Dear super writers,
I am very glad to report our meeting this week.
Date: 8th July
Venue: common room
attendents: Wen Yu, June, Issa, Jessica Deng, Iris and Alam
Chairperson: Jesscia (Chunrao)
Topic: how to prepare for the comfirmation seminar (Experience sharing by June)
Main ideas from June's sharing:
1.Try to convince the panel that you have solid knowledge in your field, a good
literature review and methodology. But do not be too defensive in the panel meeting.
2. Some questions in the panel meeting could be very challenging. These are questions you might need to prepare before the meeting, such as questions related to your RQs, your framework, the rational of your study, and research methodology.
3.Don't feel bad if you feel you are not "ready" because nothing is perfect. It's very normal that people never feel "ready" and the time they have to face the problem is the deadline. "Deadline" is the time that things are ready.
4.It is a good idea to record the conversation in the panel meeting and the presentation because these are the perfect times for you to invite comments from the people who are not your own supervisor. It is a free consultation. Also, the panel will feel good when you regard their comments very seriously.
5.Panel members might not have time to read your materials very carefully in advance, so your introduction chapter is very important. Try to impress them at their beginning stage of reading your materials. A good introduction chapter leads to good impression.
6.For upgrading seminar (for Mphil students), it is a good idea to write a progress
report (something like cover letter in your materials) to save the panel's time. In the report, show them the things you have done since the comfirmation, your main achievment and progress, etc. This report should not be too long, about 2 or 3 pages would be OK.
Other things we discussed:
1.we suggest that we can share our draft in our meeting. Jessica is willing to share her accepted abstract for a Journal article next time. Every one is welcome to share his/her writing of any kind in our meetings in the future. But we want to make it clear that no one should send the drafts to anybody to avoid the problem of plagiarism.
2. The super writer meeting will be stopped for two weeks because of the summer holiday. The next meeting will be on 29th July.
3.Jessica invites people to her house in August. All are welcome. We want to know your opinions on date, activities, how to go there, etc.
Date:9th-10th August or 16th-17th August (please pick one)
Activities: foot massage, spa, shopping, sports, going to the park (swimming, badminton, PingPong)...(if you have any other suggestions, please write to Jessica) Please tell Jessica if you will go so that she can know how many people will be there.
Thank you for June's sharing in this meeting. Looking forward to seeing you in the next meeting.
Best regards,
Jessica Deng
2008年7月29日星期二
2008年7月28日星期一
Report on our 1st annual conference :)
I am very glad to report that we held the First "Annual" Super Writers Conference in Shenzhen in the past Monday & Tuesday, which was a very successful and happy event. The attendants include: Alam, Chun-Rao (Jessica), Dan-Jun (Issa), JinJun, Ming-Xia (Rina), Wang Xiang (Iris), Wen-Yu (Catherin) and Xiu-Li (Shirley). Some members of Super Writers who could not attend this conference sent their greetings, Lucia also sent a bouquet of gorgeous flowers We were also honoured to have two special guests: Wen-Yu's husband, Mr. Xian Niu and Xiang's husband, Mr. Wen Yi. The conference schedule was as follows:
Monday, 30-June-2008
14:30-15:00 Registion
15:00-16:00 Super Writers Meeting
16:00-17:30 Tea Break
18:00-19:40 Dinner
20:00-23:30 Entertainment: Karaoke
Tuesday, 1-July-2008
01:30-9:30 / 10:00/11:30 Sleep (Although many people had to sleep on sofa or hard bed or even floor, nobody seemed to have any complaint :P On the contrary, somebody felt secretely excited that they had chance to see other fellow students in their pyjamas and evening gowns :P)
Excursion & Entertainment
Route 1: Alam, Jun & Rina: China Folk Culture Villege Park, CoCo Park
Route 2: Local food, shopping at Zero-One
Route 3: Hair Saloon
Route 4: Foot Massage
Now, let me, the chairperson of this Super Writers' Meeting report the content of our discussions in the meeting.
In the first half of the meeting, Issa, who just returned from Holland, shared her
experiences about how to apply for the scholarship of studying abroad. The key points include:
1. Obtain the HKU supervisor's approval and support first of all. Try to convince your supervisor that this experience is relevant to and valuable to your current research.
