to ask other people, “How do you spend your time besides coming to improv class?” I phrased it this way because I didn’t just want to know what people got paid to do; I wanted to know how they chose to spend their time.
The most common question I get about my doctoral program after “How long until you’re done?” is “What are you going to do with a PhD in information and library science?” I think a more interesting question is “What do you want to get out of a PhD in information and library science?” Because honestly, who knows what I’ll do? Independent of what I might like to do (and teasing that out is a whole process itself), obviously I’ll be at the mercy of market forces.
But if you ask me what I want to get out of it, I have a great answer:
I want to spend some time in a situation where my number one professional priority is acquainting myself with the evidence about what works in libraries. I want to understand qualitative research methods better. (This was really my #1 desire and I think I’ve done a really good job of working on this.) I want the opportunity to think deeply about what effective library services for youth look like and how they can facilitate exploring passions.
Isn’t that more interesting than “I mean, maybe teach future librarians? Or just be a better librarian myself?” I think so.
If you want to get to know people better than just these surface questions without getting too awkward and personal, here are some questions you might try:
- What's fun for you right now?
- What kind of expert are you?
- What do you want to learn/try next?
- What kind of people are you hoping to meet?
They’re good questions to ask yourself, too.
Now: June 2018
Here’s a complete list of everything I’ve got going on right now. And by “going on,” I mean a level of intensity ranging from “thinking about maybe doing it” to “seriously working on it.” (Categories come from the Integrative Nutrition Circle of Life exercise.)
Spirituality
- Slowly re-reading WTF Is Tarot?
- Listening to the Self Service podcast
Creativity
- Things of Bronze podcast
- Blogging
Finances
- Reducing grocery spending via using my Soda Stream, freezing leftovers, and eating out of the pantry/fridge/freezer
Career
- Revising culturally sustaining pedagogy online curriculum module and writing other modules for Project READY.
- Reading the archives of YALSA's The Hub ya lit blog and trying the books mentioned there
Education
- Working on the Makerspaces section of my comprehensive literature review
Health, Home Cooking, Physical Activity
- Focusing on water: drinking it, bathing in it, swimming in it
Home Environment
- Putting together a list of tasks for the handyman
Relationships, Social Life, Joy
- Reaching out when I feel isolated