Deliverable 3
This journal is my attempt to play catch-up and to document each time I work, so I don't have to play catch-up!
A little elevator talk to start… Last week I had compiled my list of articles (both foundational and topical) and decided upon my research topic. This week I made a list of subtopics within my topic (oh, and also changed my topic!) and read the abstract, introduction, related work, and conclusion of applicable articles in each section. Next week, I will use the information I have compiled (and likely find a few more articles) in order to ensure a good literature survey for writing my introduction, background, and related work.
Today, I will break my journal into two sections: Latex and Research.
For latex, I want to make sure I remember three things:
- Run “bibtex” on my latex file!
- Make enumerated lists using “/begin{enumerate} /item* /end{enumerate}”
- Perform spell check with “ispell ~filename”
For research I need to be sure I stay focused, but not get trapped into one topic. I think I need to be more open to changes in the plan. For example, I am no longer using tangible interfaces as a part of my topic, which is fine, but I should expect other modifications in my hypothesis as well. Also, is it good to have a hypothesis in technical papers?
Next, I need to go through my current list of papers and reevaluate each one and decide whether or not it is useful. I could also organize the papers into files of each subtopic, which would likely help in this process. Going back through a few of the foundational papers may also prove to be insightful as to where this topic might lead.
One silly thing I need to do in research is make sure I get the bibtex reference as soon as I access a page in the ACM Digital Library because otherwise I have to search for the reference again. This problem has caused needless time to be spent with my latex and bibtex files.
These are the research lessons I have learned from my past, but I also have plans for the future. I still need to find a reliable resource for psychology papers and need to find a specific paper that states “collaboration improves learning!”. It would also be helpful if I could find a high-level paper on the general aspects of designing for touch interfaces and what problems I might encounter in this process. That being said, I wonder if I should venture away from my beloved ACM Digital Library and find less technical papers to describe some basics. This approach could come in handy with both touch displays and pair programming opinions.
The main thing I learned last week for this journal is that I need to journal more often! Overall, my goal for next week is more journaling and better organization.
