Picking it back up...

I'm home sick with bronchitis today, and was poking around the web for fun. A friend of mine recently started up a blog, and I was reminded of the one I started earlier this year (how can that be? Where does the time go?). Being in the midst of the preparing-for-candidacy phase of my dissertation, I thought... why not?

So here I am.

My plan was to start another blog on my journey toward becoming a feminist, which didn't happen. That's not to say that I don't think becoming a feminist is important, I just tend to lack time. The recent events of "rude America" (aka Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift at the Grammys, Joe Wilson yelling "You lie" at President Obama, Serena Williams going off on the line judge) have inspired me to get back into this. I tend to have very strong opinions on this kind of thing; some may call me a liberal, but to me, it is just what's right. Since my dissertation also encompasses the social issues of ethnicity, race, and gender, picking up my social science blog seemed to be a good place to start.

In the three examples above, who received the harshest treatment from the media and America? Let's review:

Kanye West
In some ways, what he did was wrong, and in other ways, maybe he had a point. Remember during Katrina when he famously declared, "George Bush doesn't care about Black people"? I thought he had a very good point then. Maybe he was just trying to stand up for Beyonce when she wouldn't/couldn't stand up for herself. Maybe at the time it seemed like the right thing to do. But there stood Taylor Swift, all of her 19 years old, helplessly looking on and not knowing what to do. She ended up getting her moment thanks to the very classy Ms. Knowles, but still, it was almost like Kanye was picking on a kid.

And for that, he got replays on YouTube and all the morning news shows, an interview on Jay Leno, and became the punchline to jokes about interrupting (see: last night's Emmy host, Neil Patrick Harris, stating that his job was to ensure that things run smoothly... and hoping that Kanye likes 30 Rock). Even on College Game Day this weekend, several fans held up Kanye West inspired signs.

Joe Wilson
Well, Rep. Wilson was just making his point, wasn't he? Could you imagine if any normal American citizen pulled that stunt? We would be out of a job faster than the end of that speech. However, now his job "may be in trouble" thanks to his outburst, and he's using his 15 minutes of fame to campaign for additional dollars to run for re-election. He's not even getting reprimanded by Congress. What is the primary bill he's sponsored? To maintain the integrity of the Confederate flag. That says it all.

The Tea Party Movement sort of falls in line with Joe Wilson. Suddenly, it is very patriotic to be the voice of dissent. Remember that guy John Kerry? The one who said in his 2004 Democratic nomination acceptance speech, "We are here to affirm that when Americans say we can do better, that is not a challenge to patriotism, but the heart and soul of patriotism"? What did he get for that? Swiftboated. But now that the tide has turned, being the dissenting opinion is patriotic.

I am all for dissent, if it is done properly and with decorum. But the ugly, racist signs and the yelling "you lie!" at the PRESIDENT goes way beyond those boundaries. And Joe Wilson is now being held up as some sort of hero. Is THIS what we want to teach our children?

Serena Williams
Serena is a world tennis champion. She's probably one of the greatest of all time. She knows her stuff, and she's not going to cheat to win. And in the end, she. was. right. There was no foot foul. Granted, the way she went about it was inappropriate (see: Joe Wilson, Kanye West, above), but she had a point and wasn't listened to. What did she get for all that? She lost a point, which ended up making her lose the match. She was fined a ridiculous amount of money. And in the court of public opinion, she was scorned for not being "a lady."

Did John McEnroe have to deal with any of that? Nope, he falls more into the Kanye-as-punchline camp.

So what is the difference in these three stories and how these three individuals were treated? All were rude. All maybe had a point, but went about making it in all the wrong ways. In my opinion, Serena was judged the harshest -- or maybe it's that Kanye and Joe were not judged harsh enough.

Lots of people will tell you that these are not about race or gender. But who emerged the least tarnished? Yep, that would be Rep. Joe Wilson, who is currently running for re-election with a campaign slogan of, "Stand for Truth. Stand with Joe." On his website, he asks people to donate to his campaign to not back down from the fight. In a sense, he is almost being rewarded for extremely rude behavior.

Now think for a minute if Kanye or Serena had been the one sitting in his seat and yelling "you lie" at the President... would they have been treated or judged differently? Same behavior, different arenas (Grammys, Arthur Ashe Stadium) and far more outrage.

The result of pop culture or a society still full of -isms?

