danieleWrites

Forgot to mention. You should have read the literature before you concluded your research. We have an idiom for doing work before reading the literature: re-inventing the wheel. You should read the literature first for a variety of reason. First, you want to make sure that you're not repeating someone else's work (not plagiarizing, but doing the same thing someone else did). You're an undergrad, so they're going to be forgiving about grading, but if you have ambition, you should do what you can to make sure you're not repeating someone else's research. There is an exception! If you are deliberately repeating someone else's research for a purpose, rather than by accident. Many people duplicate research to verify someone else's results. Second, you want to make sure that your research hasn't already been proven or, worse, disproven. You can't do that if you don't check. Third, the literature review will help guide your research by helping you focus it, or giving you ideas of things to question and discover that you might not have had. Literature reviews should have several sources in them, not just a two or three. Or, ack!, one. This is not a high school paper where you already know what you're going to say, you just need to find some sources to support you. This is a college paper where the first step is to read sources and use synthesis to focus your work. Synthesis, in this context, is taking specific information (data), finding patterns in the data, and arriving at conclusions. It's inductive reasoning. You should take the sources you've read, and combine the data they offer into a paragraph or two. Here's a link to an article on an open source, online journal: http://www2.bgsu.edu/departments/english/cconline/FromManuscripttoDigital/ This article is about composition, but it's generally readable to non-composition scholars as the English it uses is more conversational than formal. You can see how the literature review has been worked into the paper. You should go online to the databases your university offers and find peer-reviewed journals in your field. Use the articles in these journals as a guide for constructing your paper.

Since you haven't told us what discipline you're working in, we can't give you a reasonable accurate idea of what "review of the literature" means and what types of publications you can use. Generally, literature reviews involve two types of information. 1) The theory in use. 2) Work others have done like yours or similar to yours that you have read in order to prepare to do your own research. Most of what's in a literature review is the second type of information. This depends on the field! If your paper is about how quantum particles vibrate, there's no need to mention that you're working with quantum theory. If your paper is about the use of Twitter during the Arab Spring, you would have to explain the theoretical perspective you're working with because there are several available. Generally speaking, you would work with a hierarchy of sources. Peer-reviewed journal articles first. Non-peer-reviewed journal articles second. Dissertations, next. Theses, last. Non-scholarship would be used not at all. Generally speaking, literature reviews are done to put your work into the context of the scholarship that's been done. This means that you would have read the published scholarship of others who are doing research similar to yours. You would then explain what they've done in the literature review, and where your research fits into the ongoing conversation on the subject. Discourse (the work done in a field) is an ongoing conversation that anyone in the field can participate in. Most papers written never get published, so never seem to be part of the discourse. But they are, even if the only people who read them are the author and the person who grads it/rejects it for publication. The literature review is very important because it helps the reader understand where you are in the conversation, who you're responding to, and what purpose your work serves in adding to the conversation.

I would add one other thing to the "practice English" advice so far. Find out what courses you'll be expected to TA in, find out the books they use, buy the books, and then read them out loud. It's one thing to use mass media for English skills, but it's another thing altogether to use terminology and phrasing from your field. If possible, see if you can find online videos that offer instruction in your field or a related field. Coursera, Khan academy, education-portal, other MOOCs. There are tons of free, online course offerings in the US. Youtube, if you can access it, has practically everything. Since you're not trying to learn the subject, but rather how to use English to speak about the subject, it doesn't matter if the people giving video/audio lessons are trustworthy teachers, or offering lessons that will advance you in your field. Chinese is a tonal language while English is an analytic language (Chinese uses tone to indicate whether ma means mother or horse; English uses the position of the word in the sentence). This kind of all boils down to pronunciation and syntax (how to say it and where it goes in a sentence). Reading stuff in your field out loud will help you work out pronunciation and phrasing before your first day of class. I can't imagine trying to figure out how to say metamafic in another language without a lot of practice. If the book is out of reach, and you're still able to access journal articles in English, you can read them out loud, as well. In my previous university, a few international students taught composition courses. While they wrote better English than the average American, they didn't speak English well. Sometimes, their accents were too thick for students to understand. I know this because students complained a lot. Anyway. Here's the thing. Your ability to GTA in the US has nothing to do with your native country, beyond your ability to express the concepts in English, understand questions and respond to them, in English. Sure, students will complain about your English skills. If you were American, they'd complain about your voice, your fashion sense, the place you stand/sit during class, how often you use the book in class, whether or not you use a pencil or a pen, your religions, your politics, your state residency, your facial features, your (insert anything and everything here). You've been offered the GTA. Accept it! What's the worst that can happen? You fail at GTAing and don't get it renewed by the department. A number of universities offer TAships in the language department to international students whatever their department. My previous institution offered Asian languages, but only when an international student from Asia could be enticed to teach them. Anyway, good teaching is about knowing your stuff, having confidence in yourself, and having concern for and patience with students. Yeah, they're going to say and think things that are hurtful, but it won't be because you're from China. They do that with everyone. Even the most beloved teacher on campus gets some student hate. Mostly, you'll never hear it.

