Hari ni genap seminggu aku tidak ke kantor. Bukan sengaja, tapi aku sarat demam.. hari ni baru ada baiknya sedikit. Alhamdulillah, syukur aku panjatkan pada Ilahi.. selalunya aku jarang demam, namun jika demam, makaan ia lambat sungguh reda-nya.. Trimas pada teman2 yg sudi hulurkan bantuan, ada yg datang memasak, dan meng-antarin makanan segala.. hanya Tuhan yg mampu membalas jasa baik kalian.. aku rasa terharu, kerana tinggal jauh dari keluarga, namun teman2 yg baik ini umpama saudara kandung sendiri.. pantas saja bilamana menghulurkan bantuan.. Teman serumah ku jua byk membantuku..dialah yg masak utk ku ketika mula2 demam kelmarin, dan dialah juga yg byk nolong ketika aku jatuh pengsan di luar sadar. Aku sndiri nggak menyangka jadi begitu, nyaris2 aja aku diantarin ke rumah sakit. Aku takut skali tinggal di hospital!
itu dulu bicaranya utk kali ini.. aku harus solat ya.. nnt ketemu lagi.
Friday, 17 July 2009
Thursday, 9 July 2009
The Spark of New Knowledge
Today I attended a Doctoral Forum organized by the Student Learning Center of the University. Its central theme was around the issue of originality, and few sharing sessions with some of the panel experts from the exam committee, and recent graduates who won the best thesis award.
Well, according to one of the speakers, "originality is hard to define". There is always a problem when it comes to define whether certain work being carried out is really original. Dr Barry mentioned that somehow our work is a kind of replication. We replicated unintentionally. Yes, I agree with that very much. Our research is usually based on work that previous people have done, and we might investigate the same thing but from different perspective or perhaps applying different methodology for measuring something. He also stressed that, its okay to have negative results or outcomes from the experiments. It simply because the negative outcomes can also be something very valuable. So do not perceive negative results as a failure.
He also said that its important to ensure our work is something publishable. One of things that examiners like to ask is the value of our research work. In other words, what are the significant contribution or outcomes we had discovered or found from the studies.
To recall back the advice given by the panel of experts from the exam committee, Assoc Prof Mavis Haigh stressed that what she really expect from a thesis or dissertation is the "clarity of arguments". She said that "do not let the examiners struggle try to understand the arguments in the thesis". Thus, I presume this is very important piece of advice I received and learned today, that it is very very critical to make sure that we organized the whole idea of the thesis. My head started to thinking the action that should be taken before engage into writing up a thesis. The whole story of the thesis must be clear enough, thus providing linking in between of chapters is significantly important. Put the story all together in a coherent manner. She mentioned many times that the "organization of ideas" is very very important. The examiner would like to see the whole thing of the thesis like a story that have a clear background and purpose, and that the author has presented critical analysis of what have been done before. Prof Ross adding by mentioning that the studies should open up a new questions for future exploration. That is really interesting. It reflects back to my experiment in the previous semester where the results we obtained did not support the projected alternative hypotheses. It was quite sad, but when I rationalized back the whole thing, I understand the possibility of some intervening factors that might somehow have rather greater influence as compared with the factor we're investigating. So, the first experiment rather than giving only the results, at the same time, it open up a few more useful aspects for future investigation, which is indeed sound interesting to the researcher :-)
Well, those are the things I captured from the sessions. There was also a discussion about turning a thesis into books. The speaker are editors from recognized publisher in NZ. They mentioned that if you're interested in producing a book from the thesis, make sure we clear about who will be the "audience". The audience is the target reader of our book. So that once we clear about that, we can be sure of the use of style, the structure, and expectation of knowlegde of the author. Its always important to talk or communicate with the publisher at the early stage (It can be as simple as just sending them an email! mentioning your intention and possibility of publication) It doesnt need you to prepare the whole lot of thing because if they;re interested then only you will know what is the expectation, and the target submission of manuscript, and everything will be detailed in a contract. Writing a book is more into engaging into finding who will read your book when it get published? Therefore you really need to know your market!
Hmm at this point of time, I personally haven't given serious thought about it. Maklumlah..Phd pun lum abis.. but it;s really a good thing for promotion or recognition purposes. But I think at this stage, first things first. Get this Phd done first, and later when you got your title in front of your name you perhaps will consider an opportunity for writing a book! InsyaAllaah.
Wish you all (& me) the best of luck!
Well, according to one of the speakers, "originality is hard to define". There is always a problem when it comes to define whether certain work being carried out is really original. Dr Barry mentioned that somehow our work is a kind of replication. We replicated unintentionally. Yes, I agree with that very much. Our research is usually based on work that previous people have done, and we might investigate the same thing but from different perspective or perhaps applying different methodology for measuring something. He also stressed that, its okay to have negative results or outcomes from the experiments. It simply because the negative outcomes can also be something very valuable. So do not perceive negative results as a failure.
He also said that its important to ensure our work is something publishable. One of things that examiners like to ask is the value of our research work. In other words, what are the significant contribution or outcomes we had discovered or found from the studies.
To recall back the advice given by the panel of experts from the exam committee, Assoc Prof Mavis Haigh stressed that what she really expect from a thesis or dissertation is the "clarity of arguments". She said that "do not let the examiners struggle try to understand the arguments in the thesis". Thus, I presume this is very important piece of advice I received and learned today, that it is very very critical to make sure that we organized the whole idea of the thesis. My head started to thinking the action that should be taken before engage into writing up a thesis. The whole story of the thesis must be clear enough, thus providing linking in between of chapters is significantly important. Put the story all together in a coherent manner. She mentioned many times that the "organization of ideas" is very very important. The examiner would like to see the whole thing of the thesis like a story that have a clear background and purpose, and that the author has presented critical analysis of what have been done before. Prof Ross adding by mentioning that the studies should open up a new questions for future exploration. That is really interesting. It reflects back to my experiment in the previous semester where the results we obtained did not support the projected alternative hypotheses. It was quite sad, but when I rationalized back the whole thing, I understand the possibility of some intervening factors that might somehow have rather greater influence as compared with the factor we're investigating. So, the first experiment rather than giving only the results, at the same time, it open up a few more useful aspects for future investigation, which is indeed sound interesting to the researcher :-)
Well, those are the things I captured from the sessions. There was also a discussion about turning a thesis into books. The speaker are editors from recognized publisher in NZ. They mentioned that if you're interested in producing a book from the thesis, make sure we clear about who will be the "audience". The audience is the target reader of our book. So that once we clear about that, we can be sure of the use of style, the structure, and expectation of knowlegde of the author. Its always important to talk or communicate with the publisher at the early stage (It can be as simple as just sending them an email! mentioning your intention and possibility of publication) It doesnt need you to prepare the whole lot of thing because if they;re interested then only you will know what is the expectation, and the target submission of manuscript, and everything will be detailed in a contract. Writing a book is more into engaging into finding who will read your book when it get published? Therefore you really need to know your market!
Hmm at this point of time, I personally haven't given serious thought about it. Maklumlah..Phd pun lum abis.. but it;s really a good thing for promotion or recognition purposes. But I think at this stage, first things first. Get this Phd done first, and later when you got your title in front of your name you perhaps will consider an opportunity for writing a book! InsyaAllaah.
Wish you all (& me) the best of luck!
Wednesday, 8 July 2009
Coromandel in May
Sempena kedatangan kak lili from Sydney, we all bawak dia gi Coromandel. yay..! What a beautiful place, amazingly beautiful. SubhanaAllah!
Wednesday, 1 July 2009
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