2. Do some research about the local supervisors in the target universities. Learn about their academic interest and their key publications.
3. Correspondance with the local supervisors (one by one). The 1st email is of vital importance, in which we should briefly explain who we are, what our research interest / area is, why we want him / her to be our supervisor, what we are proposing to do if we go there. We should show our respect to him / her while at the same time not exaggerating the compliment too much. We may also attach a detailed proposal to the 1st email.
4. Once the local supervisor responds to our 1st email and shows interest in us, we can have further discussion with him / her about the arrangement, e.g. we can ask what he / she expect from us.All these things need to be done in a quite short period of time, say, 3 weeks. So we may need to prepare our profiles, CV, proposal etc. at usual time.
In short, it involves a lot of hard work, as Issa said, the application process itself is a very valuable learning process.
Jessica has very successfully completed her MPhil confirmation presentation and PhD upgrading presentation. So with our invitation, she shared with us her experiences and observation concerning how to manage the panel committee and how to make give effective presentation.
First of all, Jessica suggested that the panel committee is there to help us, so in the panel meeting, we should not be too defensive to their questions and challenges. If we do not understand their questions, don't feel bad or pretend that we know the answers. Giving a bad anwer is worse than no answer. We can regard the panel meeting as a learning opportunity so we can even ask the panel members questions and for their suggestions.
As for the presentation, Jessica mentioned the following tips:
1. Rehearsal is very important.
2. Prepare a PPT or other visul aids to help the comprehension of audience. Reading from the paper only is not a good idea.
3. Be careful with the format and layout of the PPT. Make it academic. It is not good practice to change the template for every slide.
4. Be interactive and communicative with the audience. Pay attention to our posture, gesture, and facial experessions. For example, have constant eye contact with the
audience; do not make face while giving presentation.
5. Pay attention to our language. Do not use certain expressions repeatedly; change the wording from time to time.
6. In Q&A session, keep the answer concisely.
Finally, Jessica concluded that many of the tips seem to be common sense that everybody should know, but in fact, many people still make these simple mistakes. We need to be fully aware of these points and improve our presentation skills consistently from
practice.
If you feel that I missed something here, which I am sure that I did, or if you want to add anything else or any comments, you are more than welcome to do so :)
Thank you very much for reading this long report! Have a good weekend :)
Best,
Xiang / Iris
Monday, 30-June-2008
14:30-15:00 Registion
15:00-16:00 Super Writers Meeting
16:00-17:30 Tea Break
18:00-19:40 Dinner
20:00-23:30 Entertainment: Karaoke
Tuesday, 1-July-2008
01:30-9:30 / 10:00/11:30 Sleep (Although many people had to sleep on sofa or hard bed or even floor, nobody seemed to have any complaint :P On the contrary, somebody felt secretely excited that they had chance to see other fellow students in their pyjamas and evening gowns :P)
Excursion & Entertainment
Route 1: Alam, Jun & Rina: China Folk Culture Villege Park, CoCo Park
Route 2: Local food, shopping at Zero-One
Route 3: Hair Saloon
Route 4: Foot Massage
Now, let me, the chairperson of this Super Writers' Meeting report the content of our discussions in the meeting.
In the first half of the meeting, Issa, who just returned from Holland, shared her
experiences about how to apply for the scholarship of studying abroad. The key points include:
1. Obtain the HKU supervisor's approval and support first of all. Try to convince your supervisor that this experience is relevant to and valuable to your current research.
2. Do some research about the local supervisors in the target universities. Learn about their academic interest and their key publications.
3. Correspondance with the local supervisors (one by one). The 1st email is of vital importance, in which we should briefly explain who we are, what our research interest / area is, why we want him / her to be our supervisor, what we are proposing to do if we go there. We should show our respect to him / her while at the same time not exaggerating the compliment too much. We may also attach a detailed proposal to the 1st email.
4. Once the local supervisor responds to our 1st email and shows interest in us, we can have further discussion with him / her about the arrangement, e.g. we can ask what he / she expect from us.All these things need to be done in a quite short period of time, say, 3 weeks. So we may need to prepare our profiles, CV, proposal etc. at usual time.