Unless your school doesn't do teacher evaluations, your department already knows he's a crappy teacher. But he's got tenure, right? And he's a full professor, right? Not much that can be done about getting rid of him. There are things that can be done if the department is willing, but there's not much you can do as a student and TA. I would suggest that you speak with a full professor that you trust in an off-the-record fashion for some advice. This person knows the rules for faculty of his stature and what you can and cannot do. At the very least, s/he might have some advice as to what to tell the students. If nothing else, you'll feel better because you did something and someone listened to you. Probably the most important thing you can do for your students is be there to listen to their frustrations and complaints. But this is a be-careful thing. A sympathetic ear that commiserates with the situation can do wonders for student confidence, to assure them that it's not them, it's him; but you don't want to say anything or be put into a position by a student trying to use your words to better their situation. But Mr. Hobbes said... isn't going to hold any weight with anyone else they complain to. Students are usually good people who wouldn't want to do anything to bring trouble down on your head, but they haven't the first clue about how a university works, let alone how teacher hierarchy works. They know that Doctor has more expertise and authority than TA, but they don't know that, as far as the university is concerned, you're lumped in the student category with them, not with the doctors. You can also dispense advice. Hand out Twain's homily: Don't let school get in the way of a good education! Talk about cost-benefit analyses in a realistic way. What good would it do poem-Becky to spend hours and hours fighting for a grade she can't get because of the teacher to the detriment of her other classes? The most important bit of advice you can dispense involves how your university's grade appeal policy works and how long, after the semester ends, they have the option to appeal. And, particularly, that should a student feel it in their best interests to file a grade appeal, they should keep a record of everything and only send copies, not originals. For example, emailing the professor directly rather than talking about it after class or in office hours. Or, if they talk about it, put their phone, already recording, on the table/desk and inform the professor that the conversation will be recorded and would he like a copy emailed to him. States have varying laws about recording people and how that can be used, but all states are okay with it if all parties concerned know they're being recorded. Most especially they should keep the originals of the assignment instructions, the rubric (if possible), and their graded work. At any rate, grade appeal policies are in the student handbook, but students never pay attention to or remember this kind of thing, which means they don't feel that there's anything they can do when the grading is unfair. And because they feel they can't do anything about it, they feel powerless and get angry. I consider teaching students how to effectively advocate for themselves in the university one of the responsibilities of a lower division course. We're all human and make grading errors, or other errors that upset students, and they need to know the appropriate way to deal with it to the satisfaction of both parties. On top of that, most students in lower division courses came straight out of high school or a gap year, and all the advocating for their interests was done by someone else. I suppose I think this way because I teach two of the four courses every single undergraduate in the US has to take to get a degree (comp 1 and 2, public speaking, and algebra). Anyway, tell them who they can turn to for help (like their academic adviser, the counseling center, dean of students office, or something), and to practice the conversation with a friend, before having it. I imagine that if he had a line of students waiting for him to justify his grades, his assignment "instructions," and his "rubric" before they took it to their grade appeals to the chair, or dean, or whatever, he'd change his ways. One thing you can do about him, personally, because you and your fellow TA have access to both grades and students, is to see if you can find grading patterns. If he's writing and publishing "poetry" about grading based on curves, odds are he's probably doing it for realsies. If so, he's violating Title IX. If Dr. Dog is violating Title IX, the university has to do something about him. If his grading patterns show that he is grading based on sex and attractiveness, you have something that you can take to the department head that the department head can actually do something with. Because you're a TA, you can bring it to the department head quietly, on the downlow, without putting anyone on the spot right away. This can come back to bite you, though.

