Technology also gives us tools for networking. We can email others in our field – near or far – and establish connections quickly. There are sites with abstracts, indices of journal publications, lists of other links on the web, and so on. There are discussion groups in your area that you will seek out and subscribe to. Some will be more useful than others:
Kierkegaard would surely see in the net with its interest groups, which anyone in the world can join and where one can discuss any topic end- lessly without consequences, the height of irresponsibility. Without root- edness in a particular problem, all that remains for the interest group commentator is endless gossip.
(Dreyfus 1999: 16) How will you maintain ‘rootedness’ and avoid ‘endless gossip’? There’s nothing wrong with gossip, but you presumably do not want it – your doctor- ate or masters – to be ‘endless’. The scope and scale of thesis writing can seem overwhelming enough at times, to the student in the early, and sometimes later, stages, without the constantly shifting sands of discussion. Everything may seem to be related to your research, but is it all relevant? Acknowledge the links, but test them against the focus of your work. You may have to learn how to filter out ideas which are merely ‘related’, but not relevant to your research project.
Will you join interest groups, listings, conference groups, etc.? Which one(s)? You don’t want to spend half your morning/day going through other people’s writing. While these contacts and networks can be incredibly useful – and stimulating – they still require you, as with any other source of information, to take time to filter, and not just to collect. Again, it could be useful to talk this through with your supervisor and one or two other students.
But we still have to explain what makes this use of the web attractive. Why is there a thrill in being able to find out everything no matter how trivial?
What motivates a commitment to curiosity? Kierkegaard thought that . . . people were attracted to the press, and we can now add the Web, because the anonymous spectator takes no risks.
(Dreyfus 1999: 17) To this we could add that the anonymous spectator makes no decisions. There is just the endless gathering of information, contacts and perspectives. Deci- sion is deferred. Selection is sidelined. Procrastination is perpetuated. Great enjoyment – and stimulation – can be had from this practice, but we can also wander pretty far from the focus of our own projects.
Until recently, educators found it sufficient to distinguish between ‘data’
and ‘information’ – interpreted data that has a directed use. Today, a IT PROCESSES AND NEEDS 65
further value must be stipulated – knowledge, which is the perspective and insights that derive from the synthesis of information. Learners need to develop the capacity to search, select and synthesize vast amounts of information to create knowledge.
(Dolence and Norris 1995: 26) To ‘data’ and ‘information’ we could add ‘opinion’ and ‘anecdote’ and all levels of input available on the web, some of which might be clearly classified as such, and some which might not be. You will have to decide which is which and how to write about, and reference, each.
It is probably not a bad idea, then, to review your reading list – and synthesis of readings – with your supervisor from time to time, i.e. regularly making a tour of the reading and searching, in print and online, that you have been doing. This conversation need not – and perhaps should not – simply be a matter of your supervisor nodding at your selection and adding more titles and sites, but a critical appraisal, by you both, over the course of an hour or two, of the usefulness and relevance of what you have read to your project and your thesis. This may be a more testing discussion than you think, since you may still be absorbing your more recent reading; all the more reason to have this probing discussion. It makes for good rehearsals for your oral examination too.
Finally, there is the practical question of managing your disks. The worst case scenario is that your computer crashes and your back-up disk is corrupted, or there is a fire and all your electronic and hard copies go up in smoke, and you have to start all over again. It has happened. The way to avoid this is, of course, never to have all your back-ups in one place.
This may seem like obvious advice, and I do not want to insult anyone’s intel- ligence, but buildings can burn down, even university buildings. Clearly, this is very unlikely to happen to you, but even if it did, you would not lose all your work. You would not have to start again. Even the thought of that is intensely demoralizing.
Backing up
• Make a second set of back-up disks/memory stick.
• Put each chapter on a separate disk/memory stick.
• Put your bibliography on a separate disk/memory stick.
• Keep them in a different building from your other set or on a server.
• When you go on holiday/to a conference, take a set of back-ups with you and leave a set with a neighbour/friend.
• Update your back-up back-ups every day.
• Print out hard copy after all major revisions.
Having more than one back-up, in more than one place, is a simple way of avoiding this. Printing after major revisions is one way of making sure that even if you do lose all your electronic files, you still have your work on paper.