The Logic of Verification

“The logic of verification” which Luker explains takes for granted the possibility of “qualification” — that a social phenomenon is (a) divisible into its smallest part, which can then be (b) assigned a numerical value and thus (c) contrasted and compared – is at times an unsatisfying method of verification, yet there is not a clear alternative available for social scientists who are looking to discuss subjective experiences in an objective way. The social world, as Luker acknowledges, is substantially different from the natural world, and thus trying to evaluate the two using similar methods will almost inevitably lead (at some point) to misunderstandings or misinterpretations of particular phenomena. The trend can perhaps best be seen in the university, where such sub-disciplines as political theory, traditionally housed in the department for political science, have been moved to less “scientific” departments (in this case, the department of philosophy – which is itself becoming increasingly quantitative in nature). The problem is that data can be persuasive, and hence we are easily convinced that the results tell an accurate and complete story when they often in fact do not.

Salsa in Social perspective

I began this blog with the overview of Research. Research is the systematic process of collecting and analyzing information to increase our understanding. As Luker said that Social Science Research is a set of guidelines about to conceptualize and execute a systematic and that lets us rigorous intellectual enquiry into something which research can get as close to the truth as possible by adopting the research methodology tools and techniques irrespective of the research context be it social, business, political or scientific.

As per Luker's Research Methodology is challenging task as with the passage of time and change in the social orders the relevance of the research and as we pass through the era of the information scarcity to the era of information abundance and world wide web, where today the information available is beyond the human capacity to process and analyze , so Luker emphasis on the filtering of the information and having the validated and verified data for the qualitative and quantitative research.

The paradigms of research have been expanded to present a way of thinking that helps us to gain a clear idea of the different examples used in research, material on focus research group.

Salsa dancing into the social sciences research will be an interesting case study to evaluate our research methodology understanding about the subject and its application.Keep sharing your ideas.

Specialized Generalists

I'm not going to lie, I was a little terrified when I realized that taking this class was manditory. To me, "Research Methods" meant rigidity, dryness and worst of all statistics. Some how I managed to make it through my undergrad without taking any kind of statistical analysis, I figured now, in graduate school, was my come-upance.
Is it ever refreshing to read Luker and her casual eloquence regarding the study of social science. She eases you into slowly thinking about and building your own research project, without striking fear into your heart. But as Martinus discussed in his post, the parameters (or lack there of) that Luker suggests are seemingly endless, and its a little difficult to see how there is any "science" involved at all when everything seems so subjective.
However, I'm finding lots of overlap in the literture that I'm reading for other classes. There seems to be an explosion of blurred distinction or outright cross-over between disciplines. The openness and lack of singular catagorization that Luker speaks of, seems to be everywhere and is something that academia has been and currently is grappling with.
I think this makes learning all the more exciting and well-rounded. To be able to share thoughts and ideas with those that previously would not have been connected to your research at all, is pretty incredible. So many different perspectives! In her article "On Translation and Transformation: Media, Education and the Continuity of Culture" (2009) Twlya Gibson, paraphrases another thinker and claims that we are entering the age of scholars as "specialized generalists".
I'm okay with that and working on becoming one myself.

New but very hopeful to find social truth

Coming from engineering and chemistry, I’m very new to social research. Not only had I put extra efforts to bear with Luker and professor Grimes while exploring paradigms and deeds of human leaders in sociology, but also tried to enter a new state of mind, where promises like “you will not be trying to assess the distribution of individuals … across a known number of categories whose boundaries are clear” will not throw me into confusion. A chemical experiment without boundaries is more of a hobby than science (I was taught). Not that I’m saying this kind of hobby or passion didn’t bring humanity discoveries like penicillin, but still constant curiosity and attentiveness are not the same as conscious inquiry. Fortunately, the happy thing is that I’m becoming interested in researching our “fishiness” and at the same time more and more impatient about how to find categories that you didn’t set to look for; collect not too many and not too little data without aiming for exact data; acquire wisdom to be human (“fish”), but analyze findings without “public” constrains (being “fish”), and be sure that you add to universal knowledge, not only to personal hours worked.

What I want to find after learning this Salsa Dancing methodology is truth. And I believe it won’t deprive people of possibilities to find another truth, and yet another one, because, for me, truth is not complete and absolute in itself but what can help, guide or add to knowledge at the moment it was brought into light.