I've never been near someone who watched porn during class, but I was near one who torrented anime. I poked him enough to get his attention and told him to get away from me or I'd start yelling and force the prof to do something. If it had been porn, I would have started yelling like a wet cat. Oh My Gawd, dude, we're in class. If you want to spank the monkey get a room. That looks like one of the Golden Girls! She's naked! Gross! What can I say, humiliation is a spectator sport. This has been an interesting thread and I'm really glad someone started it and that so many people have had so many well-thought replies. I've learned a lot. I've TA'd and adjuncted and then TA'd again for years. I started out with a draconian cell phone policy, mostly because my fellow students' texting habits always hosed up lecture for me. At first. And then I got all bent out of shape as the first semester wore on. I eventually figured out that cellphones and computers (all electronic devices, really) have three issues involved: attention, student learning outcomes, and disrespect. Attention is what we all seem to focus on. They can't pay attention if they're texting. They keep others from paying attention. And so on. We all know that there's a direct correlation between the amount of attention paid in class and student learning outcomes. Disrespect is where, in my unresearched opinion, the upset comes from. After all, we don't grind our teeth and arrrrgh! when they're doodling or peeling their split ends. It's the electronic devices that do it for us. And it's not just that by texting they're disrespecting the teacher, they're also disrespecting other students, and the people who are footing the bill for their education. In the end, I think the cell phone thing and computer thing comes down to control. By banning the use of devices and punishing students (participation points, asking them to leave, making jokes about why they're smiling at their hands moving in their laps--or is that just me?) we are trying to control how they use their attention. We might have the best of intentions in doing so, but even if we collected all electronic devices at the door, we still can't control how they use their attention. I wrote, pencil and spiral notebook, my first novel during algebra 1. The outcomes for both sucked. Personally, I've decided this is a battle that can't be won because ultimately, it's a battle for their attention in class, not over a device. I don't have participation points, don't have attendance points, and ignore devices unless they're bothering others. Instead, my first day of class is all about the word adult and my relationship with them, as adults. I tell them I love teaching, but kids give me hives so I picked college for a venue, and we should now have a moment of pitying silence for my child who managed to be well-adjusted despite his mom. I tell them that they're adults now, legally if not emotionally, and it's not my job to parent them. It's my job to provide the education they paid for the opportunity to have. We discuss how much it costs. There's even math. I like math. Amortizing student loans on the board in a composition class? Priceless! I explain why I don't bother with attendance points, participation points, and what not. They serve no pedagogical purpose beyond directly incentivizing good student behavior. Then we talk about the relationship between grades and participation. Though, I do like the idea of reseating device-zombies on the peripheries. Anyway, whether these things work or not for my students? The only device-use change I've noticed between my Stalin phase and my it's all cool, brah, phase is that they put them on the desk instead of in their laps. It does work for me, personally. I'm way more zen these days, and I have noticed a major shift in the number of students who will approach me for help, clarification, and whatnot. Stalin is not a good look on me, apparently.