In short, it involves a lot of hard work, as Issa said, the application process itself is a very valuable learning process.
Jessica has very successfully completed her MPhil confirmation presentation and PhD upgrading presentation. So with our invitation, she shared with us her experiences and observation concerning how to manage the panel committee and how to make give effective presentation.
First of all, Jessica suggested that the panel committee is there to help us, so in the panel meeting, we should not be too defensive to their questions and challenges. If we do not understand their questions, don't feel bad or pretend that we know the answers. Giving a bad anwer is worse than no answer. We can regard the panel meeting as a learning opportunity so we can even ask the panel members questions and for their suggestions.
As for the presentation, Jessica mentioned the following tips:
1. Rehearsal is very important.
2. Prepare a PPT or other visul aids to help the comprehension of audience. Reading from the paper only is not a good idea.
3. Be careful with the format and layout of the PPT. Make it academic. It is not good practice to change the template for every slide.
4. Be interactive and communicative with the audience. Pay attention to our posture, gesture, and facial experessions. For example, have constant eye contact with the
audience; do not make face while giving presentation.
5. Pay attention to our language. Do not use certain expressions repeatedly; change the wording from time to time.
6. In Q&A session, keep the answer concisely.
Finally, Jessica concluded that many of the tips seem to be common sense that everybody should know, but in fact, many people still make these simple mistakes. We need to be fully aware of these points and improve our presentation skills consistently from
practice.
If you feel that I missed something here, which I am sure that I did, or if you want to add anything else or any comments, you are more than welcome to do so :)
Thank you very much for reading this long report! Have a good weekend :)
Best,
Xiang / Iris
2008年4月1日星期二
Report of Super Writers Meeting on 1st April 2008
It was enjoyable to talk among group members (Catherine, Iris, Jun, Lucia and Nicol). The topics are briefly presented below,
1. Tibet issue and racism in the world. (It seems this topic is totally unrelated to our group purpose, but it is a nice 'starter' for thinking the society (including our small educational society) deeply and critically.
2. 'Main course' is certainly individual writing progress and goal.
3. 'Dessert' is very tasty.
a. BBC Program 'climate change' is suggested by Nicol. We propose to watch this program the week after next and discuss later on.
b. Discussion about individual research each week. It seems every group member has struggled during process of research, so we propose to discuss one research topic (around 30 minutes) every session, and group members can share our opinions or give some suggestions at that moment.
c. Professor Thérèse Laferrière will join us next Tuesday, and we can be free to ask any question about writing or research.
Prof Laferrière is full professor of Pedagogy, Department of Studies in Teaching and Learning, Laval University. Her research activities focus on networked learning environments and especially participants.
1. Tibet issue and racism in the world. (It seems this topic is totally unrelated to our group purpose, but it is a nice 'starter' for thinking the society (including our small educational society) deeply and critically.
2. 'Main course' is certainly individual writing progress and goal.
3. 'Dessert' is very tasty.
a. BBC Program 'climate change' is suggested by Nicol. We propose to watch this program the week after next and discuss later on.
b. Discussion about individual research each week. It seems every group member has struggled during process of research, so we propose to discuss one research topic (around 30 minutes) every session, and group members can share our opinions or give some suggestions at that moment.
c. Professor Thérèse Laferrière will join us next Tuesday, and we can be free to ask any question about writing or research.
Prof Laferrière is full professor of Pedagogy, Department of Studies in Teaching and Learning, Laval University. Her research activities focus on networked learning environments and especially participants.
2008年3月18日星期二
our meeting on Mar 11
Dear super writers,
First of all, I'd like to express my deep sorry for my procrastination of writing the summary of our meeting on this Tuesday. And I hope my delay doesn't affect your progress of writing during this week.
