Research Skills: Journaling

Application

Research Skills: Journaling

Journaling is one important tool that a researcher can use to study, observe, and reflect on collected data. For this week's Application, you will practice your journaling skills. You will then compose a paper detailing your experience of journaling, and an analysis of how journaling could be useful in your future research.

To prepare for this Application:

• Review the Janesick readings for this week.
• Consider the potential usefulness of journal writing for the personal and professional development of a qualitative researcher.
  
• For three consecutive days, write in a journal for 15 minutes (to be completed in one sitting). You may write by hand, or use a computer. Consider using Exercise 4.5: Reflective Journal Writing Practice on pages 96-97 for a suggestion of what you could write about for your journal periods.
  
• At the end of each 15-minute session, take a few moments to review what you have written, then take an additional 10 minutes to reflect on the journaling experience, writing down your reflections on what you have written and on the journaling experience in general. How can journaling help you develop as a researcher?
  

The assignment:

• Craft a 3-page paper in which you do the following:
  
• • Render an account and an analysis of your journal writing experience.
    
  • Be sure to include considerations of how journal writing can help with the development of a qualitative researcher, or a researcher in general.