I totally feel ya on the interdisciplinary thing. I want to focus my research on the sociology of literature, but I'm coming up through the literature track. The literature-ologists don't know what to do with a sociology paper (once again: pitched battle. my data set is stuff that went out of fashion a century ago) and the sociologists don't know how to work with me (the soc. of literature isn't big these days). A literature-ologist once told me that I can't use Marx to examine precapitalist literature. Puh-leeeeeeeze. Well, to be fair, most of them only read the Gundrisse, and usually only a summary thereof. When I get around to my dissertation, I'll be doing work that my adviser doesn't have the first clue how to do. (Statistics? We don't need no stinking statistics! And the sociologist I'd hoped to have on committee retired in January. Le sigh. If the lack of communication with her is causing problems in moving forward with your thesis, you may have to beard the dragon in her den. She has to work with you. You have to work with her. Swapping advisers at this point would be awful. Drop by her office hours, settle yourself in her visitor-chair, pretend her oh-gawd-I-don't-want-to-deal-with-this-now face is indigestion, and hammer out a communication plan. You're way cool with understanding her side of the story, but she likely completely misunderstands you. Because you're so open to working with her and you want from her what she wants to give you (guidance not hand holding), you aren't asking her for anything she's unwilling to give. I'm a big believer in clarifying when a breakdown in communications seems to be going on. It may not help her help you, but you can point to how you did try to work with her should you have to take the issue up with someone higher up the food chain (direct of graduate studies in the department, for example). An uncommunicative adviser at this point in the thesis process is not a good sign.

I read the newer thread before I read this one. My bad. From what I gather, a thesis committee cannot work as a committee from the very beginning. You can't get feedback on every step from every person on the committee. They'll disagree and you won't get anywhere. It's more important for you to think of your adviser as the gatekeeper of the committee. With every step of the process, you'll go through her first, and then on to the others. She'll let you know when whatever stage of work you're at is ready for the committee to look at. They aren't teachers. You're doing the research yourself, but at every stage, the adviser is there to herd you toward the path to success. You should have had at least two methodology courses (one in undergrad and one during the MA) by now. You should know how to design and implement a research project. To echo geologizer, your adviser and your committee expect you to be able to manage a research project on your own. They're there to steer you back when you go off course, not to verify that you're doing it right. The fact that you spent months revising and revising and revising your research proposal because you didn't feel it was ready, and you wanted your adviser and your committee to what? Be supportive how? You write a proposal draft, send it to the adviser, the adviser tells you what to fix (not what you did right), you fix it and send it back, she tells you what to fix, repeat last two steps until she tells you to send it to the others in the committee. They send you minor fixes, if necessary, and then your proposal is approved. You move on. You use your proposal to guide how you complete your research project. You don't email your committee often. It's your advisers job to guide you through the process, not the committee's. They come in when your adviser feels that you need their help, or when they need to approve the next step of the process. It sounds as if your adviser and your committee are frustrated with you. You want guidance (not hand holding), but you may be asking them for hand holding without realizing it. Send your adviser an email with a subject line that requests a brief meeting about expectations for a thesis student. At the meeting, tell her that you think you've been going about things the wrong way, and that you're frustrated, and that you believe she is frustrated, so you'd like to clarify what she expects from you. Specifically, what she needs to approve before you proceed with something and what you need to do on your own. You should suggest that you alter how you communicate with her that best suits you both. Perhaps you should schedule weekly or bi-weekly meetings, to be changed as necessary during the course of the thesis. At the end of that meeting (and each meeting), you should ask her (if she hasn't already told you) what you should have ready for the next meeting. Theoretically, she's approved your proposal, your research design, and other things. You should know what needs her approval before you should do it, and you shouldn't concern yourself with approval in between those things unless you run into a problem that stops you (not an insecurity, but a problem). I would also suggest that you spend some time considering your personality and what you need from others, particularly your authority figures, for your emotional well-being, and how you go about meeting those needs. I don't mean this in a you're wrong way. I mean this in a self-awareness is useful way. Everyone is different, yanno? I have to tell my profs and advisers that they must be blunt with me, even if it seems rude and hurtful, because I rarely get hints. I get hurt feelings when they get upset because I never seem to realize "That's a great insight; thanks for sharing!" actually means "Shut the heck up and let someone else say something! Argh!" Anyway, it's about figure out what your needs are and then figuring out where your needs don't fit with your adviser's (and others) responsibilities (either for realsies or in their way of thinking), and then where to get those needs fulfilled. For example, if a person where to need a weekly dose of "you're doing fine, you're doing good work, don't give up!" and the adviser is the kind of person that thinks "just fix this one thing, see you next week" is high praise, that means cultivating a mentor somewhere else. Personally? I've haven't had problems with negative and/or discouraging profs and/or advisers even though I've had my share of profs/advisers with bad attitudes. My master's thesis was a pitched battle with my thesis adviser. We fought tooth and nail from the get-go. She thought I was being a stubborn, condescending know-it-all arguing just to argue (or so she told me). I thought she was myopic and hypocritical. Our weekly meetings generally involved a lot of "you can't do that" and "this is worse than before" and "change this and this and this and..." Anyway. I have a completed thesis that's been defended and signed. My thesis adviser and I still talk often. She thinks I'm stuck up and I think she's wearing blinders. I prefer my advisers to be hands-off. I come organized, prepared, and with a delineated list of expectations from both sides. I also know where to find the psychologist on campus for my perfectionist flare-ups. I don't accept "because I said so" and I feel free to argue. Any suggestion of change requires an answer a reason why. I don't think I have problems with advisers and/or profs simply because I really don't care if they like me or not. I need their professional approval and that professional approval is ultimately expressed by a signature on a thesis (and eventually a dissertation). I will modify my work and my behavior for that goal. Naturally, I like it when they give me personal approval, but it's not necessary. I find my personal approval elsewhere.