We had a pretty ardent discussion and sincere sharing on Mar 11. Jinjun read books and wrote some summary during last week. She also worked on her research ethics form. Her goal for the coming week is to finish the assignment of a faculty course on discourse analysis. In addition to that, she will keep on reading some literature. Iris downloaded some articles (actually it's a bunch of articles as she took to the common room rather than 'some') on her literature review. Iris has been corresponding with her potential participants and managed to involve three teachers in her pilot study up to now. Congratulations, Iris! However, there's also some negative feedback from one of Iris's potential participants. This teacher has consented to participate in Iris's pilot study at first but later on, when she got the research plan in detail from Iris, she changed her idea. Concerning the rights and obligations of potential or/and real participants, we had a small discussion. Nicole mentioned teachers are very cautious about the right/obligation thing in the process of being researched. She thought it's better for the researcher to be informed that the participant intends to quit at the outset rather than on the way, particularly for ethnography research. If the participant withdraws on the way, it's a 'disaster' for the researcher. So in this sense, I think the withdrawal of this teacher, is not a bad news for Iris, because neither of the researcher nor the participants devote too much so far. Anyway, good luck to Iris to find more participants. And the best wishes also extend to all of us!
Nicole completed writing assignments for thesis writing and also the part of her literature review in previous week. Her new goal is to finish two abstracts for a conference. In reference to conference, super writers also showed great interest, which led us into another small discussion. Wenyu mentioned the difference between conference paper and journal paper. She thought journal paper is liable to be revised and touched up, thus eventually it turns out to be a journal paper. So it's best for us to get some feedback on the conference, which will definitely be beneficial to the improvement of our paper. We also talked of a consequential question, that is, whether do we need to inform our supervisors the submitting of any abstract or/and paper before conference or/and journal? It seems that most of us have no awareness of informing our supervisors such kind of academic attempts. Both Iris and Shirley forgot to tell their supervisors the submission of abstracts for conferences, since all these abstracts are based on their previous research in their M.A. study. Jinjun also mentioned she wouldn't tell her supervisor what she submitted until she got the positive feedback from the organizer of the conference. However, Nicole thought it's better to let our supervisor know what we seek to do, in this case it's our attempt to submit abstract for conference. She thought our supervisor would give us some useful information and helpful advice in terms of the prestigiousness of conference. Supervisors may advise us whether the conference we should go to or not. Nicole also suggested that we should relieve ourselves from the Chinese thinking (Chinese mindset?), that is, not just to present the best of our research to the supervisor. We should be brave enough to show our weakness of research to our supervisor. That's where they are here and how we can make progress.
As for Lucia, she finished two pages of outline of her project and submitted to her supervisor. She was waiting for her supervisor's feedback and relevant articles. Lucia's new goal is to write three pages of transcription of field work. Wenyu has finished three or four pages on her literature review. She also searched journal articles on her research topic and categorize them, and have read about half of these articles. Her next target is to finish the literature part before she meets her supervisor on this Friday (March 14). In addition, she also needs to finish the assignment of thesis writing and how to present effectively, which are two courses she selected this semester.
We also talked about the position we should take as a researcher while Lucia mentioned her intent to become a teacher for some time during her study. Whether we should be a so-called 'insider' or 'outsider'? How can we keep the neutrality as a researcher? Is it necessary for us to be a teacher while we interact with students (who are the participants of our research?) Can we learn students better if we are their real teacher or we can explore the interaction more objectively if we are a mere researcher? All the super writers showed great interest in this kind of question and also feel a bit puzzled which stance we should take in the process of research. Therefore, it is suggested the next discussion topic will be the research ethics and position of the researcher after the Easter Day.
The summary is based on my notes taken in last meeting. Due to my poor English and my delay, I maybe missed some points or misunderstood some of your views. Obviously, all mistakes in this summary are mine.
Lastly, I'd like to thank Issa for her regards from Netherland. The book you introduced ''How to write more'' is really insightful and encouraging. Great thanks, Issa! Wish you have a happy, smooth and fruitful study in Netherland. Iris has passed a copy to me after the meeting. All are welcome to make copy from it. Many thanks, Iris!
First of all, I'd like to express my deep sorry for my procrastination of writing the summary of our meeting on this Tuesday. And I hope my delay doesn't affect your progress of writing during this week.