Every result or claim can be useful even if proved wrong, for then you can study why at the time of its research it was impossible to conclude otherwise. Of course, the researchers have to be good and open-minded students of methods (good: you can’t acquire basic knowledge from mere air; open-minded: roughly speaking, any grand theory can be disproved any time and better to be prepared to do it than not), and have to be the best in every contemporary to them aspect. Then there won’t be any doubt that research, including thinking, could have been done better — not in scale, but in attitude. So, any discovery made by such researchers will become a new brick for what we call research — a building knowledge process spread across years and centuries. All bricks, errors or not, compose research, and our view, and our understanding of the world; all bricks are valuable and truthful when brought to the construction site of knowledge with all possible precautions taken not to consciously or unconsciously deceive.

Dependable Ol' Monochrome

I get the feeling that I will inevitably end up adopting the ‘pragmatic/critical-realist’ approach in my research proposal, with quantitative data intended to supplement the qualitative. Hopefully, in this way I can address questions of What, Where, When, How and also the all-important Why. As this approach will likely require relatively more source material I am at least somewhat comforted by Luker’s seek-by-relevancy method.

Something that resonated with me in the Knight readings was that (to paraphrase): ‘Readers will make their own subjective generalizations and interpretations of the data, so the researcher should invite alternative viewpoints from other cases and theories.’ In other words, a reflexive method is crucial in theory development.

But just how possible is it to conduct neutral, objective research, when the parameters of the study alone suggest subjectivity? I’m not sure whether to be irked by the foggy nature of critical-realist social-inquiry or to extol it as a broad summation of perspectives, converging on some informed opinion.

-Martin

Not Random, but a Rainbow...

Too much of anything is regarded as bad. But would we say the same about information. In an age where information is readily available and gaining knowledge would supposedly lead to wisdom, one would certainly announce that there is no harm in producing or assimilating knowledge. And we surrender our soul to the passion of gaining that which has not been achieved – in other words that hypothesis we can absolutely believe in and proclaim to the world. However that knowledge often comes at the cost of something opposite of frivolous. Then we question our methodologies, ethics but rarely do we turn ourselves away from finding out new truths and soon it becomes something acceptable even if it is more than just stem cell research.


Trusting a particular methodology and trying to get results through its application is yet another dilemma. There is always choice and also invariably the wrong choice. Someone, somewhere, sometime might come up with something that would nullify previous claims, solve a bigger mystery, – and there might not be an end to it. Life with its various speculation and realities would raise more issues by the day. Trying to make meaning, finding a path, meandering through information I try to see light of day, hoping that the interdisciplinary nature of my stream would garner some kind of enlightenment. These random thoughts help to put me in perspective – sometimes deep, sometimes coherent but always elusive – catching them and transforming the written world – is the motto needed to follow through in life’s travails and thus embark on a path, chosen for life.

A Research Daisy

I'm also a visual thinker. Not that I don't like writing; in fact, I work with writing and drawing to crystallize my thoughts. When working on websites or publications, for example, I am usually responsible for the architecture and the content, and I often send scanned drawings to my graphic designer to illustrate how I want the information to flow before I even start writing the texts. I was therefore thrilled when Luker suggested that we draw a Venn diagram to illustrate the multi-disciplinarity of our research.

After having done a few of her exercises, it seems that my "intellectual itch" involves investigating how architects of websites aimed at various cultural groups define how to structure the information in a way that will appeal to their various publics. You may have noticed that, if you change the language on a multilingual website, you may see more or less text, more or less graphics, and even a different navigation system.

It seems to me that website architects have a lot of power over how information might be represented to members of different cultures and may contribute to changing their preferences over time. Given that power, do they choose designs intuitively? Using primary data collection? Secondary data collection?

This idea will, I hope, evolve during the course of the semester, but as a beginning, here is my first research daisy. It was drawn using Aviary, a free online tool that is very similar to Photoshop.

But wait, there's more!

Hi, my name is Martin Driessen and I’m a latecomer to the class. Since most of you are probably wondering who I am, I thought an introduction might be appropriate.

I’m an Edmonton, Alberta native, and spent my Undergraduate degree at the University of Alberta. My focus was in the History field, so I naturally had the opportunity to take a Historical Methodology class. It has, however, been about four years since my Undergraduate, so it was strangely refreshing to see Foucault’s icy cold stare in class today.

