Disclaimer – The thoughts and words in this blog may or may not be those of the author 
All kidding aside, as I sit and reflect on class on Oct. 15, 2011 I have to say that parts of the class were some of the most useful that I’ve had so far in this journey. Getting a chance to sit down, one on one, with two of my professors and being able to go over two of my writing samples was probably the best part of the day. Getting critical, but helpful feedback on my writing has helped my tremendously. I have struggled with switching back into “student” mode. The thought of scholarly writing was the farthest thing from my mind. We are all products of our environment and we reflect that. So switching from how I normally write things has been a challenge. Many of the things we have been given to read, seem to have been written in code. The more into “student” mode that I fall into the easier it is to understand. I really didn’t think that switching back would be so difficult. For some reason my mind is resisting it at all costs. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that my MBTI temperament is an SP – the least represented in colleges in this country. Maybe it’s just that I too laid back, maybe both are the same.
The tools that we have been given so far have also helped me to think about my writing before I actually start. The roadmap that we were given has been great in organizing my thoughts and also in helping me to get started.
We also spent some time just looking at the APA style. Having come up under the MLA style, this APA style is a big challenge. It calls into question everything that I know about writing a paper. So looking at it and discussing the why and how of the APA will help me as I continue in this journey. We also spent some time just answering some questions about a reading selection. The questions were not how I would have worded them. It took time just to translate into layman’s terms what they were asking. I know that more exercises like that will help me become a scholarly writer. Dr. Church told the cohort that the more you read scholarly writing the better of a scholarly writer you will become. I’m the first to admit that I resist the fact that the professors want us to be scholarly writers, as at this time I have no plans on writing any sort of book or article. However, as I look back on my own life I remember telling my mom when I finished my BA that I would NEVER go back to school again, and here I sit writing this blog as I complete requirements for a doctoral degree. So who knows, maybe when this is all said and done I’ll be the next great writer of scholarly books or articles, even though right now I have no desire to do so. People change, times change and our goals in life change.
so as I finish up this blog, my son pressing different keys to see what they will do, I admit that I am slowly coming around to the scholarly writing idea. As I found myself working on our Adaptive Challenge paper I would write a line, stop and think how can I say this in a more scholarly way and then rewrite it to reflect that new scholarly thought. Now I just have to wait to see if I got it right, and for that I am terribly impatient!
