Writing a Journal
Many instructors suggest a journal as an academic work option for students doing directed research, directed study or field experience projects. This information sheet is aimed at suggesting some of the benefits of a journal as an intellectual tool especially useful for students doing independent work. If careful thought is given to HOW a journal is going to be written and WHY, it can be enlightening for the student.
WHAT IS A JOURNAL?
A journal is a systematic and analytical record of your reflections.It is not:
- A diary which is meant to contain your intimate thoughts and activities, usually not intended to be shared with others;
- A log which is a record of events work or readings with no analysis, a journal may contain some components of a log, however
A journal is meant to be shared and is valuable for that reason. Some reasons why a journal is useful are suggested by C. Wright Mills, a social scientist. He, like scholars in other disciplines, used the journal as a regular part of his academic work.
"It is best to begin by reminding you that the most admirable thinkers within the scholarly community you have chosen do not split their work from their lives-w They seem to take both too seriously to allow such disassociation, and they want to use each for the enrichment of the other . . . What this means is that you must learn to use your life experiences in your intellectual work: continually to examine and interpret it . . . To say you "have experience" means for one thing, that your past plays into and affects your present and that it defines your capacity for future experience. As a social scientist, you have to control this rather elaborate interplay, to capture what you experience and sort it out; only in this was can you hope to use it to guide and test your reflection, and in the process share yourself as an intellectual craftsman. But how can you do this? One answer is you must set up a file. , which is I suppose, a sociologist's way of saying, keep a journal. Many creative writers keep journals; the sociologist's need for systematic reflection demands it." (C. Wright Mills)
Some examples of this interplay for which Mills is arguing are found in Phillip E. Hammond. ed., SOCIOLOGISTS AT WORK, Peter Blau, THE DYNAMICS OF BUREAUCRACY, and William F. Whyte, STREET CORNER SOCIETY.
In research and field experiences, the process of learning is usually as important as the outcome. A journal, when steadily done, can capture some of the variety of the experience of learning, beyond the final product (report. paper, photographic display. etc.) alone.
In a sense, a journal is a dialogue with oneself. Every now and then you will discuss your experience with professors, or in the case of field work, in the case of fieldwork, with a non-University resource person. Having an outlet in writing allows expression in-between the meetings you have scheduled to evaluate your work.
Journals can be used to release intellectual fantasies. Something might strike you as an interesting idea, but out of the realm of realistic completion in the time you have. Propose how you would pursue this idea, if given more time (and maybe money). Try to draw up some hypotheses and set up a research strategy to test them in the future. You yourself may want to come back to these thoughts at another point in your college career.
Independent work means individualized learning. You will want to pursue sidetracks and tangents that other people would not choose-w At the same time, you will want to be evaluated on what you did, compared to what you wanted to do. You can, in a journal, state your learning goals and evaluate your success. You can state a thought that comes to you at one point in time and hold it there, in the written work, until it "fits" with other ideas at a later point in time.
A journal can be an avenue to improve writing skills which have not been fully developed in large classes or in standard term paper writing. The journal taxes your ability to be a clear, concise writer, who accurately records observations and insights, in a way understandable to others. When you do reading related to your projects, you might want to assess its usefulness and include these critiques in your journal as examples of scholarly work.
A journal is an application of "classroom knowledge" to new events in hopes of improving your understanding of a subject. You can test ideas which you have learned and see how well they hold up. It demands the skills of critical, systematic, reflective writing that scholars value.
Ask yourself these questions:
- WHAT DID I LEARN FROM THIS OBSERVATION OR EVENT?
- HOW DID I LEARN IT?
- HOW DO I KNOW I LEARNED IT?
- HOW DO OTHERS KNOW (OR HOW MIGHT THEY KNOW) I LEARNED IT?
Each entry should be dated. There should be two entries per week. Bring your journal to each class. From time to time, I will be checking your progress,
JOURNAL EVALUATION
NAME
Level of sociological sophistication 1 2 3 4 5
Use of sociological ideas and research low highDepth of coverage of issues 1 2 3 4 5
poor excellentSkill in description 1 2 3 4 5
poor excellentInsights and analytical skills 1 2 3 4 5
poor excellentBreadth of coverage of issues 1 2 3 4 5
poor excellentAmount of work written 1 2 3 4 5
insufficient sufficientCritiques on readings in textbooks 1 2 3 4 5
weak excellentIntegration of personal experiences 1 2 3 4 5
absent well done
Comments on overall quality:
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URL: http://www.unt.edu/cjus/journal.htm