We had a pretty ardent discussion and sincere sharing on Mar 11. Jinjun read books and wrote some summary during last week. She also worked on her research ethics form. Her goal for the coming week is to finish the assignment of a faculty course on discourse analysis. In addition to that, she will keep on reading some literature. Iris downloaded some articles (actually it's a bunch of articles as she took to the common room rather than 'some') on her literature review. Iris has been corresponding with her potential participants and managed to involve three teachers in her pilot study up to now. Congratulations, Iris! However, there's also some negative feedback from one of Iris's potential participants. This teacher has consented to participate in Iris's pilot study at first but later on, when she got the research plan in detail from Iris, she changed her idea. Concerning the rights and obligations of potential or/and real participants, we had a small discussion. Nicole mentioned teachers are very cautious about the right/obligation thing in the process of being researched. She thought it's better for the researcher to be informed that the participant intends to quit at the outset rather than on the way, particularly for ethnography research. If the participant withdraws on the way, it's a 'disaster' for the researcher. So in this sense, I think the withdrawal of this teacher, is not a bad news for Iris, because neither of the researcher nor the participants devote too much so far. Anyway, good luck to Iris to find more participants. And the best wishes also extend to all of us!
Nicole completed writing assignments for thesis writing and also the part of her literature review in previous week. Her new goal is to finish two abstracts for a conference. In reference to conference, super writers also showed great interest, which led us into another small discussion. Wenyu mentioned the difference between conference paper and journal paper. She thought journal paper is liable to be revised and touched up, thus eventually it turns out to be a journal paper. So it's best for us to get some feedback on the conference, which will definitely be beneficial to the improvement of our paper. We also talked of a consequential question, that is, whether do we need to inform our supervisors the submitting of any abstract or/and paper before conference or/and journal? It seems that most of us have no awareness of informing our supervisors such kind of academic attempts. Both Iris and Shirley forgot to tell their supervisors the submission of abstracts for conferences, since all these abstracts are based on their previous research in their M.A. study. Jinjun also mentioned she wouldn't tell her supervisor what she submitted until she got the positive feedback from the organizer of the conference. However, Nicole thought it's better to let our supervisor know what we seek to do, in this case it's our attempt to submit abstract for conference. She thought our supervisor would give us some useful information and helpful advice in terms of the prestigiousness of conference. Supervisors may advise us whether the conference we should go to or not. Nicole also suggested that we should relieve ourselves from the Chinese thinking (Chinese mindset?), that is, not just to present the best of our research to the supervisor. We should be brave enough to show our weakness of research to our supervisor. That's where they are here and how we can make progress.
As for Lucia, she finished two pages of outline of her project and submitted to her supervisor. She was waiting for her supervisor's feedback and relevant articles. Lucia's new goal is to write three pages of transcription of field work. Wenyu has finished three or four pages on her literature review. She also searched journal articles on her research topic and categorize them, and have read about half of these articles. Her next target is to finish the literature part before she meets her supervisor on this Friday (March 14). In addition, she also needs to finish the assignment of thesis writing and how to present effectively, which are two courses she selected this semester.
We also talked about the position we should take as a researcher while Lucia mentioned her intent to become a teacher for some time during her study. Whether we should be a so-called 'insider' or 'outsider'? How can we keep the neutrality as a researcher? Is it necessary for us to be a teacher while we interact with students (who are the participants of our research?) Can we learn students better if we are their real teacher or we can explore the interaction more objectively if we are a mere researcher? All the super writers showed great interest in this kind of question and also feel a bit puzzled which stance we should take in the process of research. Therefore, it is suggested the next discussion topic will be the research ethics and position of the researcher after the Easter Day.
The summary is based on my notes taken in last meeting. Due to my poor English and my delay, I maybe missed some points or misunderstood some of your views. Obviously, all mistakes in this summary are mine.
Lastly, I'd like to thank Issa for her regards from Netherland. The book you introduced ''How to write more'' is really insightful and encouraging. Great thanks, Issa! Wish you have a happy, smooth and fruitful study in Netherland. Iris has passed a copy to me after the meeting. All are welcome to make copy from it. Many thanks, Iris!
2008年3月3日星期一
The meeting on Feb. 26
Dear all,
I am terribly sorry for the late uploading of the report on the meeting on Feb. 26.
