Writing the Dissertation- Part 2: TRANSCRIBING and ATTACKING WRITER'S BLOCK

OK folks, here are my lessons for the week:

1- TRANSCRIBE YOURSELF-As painful as transcribing 30 hours worth of interview recordings may seem, DO IT YOURSELF. Plan accordingly, because it takes a looooooooooonnnnnnnnnggggg time!!!! However, doing it yourself allows you to begin raw analysis and "thinking through the data".  To me, transcribing served the purpose as the first read recommended by many qualitative researchers (Mchatton, class lecture, spring 2011), which leads me to my next lesson and time saving trick- write as you go.

2- WRITE AS YOU GO- If your brain works anything like mine it is on super power idea flow at all times, especially when I am reading.  This is a beautiful, bittersweet, thing. For, if I do not capture my ideas as they zoom past, I loose them, or worse yet, when I try to re-create them on paper later, they are a garbled mess with no organization (almost like a flow of consciousness that only I can follow) bc I've lost the higher order connection that sparked the idea in the first place- and that, my faithful readers, leads to HORRIBLE writing.  SO..... ALWAYS have your ms.doc chapter 4 (and even Ch. 5 if you're that good) notes open and ready for action. Then, type away- put in place holders with all caps, "WRITE SOMETHING HERE" if you can't remember exact quotes or data points.  Also, try to keep it organized based upon your pre-decided structure (see dissertation part 1 post) and even allow for sub-headers to sneak their way in as they emerge/fit. You can always change them later.  This will save you from the feared "writer's block" when you attempt to write the final chapter.  Heck, I already had more than 15 pages, organized by research question, theme, and participant sub-group before analysis was  complete. I, of course, need to fill it in to make it smooth, but that's a pretty good start if you ask me!

So that's it for now- remember: TRANSCRIBE YOURSELF and WRITE AS YOU GO!