Analog in a digital world

Last year when took P&L 966 and conducted hour-long interviews with 3 different students, many of my family members desperately tried to convince me that I needed some sort of software that would make this dissertation process easier. My professor had stated that it would probably take 4 hours to transcribe an hour-long interview; in my reality (borderline perfectionist), it was more like 10.

I resisted. I felt that I got to know my data really well and I learned even more from the interviews when I spent hours and hours listening to their words and making inferences from the inflections in their voices, the pauses, and the statements themselves.

Then my daughter became a toddler and I took a new job on campus. My life is so busy! I took this class to learn more about digital tools that could be used in the qualitative research process. I mean, quantitative research is so easy - you just dump your data into SPSS, right? (heh)

After taking this class, I still feel as if I need to do all the transcription myself. I still believe that this is an important part of the process, especially in terms of the understanding the nature of what I am trying to understand. I am going to investigate how cultural brokering -- when Latinas are in the position of having to culturally and linguistically translate for their parents or guardians -- helps in the transition to and persistence in college. I am super excited about my topic and want to make sure that my dissertation is a high-quality project.

I am very excited by ExpressScribe, especially since Lauren figured out how to use hotkeys on a Mac. :-) I think this will actually be a HUGE time saver. During the transcription process, I tried to use ExpressScribe but it was kind of more trouble than it was worth without the hotkeys. If I can quickly and easily use the keys to start and stop the tape, I can type a whole lot faster!

I actually think I might keep this blog (deleting that awful video of course, geez I thought I lost my NY accent, but not so!!) for processing my dissertation journey. I am a writer at heart, and I think this process of putting my thoughts out there is actually really beneficial to sharpening and shaping my topic and processes. I am also planning on using Google Docs/Notebook and possibly Zotero. I've been on Gmail since the beginning, and I'm only now learning how powerful some of the Google tools are.

One of the challenges is having a Mac. There are so many cool tools out there that just aren't written for Macs. I wonder about the people at Apple - aren't any of them qualitative folks? They are so innovative with all the i products, you would think that they would hop on the qual bandwagon. I may investigate this further.

In my current job, I see that there may be surveys in my future and so I may become friends with SPSS (which, of course, doesn't run on a Mac). Surveys are a good way of obtaining data, but I just don't always trust quantitative data!

I'm glad I took this course and will have access to the researchosu blog. I think it was helpful to learn more about these tools. Thanks, Lauren! Now onto research!

The Elusive Software

It seems that the CAQDAS (Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software) folks think pretty highly of a tool called the QDA Miner, so I wandered over to their website to check it out.

I liked this software because of its various features, particularly because you can also store and code documents, photos, paintings, and artwork. In one of my most favorite courses I took at Ohio State, Studies in Latino/a Literature and Culture, in addition to various texts, we studied different forms of artwork including the graphic novel, film, and murals. The QDA Miner would be extremely useful if part of my research were to include a document analysis or include various forms of art. I also liked the very cool 3D concept maps that grouped themes.

I was kind of geeked because the website offered a demo.

But... It was not to be.

Issue #1: Cost. $1595! I'm sure this program does everything but make cappuccino, but this software would cost more than a mortgage payment or a month of child care.

Issue #2: the dreaded words for any Mac user:
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 98, XP, 2000, Vista.

As I realized this was not to be, I moved on to another type of software. I am an English major at heart (my undergrad degree), so I was drawn to the very-cool-sounding Storyspace. The description even appealed to me; I have scraps of paper and notebooks filled with ideas for stories that I've collected as inspiration has struck over the years. Storyspace strikes that chord instantly by talking conjuring up the image of the disorganized writer jotting down an idea on a napkin. (That's me!)

The website is very simple. So simple that they do not even have a demo or a screenshot! They do offer both the Windows and Mac platforms, but I would be extremely hesitant to buy a product for $295 without knowing exactly what I was getting.

If I were to go the faculty route or conduct research in an administrative position, I would definitely go with NVivo. It's set up to mostly look like Microsoft Outlook, which makes it extremely user-friendly. I also liked that PDFs could be imported (good for journal articles that are downloaded) and that it can contain pictures, audio, text, and video. I liked that you can not only transcribe right in the window as your audio or video is playing, but that you can also annotate, code, or create links right within the same page. I watched a couple of the tutorials and I was impressed by the ease of the software and the support that is offered through the website. (I also like that one of the links at the top says What is Qualitative Research?)

