Today I worked on my paper at Barnes & Noble. My usual spot Jitterbug Cafe, a coffee house in my neighborhood was closed for the holiday and so was my backup the Lone Star College Library. It cost me about an hour to find a place to write but once I settled in it was a productive session. I was able to work until about 1pm as I had to get back in time to join the family for a New Years Eve trip down to Galveston to view the lights and have dinner. When I sat down to work I had 21 pages saved. I now have 25 but i am still rewriting and adding the citations. The first thing I did was to read through the paper and make an corrections to flow, grammar, spelling, citations etc. Once I completed that I started to add to the content. I finished the day with 25 polished pages. My plan is to work again on Sunday and send Margaret the new update on Sunday. She had emailed me on yesterday and reminded that she does not have pages so I will need to send her word copies. Also I need to make sure I use TurnItIn or at least double-check my citations against the original sources. I also reached out to Mike Swift who wrote the Silicon Valley article as well as Shellye Archambeau of MetricStream. Here are my Action items for next session.

1. Finish editing and add graphic from Silicon Valley story
1. Run against TurnItIn | Find instructions
2. Send to Margaret
3. Check prose above to see what I missed.
4. Use something from CNN special, look at APA on how to site.

Today I continued working on my chapter 2. I have about 19 pages. I still need to clean up 11 through 19 in terms of citations, flow etc. I will do that in the next session which should be sometime this week. I am finding it is too hard to wait and entire week to get back to writing. I will try to write during the week so that when I start again on Saturday I am not starting cold. I sent what I have to Margaret. During my next session I should clean up the 19 and get my citations done and try to write my next section as well as incorporate a couple of sources such as the Affirmative Action Myth, Blacks surging in technology, RAGS and A Nation at Risk. I have all of these. I need to critique, and decide where to to ask. I could easily have the entire thing down by this weekend. I am also waiting for Margaret to reply with her comments. Additionally, this week I will need to write up my plan. I have it written out on the inside cover of Whip's model, so I just need to put it in a document and upload to disscircles.

Today even though I had several distractions due to the holidays I still wrote. I really feel that I am building momentum. My dissertation comes first. Only family and something that at this point Cathy needs me to help with comes before writing. Today I finally submitted 12 pages to Margaret. It was well written and I had most of the citations there and I felt that I wrote with authority and added my analysis well. It was not perfect, but I now I will start to benefit from her reading it and guiding me. I still have not heard from the Microsoft contact so I will have to go in another direction. I will probably go back to qualitative interview idea. I have not seen that as of yet and I still like the idea. I plan to write this week during the week. But if not I will certainly write some on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. I am also off this Friday so I should probably get some writing done then as well. If I maintain my discipline I should be in good shape before January 1. If I have not heard back from Margaret as it will take her some time to read then I will start to figure out chapter 3. Below is the message I sent to Margaret today:

Here is my first draft of Chapter 1. I have not run it through TurnIntIn as of yet as I need to locate my instructions and I wanted you to see the work without delay. I know that it may take you some time to review and get back to me with your comments. During that time I will work on finding the instructions and run the paper through. This is about half of what I think my complete chapter 2 will look like when complete as I continue to go through my summaries. Also, I would like to talk with sometime this week about my plans or the term and where I would like to be as well as some of the obstacles I have run into with my plans for the study. I will continue working on the chapter 2 and merge what I do with your comments and be ready to submit my changes. My plan is to send you a document each week on Sunday as I am able to write on both days. I will have some extra time here during the holidays so I plan to make progress during that time as well. I also intend to start reading about what I need to start my chapter 3.

On Sunday I sent my plan, outline and my first 7 pages of my chapter 2 to Margaret. I am waiting to hear back, but certainly I am back on track. My next session will be about building on my work this weekend and really getting a flow and some density to my chapter 2 in terms of fleshing out the sections. My goals for my Sunday session were:

1. Finish outline. I did one but I was not feeling totally happy with it
2. Write m first 10+ pages based on outline
3. Send plan, outline, and draft to Margaret

The only thing I did not accomplish was the number of pages. I may not wait until Saturday to get back to writing. Hopefully, I can get something done earlier in the week.

Kai

I spent the entire day working on my paper. I did not reach all of the goals outlined in my last session but I do feel good about the work I got done today. During the week I reached out to my chair and she threatened to give me a no-credit for the term so I was extra motivated to get something done and submitted to her by Sunday of this week. The plan from last session was to:

Read section on lit review in dj as a refresher
Find example diss
Study model diss chapter 2
Develop Outline
Write draft based on outline and model, start new doc, pull content from old one
Send to Margaret

I have not sent anything to Margaret yet but I was able to get my mind around exactly what it is I am to do. I had struggled with this for a minute. So, I studies a couple of sections in my book by Carol Roberts and took notes. That was helpful. I did find an example but not the one I wanted but I think I will be fine with the one I located. I worked hard on the outline and I could use what I have but I think it needs work and I will do that as the first goal of the next session which is tomorrow. On Sunday there will be nothing but writing. It may not be great but I will leave the library on Sunday with 10+ pages, my outline and a plan that I will send to Margaret before leaving the library. Those are my 2 goals for the next session:

1. Finish outline. I did one but I was not feeling totally happy with it
2. Write m first 10+ pages based on outline
3. Send plan, outline, and draft to Margaret

This weekend I made it through the editing process of the document. My goal for this week, that is by Sunday is to have my first draft written and sent to Margaret. My plan is to work on this chapter Monday thru Sunday. If I don't have the draft done it won't be for a lack of effort. This week I my plan is to talk to Margaret about where I am and ask her about the importance of a title. Also, I reached out to Microsoft yet again. If I do not get a response this week I will have to go back to my original plan of interviewing subjects. Here is the plan for this week as prepare my draft. Monday after work I will actually start a new document that will be the draft of my chapter 2.

Read section on lit review in dj as a refresher
Find example diss
Study model diss chapter 2
Develop Outline
Write draft based on outline and model, start new doc, pull content from old one
Send to Margaret