I look forward to integrating Luker’s unique brand of methodology in my own research. Specifically, I want to look at issues surrounding information piracy, net neutrality, and copyright law.

Students in a Post-Foucauldian Era

Very much like the student who spoke up in class today, I was very excited to see Foucault mentioned so early on in the Luker text. I come from a cultural & social history background, so Foucault has been the bread & butter for many of my favorite classes.

However, Luker admits that her generation of scholars "were trained in a pre-Foucauldian era, and we have not really come to terms with what Foucault has done to our taken-for-granted ways of thinking, much less with what he has done to theory, and still less what he has done to methods." (7) Now, here for me lies the crux of the issue I have with Luker's text thus far.

Today's generation of MLIS students have been raised in an academic environment where Foucault's theories permeate deeply across disciplines - even if a student hasn't read Foucault, he/she most likely is familiar with social construction, and understands this belief to be extremely important to today's social science studies.

So who is Luker writing for? Today's student understands Foucault's theories, just as today's student understands the present info-glut situation, and intuitively knows how to navigate it. While I find Luker's text readable & entertaining, I suspect that it will not impart any ground breaking research information to me (or to the rest of the class).

But it's only the 2nd week so I'm keeping my hopes up!

A Confession

I am not a writer. I’m not even a good speaker; I get tongue-tied, clumsily trip over words and somehow screw up saying what I’m thinking. I had a philosophy professor tell me in undergrad that unless my thoughts could be rationalized into words (be it written or spoken), then they do not actually exist. 

I heard echos of this accusation while reading Luker, where the writing process is praised as the sole method of crystallizing thoughts. Coming from the design field, I am a little suspicious of this claim. Most of my undergrad research projects began with visual research, composing visual essays and generating ideas through sketching; writing (for my studio courses at least) was more of the end of research, the dissemination of the information found though visual thinking. 

I recognize I’m a minority here, but I think its worth to point out the bias of the medium as researchers. Language is a temporal medium; it is sequential and linear, where words follow words, thoughts follow thoughts, arguments follow arguments. Images do not mimic this building progression, but rather presents everything at once and lets the viewer independently dissect and comprehend the patterns and orders; it is more a holistic medium, a synthesis of structure. 

I bring this up, in part, out of concern that this writing-is-thinking assumption shades our anthropological view: Is the belief that rationalized language is the only form of thinking, in and of itself, a fetish of the mind, one that dismisses the sensory experience as, at best, subservient to the intellect and at worse a distraction to higher, 'more human', activities? 

Alas, I’ll try to become more versed in writing, but I don’t want to dismiss visual thinking completely. I was happy that Luker suggests mind mapping as a type of personal informal writing, and I just wanted to share with you all my passionate approval for mapping relationships, charting out ideas and diagramming categories. Just a thought :)

Yes, this blog post started with some sort of flowchart.

Writing for “n” minutes

Several times I’ve heard about 15 minutes-a-day-dissertations or books, and again I hear about the magic of “piecemeal” writing from Knight and Luker. But it is so hard to believe them! Sometimes I try to help skeptical myself by applying a larger scale. 15 minutes a day turn to be 91.25 hours per year or rather reasonable 3 hours per day for one month. Isn’t that enough for a book or at least a half? Maybe…

Only for me to have 15 minutes of actual writing means always adding to those 15 more minutes of prior preparation. After that I can even last for 30 minutes of writing or an hour - I won’t follow the clock. It can be alright, but does it mean I am doomed with mediocre and not very large works? I want to believe no; and at the same time I can’t stop wondering whether I miss valuable training and getting my hand in writing by committing preparatory thorough thinking for several days and then at last writing for a lot more than 15 minutes in a row. And I am speaking not only about book writing but also about composing any valuable record. Being able to remember things for more than a day I build thought over thought without going astray and without help from a paper or file. By the way, in their roots, days are artificial time divisions, so maybe they don’t determine that golden frequency for everyone. I want to believe again that you can find your way and that the main idea is never to dismiss taking notes, never leave writing till “someday in the future” when you already have thoughts or material for a paragraph, and as someone roughly said:

The worst thing ever written is always better than the thing never written at all.

