Report on Super Writer Meeting of This Week Sep 23, 2008

Dear all,

In this week’s meeting, Rina, Wenyu, June, Issa and Xiuli were present. A special guest Doris (YANG Dongsheng) who serves as coordinator of rpg students also attended.

The main topic of this meeting was Rina’s research. Rina herself had an excellent preparation for the meeting by offering everybody a handout of her research outline. The primary problem which emerged in the discussion about Rina’s research was how to distinct different categories of forgiveness. In Rina’s original design, she didn’t have intention to differentiate forgiveness mainly due to the consideration of recruiting enough participants. The advice for Rina was to distinct different types of forgiveness, such as forgiveness in friendship, in love or in acquaintances, and to focus on one of them. So that her research question could be clearer and it’s relatively easier for her to conduct the study. Otherwise the variables in the experimental groups will be too complicated and it will be nearly impossible to compare these two models of forgiveness education programme.

Another advice is related to the translation of keywords in Rina’s research. As Issa pointed out, the concept of forgiveness was largely derived from the western literature, therefore the connotation may be quite different from such Chinese words as 宽恕、宽容、容忍、原谅, etc. Since Rina will design her questionnaire in Chinese, it’s better to offer a working definition of forgiveness in the questionnaire so that the participants can be ensured what are the researcher really intended for.

In the section of progress report, Wenyu mentioned her incompetence to write in an academic way as her supervisor contended. As a response, Issa generously shared with us her strategy to read and write efficiently. Her method is to organize the reading in a systematic table as follows:

Author Research Settings Theoretical Framework Key Concepts Focus and Findings
Literature A
Literature B
……
Literature X

Issa noted that the focus and findings are mainly from the abstract and it’s also a little time-consuming to input all the necessary information in the above table. But it may provide us a clear picture of what have been done on particular theme and in which context. If some findings interest us, we can turn to read it in detail, otherwise we can skip it by just read the abstract. In this sense, it’s quite a quick way to strive for the deadlineJ

In the last section, Doris asked for our opinions about whether it’s proper to inform the new rpg students the existence of Super Writer Group and welcome them participate in our activity. Doris said currently Super Writer is the only active group in our faculty (Wow, Yeah!) so she hopes that the new rpg students can also have a chance to experience it. We didn’t make a straightforward reply to Doris that day because we think it’s best to consult all super writers’ opinions. We also expressed our concerns about the stability and operation of a large group (if new members are enrolled) and Issa stressed the commitment should be undertaken by each writer if they join the group. Doris ensured us that she would emphasize the obligation of our group to the new rpg students and once they participate, they should comply with it.

Another decision was also made at the end of the meeting. In order to make the meeting time more convenient for everybody, Issa proposed to advance the meeting from 13:00 to 12:30 on every Tuesday.

Lastly, I would also like to remind that Iris (Wang Xiang) is to do her confirmation on tomorrow afternoon (16:00-17:00), which will be held in Room 403, Runme Shaw Building. All are welcome! Let us give the mum-to-be the warmest encouragement and support. Best wishes to Iris.

Look forward to Iris’ superb presentation tomorrow and best wishes also go to Rina, and us all.

Xiuli