Advisers are under pressure, too. They have to have grades, reports, and blah blah blah all turned in on deadlines. Some of them are well-organized. Some of them are not, which means students get pushed to complete things quickly and, as a result, do worse than they might have otherwise. Nip it in the bud. You know that the end of the semester will be coming up soon, and that you have things to accomplish. If you haven't already done so, organize yourself, your time, and your research as much as possible. Do so in a way that you can track. A notebook, an app, google calendar, whatev. Then schedule a meeting with your adviser so that you can fit her expectations into your schedule in a way that works for both of you. This way, you're getting information about what you need to do and when it needs to be done, or what steps you need to take before you consult with her next, well in advance. At the end of the meeting, schedule your next meeting and have a list of things that she wants to see completed by that meeting. It's impossible for me to diagnose her personality type when it comes to deadlines, but the pushing to get stuff done? It often comes down to someone lacking time and/or research management.

I must admit to serious bias. You're in an organizational learning and leadership program. So be a leader. Don't fall for laissez faire propaganda. Soft skills are just as important as the hard skills you're getting from your program. You're not in a vo-tech; you're in grad school. Stepping up and leading doesn't mean babysitting these people; but it does mean that instead of turning down study groups because you don't see value in studying with people who haven't read the material, go to the study groups and ask them questions you've prepared in advance. Not because you should teach them, but rather because teaching is one of the most effective ways of learning. It also motivates others to think I'm not advocating that you take responsibility for their education, or for motivating them, or for any part of their trip through a grad program. I am advocating that you find ways to turn this situation to your advantage. The nice thing about doing so is that it also helps you cohort to a minor extent. You can't do it for them, but you can show them the way. That's what leadership is about, right?

I find myself wondering a bit at the phrase: we're friendly, but not friends. I wonder because this is shortly followed by the suspicion that he was manipulative. Perhaps he thought that friendly = friends? Some people will think of even shallow friendly relationships as friends while others only consider the deep, meaningful, bury-the-bodies relationships as friends. I'm an introvert; my guy is an extrovert. He considers the regular salespeople at his favorite specialty stores friends. I only give out the friend label to people that I'd donate a kidney to. Of course, there's the thing that's far more likely, and just as important for professional development: networking. Not only do grad students curry professional relationships with people already working in the field, but with people who will be going into the field with them. Collegial relationships in academia involve exchanges of information and maintaining social ties. People who reject networking often find the truth of the phrase: it's not what you know; it's who you know. And, no, you never leave behind the "borrow your notes" thing. People with tenure miss meetings for whatever reason and will borrow a colleague's notes (depending on the meeting). Of course, if this is more of a take-notes-for-me-while-I'm-never-ever-at-class, that would be different. That usually ends in undergrad.

