Bookends, but not the Right Kind

So June started and ended with rejection letters from journals. Not exactly the way I wanted the summer to go. As of May, I had three articles under review, and I've heard back from two. I guess I'd gotten used to the revise and resubmits of the last year, and I wasn't ready for back to back rejection letters. The first, I can see where they're coming from. The second, I really disagree--I think my piece made a substantial contribution, and one of the reviewers' comments was just completely wrong. For this second one, I feel like I can strengthen the rationale and tweak a couple of places and send it off again. I've already got a place in mind. For the first, I'm going to look back at it and plan with the feedback in mind. I may wait until the fall and collect a bit more data (small sample size was a definitely weakness). Either way it's a bummer. I have one under review still, and I have one that's just about ready for review. Someone told be that they'd look at it and give feedback but hasn't gotten back to me yet. I'll probably wait until late this week or early next week and then send it off. My goal is to always have something under review, and I don't want to delay.

Continued Problems with Intercoder Reliability

We still don't have publishable intercoder reliability. Once something is identified as important, there is decent agreement on the characteristics of what was said. The problem is in identifying what's important, in unitizing the data. With 20% done, I have to say that it doesn't look like this method is going to work. Grrr. So, Plans B and C.

All along, we've been planning to move from the Primetime "breadth" project to one or two shows in "depth." We planned to get DVDs or online versions of at least a season of one or two shows and look at our topics in the context of interactions rather than isolated from the rest of the season. With the show that we picked, I think that what I am studying will be more straight forward, so I'm hopeful that I can get useable data from this part.

Meanwhile, I am planning to go through all of the Primetime data and unitize it myself. I will record the show, disk, and time of each datum. Then, if there's time in the summer, I'll have everyone code the characteristics of that conversation. If there's not time, I'll save it for a directed studies project down the road. Frustrating, but it's such a cool project that I can't scrap it.

A brief break

Taking a short break. I'll be back on Wednesday, June 24.

Intercoder Reliability Woes

We spent a week coding 21 hours of video and the intercoder reliability on my part of the project was atrocious. The highest kappa among coders was .23, and several were negative, which means that they agreed less than could have been expected by chance. I don't know how that's even possible. Just guess and you could do better. I'm going to email the other person calculating reliability over the weekend and suggest a little more intercoder training next week. Perhaps asking people to look at each video twice. Grrrr. Not sure what to do if this part flops. I was kind of counting on it to work.

I officially finished the paperwork yesterday on a grant. Felt good to get it off my plate. My goal for the year was 3 grants, and I did it before the end of June. I've submitted 469K worth of grants this year. That's so tantalizingly close to half a million that I may submit one more before the end of the year.

Made good progress on a paper that's just about ready to send off. I asked my advisor if she could look over it, and I haven't heard from her. Her feedback is worth waiting for, so I'll probably wait until the end of the month or so. I really want this to go on this first try.

Back from The Teaching Professor

I went to the Teaching Professor conference this past weekend, and I learned a lot. A few sessions were people preaching to the choir about not over-relying on lecturing--if you care enough to go to that conference, you probably already know that. But I also got some really practical ideas that I'm using this fall including ideas for class discussions, for helping students engage reading, and for using writing to help students reflect on what they're learning. It was tough to travel a third weekend in a row, but it was a great conference.

Now I've got an extended stretch at home. This week is a "normal" week. Next week, my parents come into town. I love it when my parents visit, but obviously, a less productive week. Then a couple of weeks and more family comes to visit. I hope that this doesn't spell doom for my productive summer plans.

The training for my research group project is going slow. Obviously, we need to finish the training and move on to the main coding, but at this point, it's definitely a little behind. We finish the first intercoder reliablity round tomorrow. It would be fantastic for reliability measures to be good so that we can just move on to the main data, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm guessing at least one more round. But, we'll see. The nice thing is that I can see definite improvement in the coders that I've seen so far from the last time. That's good. In the meantime, I'm making sure that I know how to do the intercoder reliability stuff correctly. Anyone know how to calculate Guetzkow's U statistic? I find references to it everywhere, but I can't find a calculator online, nor can I find a citation that explains how to do it online.

Ok, I have to go finish the program review for my department. I probably would have had this onerous task done by now (kind of like a band-aid--not pleasant, so do it quickly), but I'm working with someone who has a different pace and different standards. But the deadline is Monday, so it has to be done soon.

End of the work week?

As I said Monday, I'm leaving tomorrow (VERY early) for a conference, so no post on Friday. I was worried about the week (my third abbreviated week), but just about everything got done that needed to be done. I tell people that I have had three 3-day work weeks, and they get excited. They don't understand that I'm trying to still do the same amount of work in a shorter time.

I'm working on a grant right now. It's based on the NSF grant that I submitted earlier this year. Basically, I worked so hard on the NSF that I want to use that work for other things. But this application takes a part of the NSF that was not the most interesting to me and focuses exclusively on that. And there are tons of hoops to jump through on the application. We'll see, but I wonder if it's worth it. Part of the push is that one of my yearly goals for 2009 was 3 grant applications and this helps me accomplish that goal early, but I wonder about trying to find something easier and more relevant to what I want to pursue.

I got a rejection letter today from a journal. Big bummer. I'm 0-5 on submissions at this journal, but it's considered one of the top outlets for my type of work. Very frustrating. The reviewers had great points, and if I were the editor with these reviews, I probably would have rejected it also. Still, it's disappointing. Part of me wants to fix problems and send it out quickly. But one problem was a (relatively) small sample, so I wonder about waiting until the fall, collecting more data, and then sending it out. Ugh. What do I have to do to get into this journal??!!

I did get a new battery for my laptop. That makes the trip considerably more happy. I'm using it now and it seems to have a pretty good charge on it.

busy times

So I had a great time at ICA. I went site-seeing more than I ever do at conferences, which was fun. And I got to see some good friends, which was also great.

I had a special event in another town this past weekend, so that was busy.

I'm going to a teaching conference this coming weekend. Whew! Living out of a suitcase is exhausting, and the 3-day work weeks are definitely wearing on me in terms of productivity.

My laptop battery is nearly dead, and my seats for this conference trip don't have plugs (I didn't get to pick the seats), so I'm trying very hard to get a new battery by Wednesday.

I'm taking a brief hiatus from my other blog. I still want to continue it, but I need to think a bit about the form in which it will continue. I heard on the radio that GM is going to reinvent itself as the new GM, and I think that blog needs to do likewise. I'm not sure whether that will mean more posts like it is, whether I will move it over to blogger, whether I will repost old posts after I move it over to blogger, or what. I also started another blog, and I'd like to spend some time thinking about it. So anyway, my other blog is in stasis for a week or two.

The cross disciplinary research project that I'm working on is emphasizing to me that we all have different working styles. I think it gives me greater appreciation for students working in groups.

I found out today that we have 18 graduate students coming in this fall. 18! How am I supposed to teach a graduate seminar with 18 students?