Date (rescheduled) Thursday 23rd July 2015

Time: 12.00-14.00

Route: TBC (spreading our wings and heading off campus!)

MEET (Location): Bowland North Quad (nearer the spine) (number 23 on http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/maps/campus.pdf )

TERRAIN/FOOOTWEAR: Off road (prepare for mud!)

Walking Seminar 3 Discussion Topic: “The case” (Re-used from TWS @ UvA)

• Most of us talk-walkers work on a case. A case is neither unique, nor representative. So, what is a case? And what does it imply to do a case study?
• Which case studies in the literature do you find inspiring? How do the authors present their case? What about that is similar to / different from other case studies?
• What is the case you are studying and of what is it a case? What is specific about it? What does it share with other cases?
• In which ways does your case study differ from other methods that you come across in the literature on your topic?
• Oh, you are not doing a case study? Good. Which form does your research take? And what are the differences with case studies?

Due to another commitment this event had to be cancelled – sorry!

Date: 9 June 2015

Time: 12.00-13.00 (extended walk till 2pm optional)

Depart 12:10

MEET: Bowland North Quad (nearer the spine)

Route: (Accessible route) Around Campus

Running Late and Missed the Group?
If you have an iPhone try and track us down using CoMob Net app with group name “walking seminar” https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/comob-net/id326303438?mt=8

Less technical – follow or intercept us!
We’ll be heading north up past LICA, down the linking road toward the duck pond, around the pond and bowling green then across the path between sports centre and sports pitches, then looping around Alex park.  the fitness trail,

About this walking seminar:

THE WALKING SEMINAR IS A MONTHLY WALK  DURING WHICH WE TALK-WALK ABOUT VARIOUS ISSUES CONCERNING ACADEMIC WORK. THE IDEA IS THAT TALKING-WHILE-WALKING ENHANCES THINKING IN WAYS NOT ATTAINABLE BEHIND A DESK OR IN A SEMINAR SITTING DOWN.

Discussion topic: Anecdotes

 

“Merely anecdotal” is often a put down of research – but what place do anecdotes have?

Taking Mike Michael’s chapter as an inspiration we’ll be thinking about:

• How could/would or have you used anecdotes in your writing and or presenting?
  • When do they work?
  • Have they ever been dismissed?
• What makes a “good” anecdote?
• What makes something “merely anecdotal”
• How much “data” does it take to make “an anecdote”?
• How many “anecdotes” does it take to become “data”?

To quote Mike Michael (2012)

the focus will be less on anecdotes as particular components of social phenomena, and more upon their broader, and hopefully deeper, ramifications for methodology. On this score, anecdotes also become a topic of enquiry. The question becomes: How might we push the anecdote as form and process so that it adds something new (or at least new-ish) to the conduct of research – to the gathering, identifying, marshalling, ordering or making of “the happening of the social” (p.26)

Recommended reading:

Michael, M. (2012). Anecdote. In C. Lury & N. Wakeford (Eds.), Inventive methods the happening of the social (pp. 25-35). London: Routledge.

http://ezproxy.lancs.ac.uk/login?url=http://lib.myilibrary.com/Open.aspx?id=371761

 

TERRAIN/FOOOTWEAR: Accessible route – tarmac

How to start? Small it seems!

The first walking semianr was sunny, with a walk around the woodland trail. Ibrar Bhatt joined from the beginning, Mary Hamilton tracked us downvia mobile phone calls but a lesson was learned: a slightly later departure would have brought Andy Yuille along too.

The walk – in words and pictures:

The woodland trail is a really pleasant walk, though often dominated by traffic noise from the M6 or A6. However the corner of campus these pictures are taken from by the brook ar perhaps the most pleasant.

 

Location marker (via ATLAS.ti App – the same marker for both)

Pictures by Mary:

Location marker

Location marker

Conversational topics -how do we like to start?

The discussion topic was “how to start” – a paper, a presentation or another “output”.

There was a lot of consensus about starting with data – kicking off with a vignette (as say Etienne Wenger does so well in “Communities of Practice“). Bringing people straight in to the data and its richness and then working “back” from that was certainly the popular approach in our work and we felt helped to intrigue and entangle the reader immediately and lead them through to a solution. One question posed was: Could this be applied to quantitative approaches though? Could you start with data and tables – or is it restricted to a qualitative “thick description”.

