Wednesday, February 27, 2013

9pm Coffee

That's not a typo. It's 9pm. We just brewed a pot of coffee. And no, it's not Stephan's night to work. He is, however, writing a paper. It's the first time during this program (turning him from a simple MS/RN into a FNP/ENP [Family Nurse Practitioner/Emergency Nurse Practitioner]) that the two of us are up late working together to write a paper. It's a paper about the medical needs and considerations of refugees.

He hates this part.

I LOVE this part. I have pages and pages of paper torn out of notebooks. Each has its own heading: Definition. Culture (and women). Culture (resettlement). The sources are cited on the first line. The publishing organization is on the second. Applicable abbreviations on the following lines, and a summary of the article or relevant statistics drip down the pages. It's beautiful. It's so organized. I practically take notes in APA format.


I LOVE this part. I have to admit- the saddest fact of being a theater arts major (with a focus on lighting design) is the lack of papers I had to compile. I took elective classes like I was Undecided just to expand my publishing potential. One of my proudest moments was taking a line from Simon and Garfunkle to title a paper about the woes of remodeling architectural masterpieces without regard to the original designer's intent or body of work: So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright (the central example was the Guggenheim Museum in New York).

We have an agreement: when Stephan graduates it's going to be my turn. The hard part will be picking my new major!!

2 comments:

Ali K. said...

I like how you organize your notes. As a teacher, the hardest part of teaching research to 8th graders is teaching them the different ways to take notes so as not to confuse their sources/info. I'll have to add this to the repertoire!

... said...

Ali,
I remember sitting in the library in 8th grade with a stack of notecards, writing carefully on each one the heading, the citation, and the fact... and then setting them out in stacks, lines, and piles to write my first research papers. Learning a routine at such a young age made high school and college writing SO simple- papers practically write themselves if you put in the effort at good note-taking in the beginning.

Love it!! Thank you!