Wednesday, October 12, 2005

I don't think anyone is reading this, so I'm feeling safer about posting. Then again, people could be reading this - so this could be a bit embarrassing. True confession time. I'm really struggling with the reading. First of all I haven't been in school for several years. But even then, I don't think I had much experience with analytical/critical reading. I'm pretty good at just reading articles. I can usually understand what I'm reading and could repeat some concepts.

But these classes expect way more than that. The professors want us to really understand the concepts. To think about whether the author's viewpoint is right or wrong. To know the background of the time when the article was written. To think about things the author didn't think about. To ask questions about the article and answer them. And on and on.

My brain is maxed out just trying to stay focused on all the readings and get them done for the next class! Let alone analyze them all and figure out how they apply to me and information science and the main themes of the class. Plenty of other people don't seem to be struggling at all. I'm sure plenty are struggling to get into this - I just haven't found them.

Well, I've got some reading to do now...

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I totally feel you. Welcome to the world of psychology. You have to know the historical context that the author is writing from the social context and on and on, then to make it even harder there are only a handful of people who write on certain topics so the develope a type of shorthand and by the time you catch on you have to turn around and re-read everything. And in areas that are saturated with research coming up with something new is freaking hard, and when you decide that maybe combining two areas will result in new information for the general population, well good luck trying to link all the background research in a coherent manner and then providing ethical research. It just blows the mind.

But i am sure that you will do just fine in all your classes, i mean, you were always the smart one...right?