Since you're not TAing the first year, get hired on in the Writing Center (should your uni have one). This will give you practical experience "teaching" in a one-on-one environment. Look for presentation opportunities and run with them. On the campuses I'm familiar with (granted, not many), Writing Centers will hire tutors from disciplines other than English, and gladly. Having someone in the field to help a writing center client out with a paper is pretty much livin' the dream, baby. What do English majors know about chemistry? Or physics? Or ag?

http://proswrite.com/2013/04/09/the-genre-of-research-articles-introduction-sections/ It's a way to understand an introduction for a paper, and that will often make the rest of the paper make some sense. While this is written more as a model for writers, it can be applied to reading as well.

Have you looked into public transit for an off-campus job?

For the first bunch of week in boot camp, someone would invariably sputter: but my recruiter said.... The RDC (Navy for drill sergeant) would invariably roll his eyes and reply: your recruiter lied. This was followed by an intense look of betrayal and, usually, a lot of push ups. We use words like "warn people" and "reality check" and pass judgment about that. Language is populated---overpopulated---with the intentions of others. However, at some point, we must all acknowledge the lies floating around. Society promises that college education = better job. It's simple math. Society promises that we're all individually valuable, and that the word "doctor" comes with respect, and that the costs of college in money, time, and emotional stress are worthwhile. Everyone's experience is different, but every single one of us believes that we'll be one of the lucky few to get tenure in the field we love, otherwise, we wouldn't be here. We jockey with each other with words like "top tier school" and "prestige" or any number of symbols that we place into complicated formulas to measure probabilities. But when it comes down to things like academic jobs and non-academic jobs, there is one, objective reality. There simply aren't enough professorships and many non-academic employment opportunities open to BAs or MAs are shut because of the PhD. No, it's no one's responsibility to "warn people" about this reality. It's not a public service. It's not fun to see these Donnie Downer posts here, or the articles in Chronicles of Higher Ed. But, these "warnings" are also nuggets of information with which people can add to their personal formulas to make decisions with. It's also a shared experience. We are all working our way through a decade or so of university education, through a lot of money, blood, sweat, tears, and time to reach for a dream. We are all sitting here, hoping and planning, that this decade doesn't turn into a mistake, and we don't end up as over-educated baristas by day and adjuncts by night. Whether these "warning" posts have a point seems less important than having shared a problem that, for most of us, the people that support us don't really feel. Perhaps we might even find some solutions that don't require legislative action (like that will happen; they can't even make a budget). Yes, I'm an optimist and all of my clouds are full of silver linings and when my parade is rained on, we all do a Buzby Berkeleyesque rendition of Singin in the Rain.

You definitely don't want him to go wandering around archeology conferences with a Tom Collins in hand telling everyone who'll listen what a disrespectful, thin-skinned whiner you are that enjoys wasting valuable time and resources just to turn traitor at the last moment for someone who'll coddle you. That means addressing the problem. I have to wonder, after reading your post, how much of the compatibility problems stem from your feelings of being the outsider? Even we prefer-to-work-alones need to feel like we're a welcome part of a group. Humans = social animals (darn it all). I wonder this because you made two mistakes. The first was presenting the team-player, low-maintenance facade by acquiescing to the group. The second was giving your adviser no feedback about the real problem, so he could only make judgments based on the project. Being assertive is ]i]not being high maintenance. Being submissive is not being low maintenance. So, now you're at a point where you switched advisers, but the old adviser thinks you did so because you couldn't handle the studenting part of it, and your inability to do the work prompted you to have some kind of primadonna moment. Your task is to change that impression of you, because that's not the way it is. So, yes, you need to speak with him. The problem with you not asserting yourself is that he likely had little to no idea that you weren't interested enough in the project to make it your thesis, and that you were having difficulties assimilating into the group. One of the major things about team work is that you have to treat yourself as an equally valuable part of the team, too. That means asserting yourself. So, he might have known a student that seemed easy-going and enthusiastic about the group, the program, and the thesis project, until things started going wrong and you started clashing with him. As the semester wore on, the problems he was aware of had to do with your work on the project, and eventually your responses to his criticisms, rather than your dislike of the project from the very beginning. So, when you swapped advisers completely out of the blue, what reasons for your switch did you give him to choose from? You should not return to your old adviser's project, but you should have enough respect for yourself and for him to tell him what the real problems are. That means meeting with him and explaining how, in your efforts to be a good student and a good part of the team, you never stood up for yourself, and, in retrospect, the only thing that did was cause problems for you, for him, and for the team. If you have the opportunity, practice your conversation (whatever it is for you) with your therapist or with someone else you do trust. That way you can work out what to say, how to say it, and stuff.