Four of us attended this meeting, Wenyu, Rina, Jin Jun and I. We reflected on our writings and set the goals for the following week. Then, we shared our experience of application and reasons of doing our own research. Some took it as a continuous journey of MA. Some followed supervisor's interest and instruction. Some made it out of working experience. It was very interesting to observe how everybody started their journey of MPhil or PhD. Since many others hadn't shared their research, we suggested that we could continue with this topic next meeting.
I am terribly sorry for the late uploading of the report on the meeting on Feb. 26.
Four of us attended this meeting, Wenyu, Rina, Jin Jun and I. We reflected on our writings and set the goals for the following week. Then, we shared our experience of application and reasons of doing our own research. Some took it as a continuous journey of MA. Some followed supervisor's interest and instruction. Some made it out of working experience. It was very interesting to observe how everybody started their journey of MPhil or PhD. Since many others hadn't shared their research, we suggested that we could continue with this topic next meeting.
2008年2月18日星期一
Lucia's New Goal
Translate one chapters (around 5 pages) of my dissertation.
No delay task: Read at least one chapter of Life in schools : an introduction to critical pedagogy in the foundations of education by Peter McLaren. (Many thanks should be given to Nicol for introducing it to me! )
No delay task: Read at least one chapter of Life in schools : an introduction to critical pedagogy in the foundations of education by Peter McLaren. (Many thanks should be given to Nicol for introducing it to me! )
A Review on Today's Meeting
On our first Super Writers Meeting after Chinese New Year, we ate some desserts and discussed several issues.
Since we all came back from a relaxed vacation being together with our family, the production is not much and it seemed like a confession meeting at first. But you know, it is quite understandable and reasonable to rejoin in the family in this traditional festival since we've been apart so long. So needless to feel guilty, just catch up! (Haha, Lucia always can find an excuss to rationalize laziness:P)
The construction of new campus brought out by Nicol arose heated discussion later on. Some ridiculous arrangement of classroom design workshop and the huge gap between ideal vision and practical measure was identified. It is problematic that the immediate users of classroom were left out in the decision-making procedure and the bureaucracy blocked the full participation of people who are interested in or whose specialty is relevant to the issue. Many insightful opinions were brought about by our super writers, pity we didn't keep a record. That's why Issa suggeted we record our discussion every time for possible reference in future. Given the complex nature of the problem such as research ethic, privacy etc. we will discuss it in next meeting to find out a good solution. If you have any idea on it, please put forward on the blog or the meeting next time.
We also share some strategies for time management and avoid procrastination. Issa will kindly help to scan and circulate a handout from a workshop Lucia attended, which lists the common reasons for us to put off things. Maybe it can help you to reflex on your own habit and try to change.
Last but not least, do remember to 'Have the passion on your postgraduate study and your research!' This is what we agreed on in the meeting:)
Since we all came back from a relaxed vacation being together with our family, the production is not much and it seemed like a confession meeting at first. But you know, it is quite understandable and reasonable to rejoin in the family in this traditional festival since we've been apart so long. So needless to feel guilty, just catch up! (Haha, Lucia always can find an excuss to rationalize laziness:P)
The construction of new campus brought out by Nicol arose heated discussion later on. Some ridiculous arrangement of classroom design workshop and the huge gap between ideal vision and practical measure was identified. It is problematic that the immediate users of classroom were left out in the decision-making procedure and the bureaucracy blocked the full participation of people who are interested in or whose specialty is relevant to the issue. Many insightful opinions were brought about by our super writers, pity we didn't keep a record. That's why Issa suggeted we record our discussion every time for possible reference in future. Given the complex nature of the problem such as research ethic, privacy etc. we will discuss it in next meeting to find out a good solution. If you have any idea on it, please put forward on the blog or the meeting next time.
We also share some strategies for time management and avoid procrastination. Issa will kindly help to scan and circulate a handout from a workshop Lucia attended, which lists the common reasons for us to put off things. Maybe it can help you to reflex on your own habit and try to change.
Last but not least, do remember to 'Have the passion on your postgraduate study and your research!' This is what we agreed on in the meeting:)
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