November Goal Post
What is this project if not a series of related goals?
For November, there are a few things all happening at the same time. On Tuesday, I've got my second committee meeting to approve the experimental design, methods, and materials sections (more on that in a little bit). Then, on December 1st, two weeks from today, I am looking to submit my next SDA which will be a children's picture book about the importance of C. elegans to the scheme of research - basically, why we need them. To show progress and make this SDA characteristic of my most recently approved sections, I will write the narrative of the book from the perspective of a worm going through the experimental design process I have formulated. With this, I hope to portray a positive relationship between the worm and the scientist with the hope of showing readers that studying C. elegans is really quite helpful to understanding things we seek to learn about humans. At the same time, as I'm working on my SDA, I am working on putting together a second, (hopefully) better podcast than my first SDA. That initial one, while not well executed, presented a wonderful learning opportunity as it showed me just how much I needed to work on my communication skills. Also, the podcast is really convenient in that it requires communication but it also requires creativity so my work on the podcast over the past time has fulfilled the task of a "mini-SDA" that I've alluded to in the past. The purpose of these small assignments is to ensure that between SDAs, while I'm working towards producing my thesis, creativity does not become a totally foreign concept. So although this podcast is in no way "mini," its stages of preparation are helping me to remain creative and ask certain questions that move me along the way throughout my project.
I suppose that I should write with respect to the five Cs now. Communication is a given goal and it will most likely always be like that for no other reason than the fact that it's immensely important and I'm also not very good at doing it. That said, I think I am tackling a fair amount of communication skills in the next couple weeks. On Tuesday, I'll have to take all the feedback from my first meeting (one of the bigger things being to have more clarity in what I'm saying) and make sure that I fix whatever went wrong. And then both of the SDAs, although they cover communication in different ways, focus on the skill set required to communicate a story that interests my audience and also presents accurate, valuable information.
Also, this is kind of a random note, but I think I've decided on a total of five meetings for my thesis. After hopefully receiving committee approval on the experimental design sections on Tuesday, I'll really only have one more group of sections to write and get approved. So besides my literature review (which I'm working on also in the background through all of this), I'm thinking the next meeting would be towards the middle-end of January, beginning of February at the latest, to approve the results, discussion, and suggestions for further research sections as they all kind of lend themselves to one another. I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but assuming that all plays out, I would then have approximately three months to do any rewriting and most importantly, craft the story that I am trying to tell through my thesis. At the end of this process then, I would plan for another meeting to get holistic approval and also give enough time for sending out my paper to external readers. Now, if you noticed, I said I was going to shoot for five meetings, but then only listed four. I say five only because there is absolutely no way all of this will go as planned, so in the case that we need two meetings for something, we've got a safety net of five total. But, it is only November and no one really knows what will happen in between now and Tuesday, even. So as Mr. Bott tells me, hope for the best, plan for the worst. (He also tells me not to put the cart in front of the horse which I'm pretty sure I just did but let's just ignore that). On more a serious note though, the beauty of this whole process, is that it is malleable and will continue to evolve as long as time moves forward. Although I'm not the best at adapting or adjusting to change, I do recognize that it is inevitable.
I'm kind of excited to see how this SDA turns out as I have never even attempted anything like it in the past. I also hope to utilize collaboration in this assignment as many others in emc have quite the artistic knack and can give me feedback on the various illustrations I come up with.
Oh, also, for our Operation Collaboration assignment from earlier this week, Noah provided me with 5 questions to ask myself when journaling to make sure that each journal is purposeful and communicates effectively. Here is the list;
Would people want to read this if they weren’t interested in the Glymphatic System or Alzheimer's? Meaning, would people read this for fun?
Would people need a glossary to read this?
Have I explained concepts with relatable metaphors? Ex. If the brain is a house, the Glymphatic System is the plumbing.
Did I write any words that could be simpler? Remember, your journals and your thesis should be two wildly different things. There’s no real reason to say “in vivo” or “longitudinal study” in a journal.
Have I rambled too much? Rambling can be kind of boring to read, especially if someone doesn’t know much about your topic. After writing a journal, go through and edit out the 5 most rambly sentences.
I will also focus a little bit on using these questions as a test of my writing's focus and personability. My goal with that is to develop a more widely accepted manner of communication. One of those places is in my writing and these questions can help be a guide for me.