Something to understand is that every paper you read is part of a conversation. So, opening that article up? That's you walking into the middle of a conversation. I can't remember who wrote this, so, can't cite, but imagine you've arrived late to a dinner party where small groups of people are standing around in deep conversations that may or may not be related to the conversations other groups are having. This party has been going on for a long time, and will continue long after you leave. You find a group speaking about something that interests you, listen in until you feel you have the gist, and begin to offer your own opinions. Some people leave, others arrive, some change groups. Eventually, you leave for a while, until you have time to come back later and join in the conversation. A scholarly article is a fragment of one of those conversations. Some of it you simply will not get because it's replying to others that you have not read. You can't read everything in your field. You will be a bit lost. The key is to figure out the argument the writer(s) are adding to the conversation, and how that argument fits into the parts of the conversation you already know.

My first real research paper experience was my sophomore-ish (don't ask) year of undergrad. Did the full she-bang in a research methods course. Then I did another major research project the semester I graduated. Capstone project! I've spent the last few years trying to de-program sociology writing techniques out of my brain and re-programming it with literary research writing. Here's a truism: you learn to write the same way you learned to speak. With speaking, you developed your finesse with grammar and your strength with vocabulary by listening to people around you and speaking to them over the course of years. Writers learn the vocabulary, grammar, and how to finesse their writing by reading a lot of stuff in their particular discourse community, and doing a lot of writing. So. Crack open scholarly articles in your field and start reading. As far as research methodologies go, you should have some courses in your program, and if you have deficiencies due to your undergraduate program, most graduate programs will allow you to take an undergraduate course or two to make up for what you missed. That means talk to you adviser/DGS. And it also means breathe!

I totally feel ya. The thing about perfectionism, the actual anxiety perfectionism, is that it's not at all about creating the best whatever one can create. It's about trying to exert control over the uncontrollable. We are taught from birth that doing well is rewarded, and that putting effort into something results in doing better, and that is rewarded. So, putting even more effort into should make things even better. The difference between the anxiety perfectionism and someone who puts in a bit more extra effort type of perfectionism is trying to control what can't be controlled. If I check the font, make sure the margins are perfect, have the exactly right word choice in each spot, make the kerning the most aesthetically and professionally pleasing (and on and on and on and on) then I will do better (and doing better will guarantee the outcome that I want). Because there is no real guarantee that making my work as perfect as possible before turning it in will make the professor give me an A, or the journal accept it for publication, or win that award, or get into the conference, or whatever, that means that I just have to work that much harder to make it that much more perfect so I can feel safe about the reactions I will get. But I can't ever feel safe by trying to be perfect because I can't control what other people will do. I can just do my best and then let it go. So, yeah, cost-benefit analysis is seriously terrifying because it means that there's a point where it must stop. Letting go of making something better means acknowledging that I will not get that feeling of safety that comes from knowing my work is perfect because perfect doesn't happen, and even if it did, perfect doesn't give me control over other people. Looking myself in the eye (used a mirror) and telling myself that it was okay to fail (and meaning it, completely) gave me nightmares. Therapy is so, yeah.

