I feel as if this post is a bit of a nerd confession. I fell in love with a journal article during my spring semester of the doctoral program. In addition to the wonders of this article, I look forward to using the diary-interview method in my research on young adults one day. Here is the citation for this glorious article:
Zimmerman, D. (1977). The diary: “Diary-interview method.” Urban Life, 5(4), 479–489.
The Zimmerman article for your reading pleasure
Part of me loves Zimmerman’s writing because it reads (at least to me) slightly cheeky. I have a great appreciation for humor in scholarly work. It’s difficult to pull it off and I’m not entirely sure humor is “approved” of in academic writing. After reading so many well-written but dense and dry during my first year , coming across a piece of writing that studies “the counter-culture” and asks the question, “why had a particular diarist not gotten stoned before going to a Chinese restaurant…” (1977, p. 492). Why not indeed.
Along with this unusual (?) love, I’ve become drawn to a few theories . It has been an interesting experience to find myself fascinated by an area that only a year I found extremely intimidating. Savolainen’s Everyday Life Information Seeking, Dervin’s Sense-Making, and Siemen’s Connectivism. Maybe lecturing undergrads on IB models inspired me more than it did anyone else….
Other current social media and tech obsessions include infographics, 3D printers, MakerSpaces, and memes (of the cat variety in particular).
In closing, I will leave you with my favorite quote from Zimmerman’s article.
We should note that if the diaries we collected were to be constructed as exhaustive records of the diarists’ activities, we would have to conclude that this group was characterized by extraordinary bladder and bowel capabilities, since no instance of the elemental act of elimination was reported.” (Zimmerman, 1997, p. 487).
Anyone else have a strange love or obsession? Am I all alone in my strangeness?
Dr. Abigail Leigh Phillips 