be blank.
• Diary – this tends to be calendar-driven
with specific dates listed, and there are a
variety of options to choose from (for
example, a week to view on each page
or a week spread across two pages); it
will often include planners for the month
or year. There will also be space to write,
but this can restrict your writing to the
amount of space given.
• Log – this is a basic record of events, often
kept in date order. It is generally factual –
a list of what you did and when.
So, what will be the most useful as you start
your first piece of independent research? It
is likely that there will be aspects of each of
these kinds of records that you will want to
capitalise on in order to make it work for you.
Free-flow writing in a journal will help your
ideas and understanding to develop (see
Theme 1.3). This could be prompted by things
like reading texts that you feel are key to your
research, discussions with your supervisor,
things you discover as you gather your data,
13
among others. Diary aspects will
be particularly helpful for planning (see
Theme 3.1), which will help you to keep
on track and not lose sight of what you
need to do and when. A log will ensure
that you can find things quickly and easily
(see Table 3 on page 57), such as those
all-important references. This book is designed
to help you to do all of these things, so feel
free to use it in the way it helps you most.
Notes
14
Theme 1.2
The importance
of journal
writing
Many people in universities are beginning to
see the value of journal writing and recognise
that it can help students in various areas of their
academic and personal development. Here are
some of the reasons for this, and you may be
able to think of more:
• It helps us to slow down – we all need
time to develop our critical thinking, and
writing in a journal provides us with the
scope to do this more effectively.
• It helps to externalise things – if we
spend too long thinking, things can start to
go round and round in our heads, which can
make us feel confused and overwhelmed.
Writing in a journal gets our thoughts out
on to paper, and often makes our heads
feel clearer as a result.
• It’s a place for offloading – all
research has its ups and downs, and a
journal can be a place for articulating
our feelings, particularly when things don’t
go according to plan. This helps us to cope
with stress and deal with anxiety.
• It helps us to keep on track – most
of us know that in order to succeed we
need a plan; hence the well-known phrase,
‘To fail to plan is to plan to fail’. A journal
can be a secure place (more secure than
a piece of paper that we can lose) for our
research plans.
• It provides us with a record that we
can go back to – most of us think that
we will remember things, particularly
when it is something significant.
Unfortunately, everyday life is hectic, and
we can’t remember everything; sometimes
even important things can escape
our memory.
• It helps us to question our
assumptions – taking a questioning
approach to journal writing (see
Theme 1.5) can help us to address issues
of subjectivity and bias in our research.
• It makes us accountable to ourselves