I've got a Dell tablet that runs Windows 8.1 Pro with the full productivity suite. I got University 360 for 4 years for 80 bucks (student discount at the Microsucks store!) The Dell hardware is pretty meh in terms of larger tablet/smaller laptop power. Still, I started and manage an Access database on the thing. Excel works very well. I got a bluetooth keyboard to go with and one of these days I'll check in to using a bluetooth mouse, to see if that's possible. The OS can handle it, it's the OS you find on a desktop, but I don't want to buy a mouse that I can't use. The tablet is a touch screen and the big deal with the touch screen is that it doesn't work as efficiently for me as a mouse does. I have the stylus, but I haven't figured out how to make the stylus work the way the mouse does. Some tablets can do productivity and some can't. It starts with the hardware and kind of ends there to. Does it have the computing power to run the application along with everything else that has to run in the background? Is the application compatible with the OS? Can you use the tablet's user interface to interact with the application in a way that you find workable? Learning new peripherals can be a pain. I like the tablet a lot. I can tote it with me oh so easily (laptops weigh a ton after that tablet) and the battery lasts a lot longer. There are some things I can't don on a tablet because the screen isn't large enough, but I rarely do those things away from my desk at home. About the only nice thing I have to say about MicroSucks' new subscription model with their productivity suite is that the subscription comes with what they call web apps. I can use any program on any computer via the cloud (even Access). Freeaky. I just checked. I can run SPSS on my tablet (even though it says desktop only) because I have the hardware and the software capabilities. I only upgraded to the tablet because it had the desktop OS on it, not RT. I haven't found anything that says you can run SPSS on iPad (iOS not OSx) or Android, but I haven't looked that hard. Most productivity software aimed at the tablet market has business in mind.

Honeymoon phases. Yeesh. It will eventually wear off. At any rate, you have a situation to deal with that's causing you a lot of stress. The friendship that you'd had has shifted a bit and you can't change her. Starting and maintaining a cold war isn't going to make your life more bearable. However, it is your home, not his, and you have certain rights. Rather than think about this in terms of a lost friendship, try the approach where you accept that your roomie is going to make her own life choices and you don't have any say in who chooses to spend her time with. It hurts when friendships change so suddenly, but getting angry because she won't change really only hurts you in the long run. And it will likely only makes her cling more superciliously to her "soulmate" (how Twilight can you get?). I know that you aren't trying to control her, and that you just want to spend some time with her the way you used to, but you've done what you can and she's responded. You can repair the relationship, to an extent. You won't be besties or anything (she's got sparkly vampire for that), but you can have a cordial, civil relationship that will take a load of stress off of your shoulders and make your life less miserable until you can move out. So, sit her down when Edward-wannabe is in the can sharpening his fangs, and let her know that you're going to respect the relationship choices she's making and not bother her about them. Let her know that you would like to have a more friendly relationship with her than you've had in the past few weeks, one where everyone is civil and no one is doing anything passive aggressive, like bolting doors, silent treatments, or whatnot, because living in a tense apartment isn't good for anyone. Then explain that you'd like to work out some boundaries about the apartment, maintenance, guests, and other things. When she protests, remind her that you're here to get a degree and while it's her right to have guests in her home, it's also your right to have your home stress-free enough for you to do your studies. And that means having some apartment rules that you both abide by and you both agree to. However, you won't ask her to do anything you won't do yourself, so if you designate Mondays as a day her boyfriend can't come over, then you won't bring yours over, either (for example). Before you have this conversation, check your lease. There are usually rules about guests in them. And practice in the mirror. Finally, if nothing else, when you come home and they're cuddling on the couch, smile, say hello to both of them, and then go about your business. You can't make her act like a friend, but there's nothing that says that you can't handle the situation with grace.

One of my LOR writers was a month late. Srsly. A month. I got into my dream school.

What you describe is not collaboration on a project, but individuals not working together to accomplish a single goal. There is a difference between "babysitting" and working together. The scenario you describe? I agree with you. Why would you want to work in a group if the only thing expected of you is to do all of the group's work and/or to put up with others who refuse to pull their own weight or do anything but take advantage of you? Of course, I ask how refusing to consider options for mutual benefit is a remedy to this problem. My point wasn't that the members of the group are responsible for everyone else's education or opportunities. My point was that sometimes (not always) expediency should be set aside for the mutual (note the word is mutual, not individual) benefit of everyone in the group. In my case, it was expedient and of short term benefit for everyone in the group that I write the paper we had to turn in. It would have been more beneficial to everyone in the group (including me) if we had all written a paper and then picked the best paper, or combined parts of the papers, or whatever for the paper we turned in, even though this would have added hours and meetings and whatnot to the project time frame. This is not about babysitting and I'm with you: no person in any collaborative project should be responsible for another person's, um, edification. But, I also believe that there is room to negotiate the project that allow for individual members to get something out of it. I apologize for not being clear on that.