Abstract

I've had one of *those* afternoons - trying to write an abstract for a conference panel I was invited to be part of (yes I know that is terrible grammar, my brain is scrambled!). My original plan didn't really go anywhere, and in the end I have decided to widen out the scope of the paper, using my original plan as a case study within it.

I don't know what it is about abstracts, it's only a couple of hundred words but it seems to take for ever and ever to write anything, and I still am not especially pleased with it! Writing the whole paper is usually easier!

This picture is the cover of my current research notebook. I'm really not at all organised when I'm sorting out my work and thoughts, but I have found, since my PhD fieldwork, that a hardback notebook is the best thing for me to work out in my head what I'm thinking. I know I could do it all in a word document, but that just doesn't work for me, I need to physically write down lists and plans and draw arrows and cross things out in order to clarify in my head where I'm going with my thoughts. It's not organised at all in the book, it's got notes from observations at work, plans for journal articles from the PhD, rough ideas for tutorials for my OU courses, all in a random order. I probably won't ever go back and read it systematically, but the actual writing out does help at the time.