Start the week

The number of posts in this blog has passed 50. Aren't i working hard? ;)

Anyway, to-do list for this week

Dissertation-related tasks listed in the last post

Abstract and cover - not listed in the last post

updating for something to do

Not much actual work going on here due to being tired and slightly ill, but i did at least get my arse into gear and find out how to seperate out respondents' answers on surveymonkey. That makes it much more useful and me slightly less useless.

drifting by

No work on my dissertation today - a day's faffing around is my reward for finishing that chapter. :) I have started trying to put together an interview for the non-horizontalist left, also working on the one to follow on from the current survey. Also i made my first proper contribution to Culture hits and gendered bits, a shared blog.

late additions to yesterday

Started planning more data collection - i made some suggestions in my dissertation for how movement effectiveness could be measured, so thought that putting sample questionnaires in as an appendix might be useful in illustrating this. (putting together a whole damn framework would be good, but over-ambitious, even though i do have quite a lot of time.) It doesn't commit me to definitely using the things.

Stated

My last major dissertation chapter (critique of the assumption that social movement effectiveness can be measured in terms of impact on the state) is finished! Weighs in at a little over 4,000 words, making it the longest thing i've written this year.

Still to do on that score:

Tidy up chapter on social movements theory, nothing like up to scratch

Conclusion

Check introduction - does it still match the rest of the paper?

Front page - title, table of contents

Proofread/edit the whole thing

Eventually, print and get bound

Ok, the thing itself isn't that near completion, but getting the bulk of the writing out of the way is still an achievement...

Research tasks digest

Digest-ed from the last few posts:

Create survey specifically designed for 'the (vertical) left' as opposed to anarchists/horizontalists. (Surveymonkey does at least appear a good point from which to start putting out feelers)

Break down representation question to get a more detailed picture of opinions on this.

Put together email interview for the people who agreed to do one - preferably sooner not later since folks may be more inclined to reply when it's fresh in their minds.
-See which areas need more detail (combine this with representation breakdown?)

Also, another pipeline addition:

Call for submissions from Seal Press, young feminists' anthology. (Strictly on an if-there's-time basis. Also, they don't want loads of theory, so that will be a challenge!)

Tuesday, can't think of a clever lyric for this one

More dissertation. Didn't measure how long i worked, but think i wrote a decent amount. Made a lot of use of survey answers, anyway. (Having one's own data to draw on is quite satisfying!) I think mixing the types of questions worked out well - i have some good stuff from the long answers, which i can make use of right now, but the statistics will come into their own when i have a greater number of responses. (what 60% of 11 people did isn't that conclusive really...)
I can forsee problems using surveymonkey for anything more advanced than an MA, since i haven't figured out how to identify respondents. (nothing confidentiality-breaking, but you are supposed to know who they are and assign them numbers for statistical analysis and psuedonoms to attribute quotes to)
The advantage, however, is not having to do as much quantitative analysis myself, since that's my major weak point. Plus, my final question is 'would you be prepared to participate in a more detailed interview', so i've collected the email addresses of the folks who said yes. (Next task: put said interview together!)
All in all i'm in a better frame of mind than yesterday, so that helped the work along.

No its just another monday morning, do it all over again

Did a bit on my dissertation today. Quite slow work because i haven't touched it for a while. If i can finish it, or at least finish this major chapter this week, i'll be happy. (and able to have a proper holiday for the rest of summer...)
I've started to advertise the survey, and have had ten responses so far. Not really enough to draw a conclusion, but the answers to the open-ended questions are already proving useful. So if any participants are reading, thank you!
The question on representation goes to show that i don't phrase my questions in order to get the responses i want! I think i'm going to do another mini-survey (or create an interview, at some point) breaking that idea down into it's component parts to get a better idea of what people think.

Fieldwork pipeline post

My interviews will need to include some on the left (SWP, RCP etc) - their perspective on horizontal organising. (my personal experience when briefly involved in the SWP is that views range from 'counter-revolutionary' to 'nice idea but doesn't work'.)

'Tis done

My portfolio is handed in! Not totally without incident - i somehow mislaid the first page of the 'meeting your supervisor' section so had to handwrite a replacement, forgot to print out the email from Springer confirming that my article had arrived and thus had to do that this morning, and one of the disks with my powerpoint presentation on fell out while i was handing the thing in at the office. (which i had to do because two ringbinders attatched together do *not* fit in the essay drawer!)
Anyway, i don't know how good it is, but at least it's done.

Monday, monday

Have done the printing and photocopying i needed to, and bought some ringbinders.

Pipeline post

Longer-term to-do list:

• Follow up calls for submissions from Ephemera and Zmag (linkage in sidebar)
• Locate 'instructions for authors' from Anarchist Studies (isn't online, need to find paper copy at uni)
• Put together an application for an Institute for Anarchist Studies grant
  

New and exciting to-do list

Still to do re portfolio:

• Print 'meeting your supervisor' bit (only on file at uni)
• Print another copy of 'Contention and consensus'
• Photocopy evidence where there's currently only one copy
• Print PowerPoint slides (have to do at uni, haven't got PPoint at home)

Tasks not re portfolio:

• Finish dissertation (top priority, natch)
• Review of The Morning After for The F-Word
• Try to produce something for the Political Studies Association conference (someone is trying to put together a panel on anarchism)
• Enter the Lantern Books writing contest (one of their themes is animal rights/environmental activism)
  

Achieving objectives, skin of teeth edition

Yay me, i finished the grids!
Pity the printer has to jam halfway through - skills training has not equipped me to deal with that. ;)

End of week update

Have been working slowly (probably too slowly) through the grids. Am stumped by the 'on completing your dissertation' bit - the reason i haven't completed it is because i've been working on this thing. The dissertation deadline is three weeks or so after this one. I'm nearer to completion than anyone else i know. So, yeah, confusing.

update Aug 10

Reports finished. 'Just' the grids to do now, and printing stuff.

at close of business...

Completed since last update

• Ethics statement
• Report 1: Practical skills
• Report 2: Presentation and communication skills
• Added new developments to mindmap
• Decided one more report category, career development, was needed

To do tomorrow/Wednesday (when i'm in)

• Report 3: Research skills
• Report 4: Career development
  
• Hopefully fill in some grids, now i have an electronic copy of the portfolio to hand

Dissertation: on hold for a few days while sorting portfolio out - i want to get back to it as soon as possible!

'Extra-curricular'

• Apply for phone job - sort out references and stuff (subject to ESRC decision?)
  
• Review of Katie Roiphe's The Morning After for The F-Word UK (feminist website)
  

While i think of it

I've also been working on some stuff over at my other blog, the Opuscular Outpost The latest post there is part of a draft of a manifesto (although i hate that word) on preventing sexual violence in an anarchist society.

Update on to-do list

Completed

• CV
• Press release
• Mindmap (subject to thinking of new stuff to add)
• Sorted out what reports needed writing, courtesy of mindmap.
  

Still to do

• Write reports
• Print completed stuff (currently involves carrying laptop into the next room, so holding off until i have more to print)
• Finish ethics statement, make it more reflective.

Reports breakdown

• Research skills
• Practical skills
• Presentation and communication (eg media) skills