P.S.: All the same, after words of persuasion I can’t get rid of a little bit of envy for such people as Balzac who acquire their best thoughts from writing or for authors whose characters surprisingly act as if by themselves on paper. Is it still another way or a better one?

The very last thought, I promise, that occurred to me: there is a use for 15 minutes rule. When you don’t have a theme, a work, or research, you better come up with something for a fraction of a day and write simply to stay in shape, to prevent blocks and to use this beautiful phrase you so treasured to come up finally with another and a new one. It seems that this is also the author’s idea.

Research Group Ideas and My Intoduction

Hi Everyone and Prof. Grimes!
I introduce myself as a Meenaxi Prasher, MI student.

Social and Academic interactions are very important to me, and I am always keen to meet new people. I also enjoy keeping fit and regularly go to my local leisure centre. In addition I enjoy computing and creating websites that allow me to communicate with people from across the world. I have always believed that education in itself is the most satisfying pursuit, a value instilled by my mother, herself a teacher for many years. Along the way I have learned to focus that value and match it closely to my increasing experience and desire to work on the current, most advanced issues in my field and research and research methdologgies is one of them.

Throughout the course of my education, the only field of my studies which I have valued, cherished is Library and Information Science. These lifelong interests had naturally primed me to pursue a Master degree in Library & Information Science with an emphasis in librarianship from India, and motivated me to further my academics with MI program programme at University of Toronto.

I found blogging very useful in Reseach to interact with the group and connect our thoughts with each other. The purpose of research is to have informed action. Thus, our study should seek to contextualize its findings within the larger body of research. Research must always be high quality in order to produce knowledge and consclussions that is applicable outside of the research setting with implications that go beyond the group that has participated in the research. The Reseach methods and resesech methdology is the key to have better decisions. I am excited to be part of the reseach group.

A new begining...

The Microsoft motto ‘Turning ideas into Reality’ always sounded very impressive to me. If we delve deeper into its meaning we may find that we can apply it to our academic lives wherein we wanted to further our studies and here we are now at the ischool, and maybe we wish to conduct some kind of research someday and this class of ours is a step towards that future.

I have a Masters in English and my interest in Literature and Languages made me look up the etymology of the word “research” : it comes from French ‘recerche’ meaning ‘to seek out, search closely’. I guess we are all looking for something in life and as we think more about it and write about it as well, we will be able to find new avenues of looking at things hitherto unseen.

I certainly do not know whether we will get an opportunity to dance salsa as our text suggests but we are definitely going to sweat it out a lot this term given the number of assignments. But with the hope that this small blogging exercise will point us in the right direction and who knows we might even find ourselves as Luker says “drifting into new intellectual areas…” soon.

A step into…

From the first days and classes, stepping into iSchool student’s shoes is extremely exciting! Moreover, being rather modest and communicating only a little with fellow students, I find this blog to be a gift-like opportunity to learn from, and listen to, and share with fascinating people. So, hello and thank you everybody involved!

Out of my Belorussian education in design of radio-electronic devices, a year of professional experience, and research conducted at the junction of engineering and chemistry, I raised and brought with me a wish to make working in any setting an organized, collaborative, and fun activity. Following my previous path, I enjoyed challenges of making things orderly and effectively or finding user centered solutions rather than doing exactly chemistry; and as the result, I came here to start walking along a new path of the humane systems designer.

Although I don’t intend to write a thesis, choosing this course was a fast and easy decision: I would like to have a steady and extensive knowledge foundation, and I can’t imagine acquiring it without knowing which instruments scholars use to develop a core of information science, and also without a skill to fully evaluate resources that will build now my own understanding and expertise through two years of studies. Adding to that, is enthusiasm to form in my mind an actual general structure and branching of information science, not that casual seemingly informed view of an everyday web, computer or library user. And I hope that methodological perspective will help me in this too.

Yet Another Intro...