A surprising level of consensus or shared values in a small group? Or perhaps a new standard to supplant the lit review – probelm – results – discussion – conclusion “standard” format?

 

Walking and talking makes such explorations different and mobilisies thinking. Onwards and upwards with the next one.

 

Date: 12 May 2015 Time: 12.00-13.30

Route: Campus Woodland Walk

Walking Seminar 1 Discussion Topic: How to start? (Re-used from TWS @ UvA)

The introduction of a paper/article/chapter is crucial. The first sentences set the tone. They frame what is to come afterwards. And they might decide whether a reader lays to the side the paper or actually continues reading.

So, how to start a paper or chapter? How to write the introduction?

Take the paper/chapter you are working on at the moment with its topic, material and argument.

How do you plan to start the paper?Take the paper/chapter you are working on at the moment with its topic, material and argument.How do you plan to start the paper?What might be a good first sentence? And more generally, how do you introduce the topic?Do you begin with the case? A general problem? A puzzle? A gap in the literature?What do you give away in the beginning? What do you need to spare for later?Have you thought about possible alternatives for this paper/chapter? What else might work?

And how have others solved these problems? How did the introductions of the articles you have read recently look like? Can you remember introductions that were in some way or another extraordinary? What made them particularly seductive, interesting, memorable?

Contact: s.t.wright@lancaster.ac.uk

Who can attend: Anyone

What is it?

Inspired by  http://walkingseminar.blogspot.co.uk/ the Lancaster walking seminar is (also):

A MONTHLY WALK  DURING WHICH WE TALK-WALK ABOUT VARIOUS ISSUES CONCERNING ACADEMIC WORK. THE IDEA IS THAT TALKING-WHILE-WALKING ENHANCES THINKING IN WAYS NOT ATTAINABLE BEHIND A DESK OR IN A SEMINAR SITTING DOWN.

When to meet: check this blog! Summer vacation will be weds or thurs once a month at 12

Where to meet: Bowland North Quad (outside Marcus Merriman Lecture theatre entrance – number 23  on http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/maps/campus.pdf )

Who’s invited? Anyone with an interest in academic work – students (postgraduate, undergraduate and research) and staff (academic and related). Alternating talk-walks will be along accessible routes.

Blog – information and accounts: http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/walkingseminar/

Future dates

Here are the dates/routes/topics of the upcoming summer walking seminars

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The Walking Seminar 1 – May: Beginnings – How to start?

Date: 12 May 2015  Time: 12.00-13.30

Route: Campus Woodland Walk

MEET (Location): Bowland North Quad (nearer the spine) (number 23 on http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/maps/campus.pdf )

TERRAIN/FOOOTWEAR: Woodland walk – some mud possible.

Discussion Topic: How to start?

(Topic text and credit to TWS @ UvA)

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The Walking Seminar 2 (accessible route) – June: Anecdotes… (cancelled)

Date: 9 June 2015 Time: 12.00-14.00

Route: (Accessible route) Around Campus

MEET (Location): Bowland North Quad (nearer the spine) (number 23 on http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/maps/campus.pdf )

TERRAIN/FOOOTWEAR: Accessible sealed route

Discussion topic: Anecdotes

Recommended reading:

Michael, M. (2012). Anecdote. In C. Lury & N. Wakeford (Eds.), Inventive methods the happening of the social (pp. 25-35). London: Routledge.

http://ezproxy.lancs.ac.uk/login?url=http://lib.myilibrary.com/Open.aspx?id=371761

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The Walking Seminar 3 -July: The case

Date: rescheduled Thursday 23rd July 2015 Time: 12.00-14.00

Route: TBC – going off campus!

MEET (Location): Bowland North Quad (nearer the spine) (number 23 on http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/maps/campus.pdf )

TERRAIN/FOOOTWEAR: Off road (prepare for mud!)

Discussion Topic: “The case”

 

Well it’s finally  “real” – in that it has those crucial elements of a time and a place and a title and a topic. So the first Tuesday of each month will be the Walking Seminar meeting at Bowland North Quad (nearer the spine) (number 23 on http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/maps/campus.pdf:

And our very first walk-talk will be:

Date: 12 May 2015

Time: 12.00-13.30

Venue: Campus Woodland Walk

Discussion topic: How to start?

(Re-used from http://walkingseminar.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/beginning-at-beginning.html )

 

Inspired by http://walkingseminar.blogspot.co.uk/ I’m hoping to start a series of walking seminars at Lancaster…