This software also primarily runs on Windows. I've heard (and this website confirmed) that the newest Mac operating system, Leopard, will allow you to run a virtual windows platform. I don't currently have that version, but it may be worth it to look further into running a Windows environment on my Mac.

A final, random thought that doesn't have anything to do with CAQDAS: I love using Macs. I think they are so superior to PCs, which I grew up on. With the popularity of the iPod and iPhone, you would think that more software companies would create their software for the Mac platform as well. It's frustrating to get geeked out by software only to be disappointed when you can't run it on your Mac. When I was pregnant with my daughter, my Aunt Jane got me this awesome software that would allow you to create a digital scrapbook (I love scrapbooking) that she saw on Oprah, I think. I was so excited - only to be crushed when I found out it wouldn't run on a Mac and there was no comparable product. Oh the woes of being a Mac, not a PC!

Trying to get to know me...

Our assignment this week was to become familiar with Audacity and MovieMaker. It sounded like fun to me; I like playing around with technology and trying to figure out how to use it.

It seems like it was not meant to be.

I downloaded the Audacity software (and looking a little ahead, Express Scribe). I went to the Movie Maker website, but I couldn't find a download for a Mac that would work. I have some limited experience with iMovie, so I downloaded the movie I made into iMovie instead.

When I went to work in Audacity, I found out that my Mac would not even show my audio interview file with Seth Fishman that I saved ! It seems I will either need to re-record it on my actual audio recorder (which I had forgotten for last class and had used my Blackberry instead) or to use the PC computers in the lab to convert my audio file to something usable in audacity or express scribe.

So while I was supposed to be trying it out anyway, I tried importing one of the interviews I did in one of my research classes into audacity. That just did some really funky things! On a Mac, it is very easy to just change the file extension, so I made a copy of the interview and saved it as a .mp3. It had the (wait for it...) audacity not to work, either. I also tried saving it as .wav and... nothing. I tried to play around with audacity for a little bit anyway, and it just seemed a little overwhelming to me.

Since it is hard to write a review on tools I can't seem to use, I think this was a good lesson for me. As much I love the user-friendliness of the Mac, it proves once again that it is not necessarily software-friendly. It takes a bit more research to find software, hardware, etc. that is compatible, (such as when I was scouring every electronics store in Columbus for a compatible digital audio recorder!) but in the end, it is worth it. I love the ease of a Mac and its various features (brief tangent... Word for Mac has a template called notebook and it is just like a real notebook! You can tab pages [like in a binder], create check boxes and flags... it is divine).

I look forward to trying Express Scribe and the other transcription tools. For some reason, I really enjoy the - dare I say it - tediousness of transcribing. I really feel as if I get to know my data really well when I transcribe by hand/keyboard, and I'm a little afraid of losing that if I use a software program to help me. It will be really useful to me to see if some "help" will be worthwhile in the long run.

strategic planning made strategic

One of the most interesting tools out there to aid in the research process is Google Docs. I first used Google Docs when I was creating a strategic plan for my job; there were a number of people who needed to have access to the document. Google Docs allows you to be less of a document task-master and more of a strategic thinker, as you can conceptualize and visualize what the participants are suggesting all in one spot. It was very beneficial in this process.

In a former life (college), I was an English major, thus the writing and editing process is important to me. I like to have multiple people with varying perspectives read what I have written and see if it makes sense. Google Docs would make it simple for people I ask to read my writing; they wouldn't have to download a document, save it on their computer, and then e-mail it back. They could simply make the edits on a web version.

One of the best features of Google Docs is the revision history tool. This allows you to go through each of the revisions made and actually revert to previous versions of the document and see the changes each individual has made. A definite drawback is not being able to "track changes" in color as a traditional word document does, but Google Docs is a lot more tidy.

Google Docs, much like Word, also allows you to insert pictures, links, tables, and comments. The comments feature allows you to communicate with those assisting in the editing process; you can leave comments for them for specific areas for which you'd like to draw attention, and they can leave comments for you or for other editors.

A brief aside: I'm currently working on chapter 2 of my dissertation and I have had my parents read it. Although they may not have much experience with academic research, they interact with Latinas a great deal. My hometown is predominantly Hispanic/Latin@, and has become more so in recent years. My mother still works in my hometown, at a Catholic grammar school, and has actually learned Spanish through synthesis with the parents and students. She will often have them speak to her in Spanish and she speaks to them in a modified "Spanglish" and they can understand one another. Although I have e-mailed them the original document, I think for the future I may have them look at it on Google Docs.