Hey everyone!
So since introductions seem to be the theme this week, I should give you mine. I just graduated with a BA from Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, where I did a double major in English and History. I basically took every Medieval studies-type course I could, which is where my love of research became apparent. I know it's sort of dorky to say I love research, but I really do! In my third year, I took an Intro to Medieval Literature course, in which the main assignment was a Codicology project. I had to pick a Medieval manuscript and essentially locate - and acquire whenever possible - every piece of information that existed on that manuscript, including its history and contents. I had never done anything like this before, but I was hooked. I loved spending my time searching for sources and information in the most obscure databases and libraries, and it was always so rewarding when I found what I was looking for. After I finished this project, I told the professor how much I had enjoyed it, and she actually suggested that I should maybe consider a Master's in Information Science. So here I am.
I find research to be the best part of the academic process, and I think that's why I want to be a reference librarian in an academic library. I'm interested to learn more about the research process and different methods, because it's definitely something I will use in the future.

Another Intro!

Hi everyone,

This is Elizabeth, your blogging captain. I honestly am not an expert at this business, but I did have a livejournal and then a blogspot of my own for about 5-6 years in highschool and early university, which I updated obsessively at the time. Blogs blogs blogs! I have made Jennette into an additional admin, and if anyone else here knows how to do css or web design or anything, let me know and we'll add you to our club.

Anyway, on to the intro... we've already heard far too many of these this week so mine will be brief. I just finished my undergrad at Queen's, majoring in History. While I was there, I discovered that I had an affinity and adoration for research and organization, which I can furthermore apply to my obsession with literature and general expansion of knowledge. Anyway! My current long-term goal is to be a highschool librarian. But who knows! I look forward to getting to know all of you interesting people through these posts, and hopefully it will be a fun time!

Introduction #3

I'll second Eleonore's thanks to everyone for getting this blog up and running so fast!

To continue the introductions — I've just finished a specialized bachelors of design from YSDN, during which I spent the last two years focusing on information design (think Tufte's visualizing quantatative data). It was a mix between my infographic studies, a couple of internships and a slew of freelancing that I became fascinated in the politics of visual communication.

I learned that there was no such thing as a neutral exchange of information, that the very act of editing, selecting and presenting information produces a nexus of discussions for any message to be conveyed. Rooted in the curiosity for a complete correlation between medum and message, I am interested in the visual form of information, particularily the ethics and the social impacts of such decisions.

With that said, I'm not too sure where I exactly fit into this program right now. The majority of my courses are in the 'critical information studies' pathway, though I am taking Research Methods because I am seriously considering the thesis option. Wherever I end up, I'm really excited to be able to work with so many people from such diverse backgrounds.

(p.s. Elizabeth — can you up please grant me admin privledges and I can look into altering the css? :D )

Introduction #2

Thanks Aurianne for starting the ball rolling with our blog. I'm very excited that we are already starting to post; it's so great to be working with such passionate students.

A little about my background - I finished my undergrad in 2006 at McGill in History and Political Science. Since then, I have worked in the non-profit sector, at first as a program assistant in international development organizations, and then as a communications officer. I now manage communications at Motivate Canada, an NGO that focuses on promoting youth engagement.

I'm taking this class because I want to research the impact of communications and information methods on the public. What interests me the most is the social impact of the Internet, which is an incredibly broad but very topical field. Specifically, what I keep coming back to is wanting to explore the relationship between graphic designers/information architects and website users. A few questions include: how do culturally (or other) appropriate visual cues determine the success of a website? Is there a link between preferences in physical and online environments? How can knowledge sharing be enhanced through colour and structure?

I hope to be able to discuss these and other ideas with you all further during the semester!

Hi Everyone!

Hi guys and Prof. Grimes!

Thank you so much Elizabeth for setting this up. I finally have a google account now...oh the things I can do!

Anyways, for the first post I believe that we are just supposed to introduce ourselves and our interest in the MI program/this course.

My name is Aurianne, I'm from Tavistock, ON, renowned for it's cheese, feed mills and nursing homes...quite a potentially disgusting mix if you think about it. I did my undergrad at McMaster University in Theatre and Film. Afterwards I taught English in Taiwan, worked at a gallery in Stratford, ON and had the pleasure to work deep in the bowels of the Natural History Museum in London, England for two years. There is where my affinity for libraries and the people that work in them grew. I'm very excited to be on the LIS path. Not sure where I want to go or what exactly I want to do with it, but it's the first time that I've thought about actually having a career. As for this course, it seemed necessary (turns out it actually was) even though I might not do a thesis. The ability to analize data, how and why it was retrieved and its relevance to other literature or just our own research seems invaluable. I'm very much looking forward to it!