Writing thingys
So at the moment I am (procrastinating on) creating my syllabus for the academic writing course in Istanbul that I want to teach. I haven't taught academic writing in a classroom setting before, so the process is revealing to me the gaps in my own formal education. It's funny when you consider yourself a strong writer for so long that you forget that there is much to improve always. In fact, I haven't written a research paper in what, a decade? Most of the writing I've had the pleasure of doing has been analytical or critical of the arts (book analysis, architectural criticism, etc.) I haven't a clue, actually, how to go about researching and writing on some of the topics that I am interested in here at school.
So this syllabus has taken me on a journey through academic writing and reminded me that the best way to learn something is to try teaching it.
I have a ton of work to do today: after I write this syllabus, I have to write my CV and cover letter....and then move on to the onerous task of writing an abstract for a couple of conferences coming up next fall. The Society for the Social Study of Science (4S) and the Society for Visual Sociology are both accepting abstracts. I have a proposal written out but it's too vague. I have to narrow the scope, and currently, this is my greatest challenge. The topic of research is complexity theory as embodied in network visualizations on the web. This comes in many forms, both popular and scholarly. The crux is figuring out how to ask a challenging and narrow question: not just how complexity affects "society" but WHO does complexity affect and HOW? Why do I choose one population or another? I also have to ground this in a methodology (I'm going with a visual ethnographic approach) as well as situate the discussion within current discourse in sociology. So here comes Foucault again, that jerk.
Anyway, I'll post the abstract when I manage to finish it. I'm heading upstate with Jenn to overnight in some cabin and check out some kind of historical blah blah blah. I love trains.
So this syllabus has taken me on a journey through academic writing and reminded me that the best way to learn something is to try teaching it.
I have a ton of work to do today: after I write this syllabus, I have to write my CV and cover letter....and then move on to the onerous task of writing an abstract for a couple of conferences coming up next fall. The Society for the Social Study of Science (4S) and the Society for Visual Sociology are both accepting abstracts. I have a proposal written out but it's too vague. I have to narrow the scope, and currently, this is my greatest challenge. The topic of research is complexity theory as embodied in network visualizations on the web. This comes in many forms, both popular and scholarly. The crux is figuring out how to ask a challenging and narrow question: not just how complexity affects "society" but WHO does complexity affect and HOW? Why do I choose one population or another? I also have to ground this in a methodology (I'm going with a visual ethnographic approach) as well as situate the discussion within current discourse in sociology. So here comes Foucault again, that jerk.
Anyway, I'll post the abstract when I manage to finish it. I'm heading upstate with Jenn to overnight in some cabin and check out some kind of historical blah blah blah. I love trains.