Keeping a Research Journal

You have probably been told by several people to keep a daily journal of your overseas experience. Start now - before you leave - and continue the journal for several months after your return. This will provide you with an opportunity to have the whole experience recorded, and to think of the education abroad experience not just in terms of your time in another culture, but rather as a process of learning that does not have a specific entry or exit point. The process begins well before you get on the plane and extends well beyond your return through US customs! Few have regretted keeping a journal - however, many have regretted not doing it. All accounts reveal: a disciplined journal-keeper gains more from his or her efforts than ever anticipated.

There seems to be very little written on how to keep a journal and journal-keeping, even though writing a daily account is a fairly common activity. It spans from the most intimate notes of people, including their dreams and wildest fantasies; to recording of research observations of anthropologists; the activity logs of astronauts and sea captains; the scientific field journals of natural scientists; or the automated recordings of flight recorders. What they all have in common is that they document something for posterity. Yet, a research journal kept by a person has some additional purposes, and none of them is more important than the other, for they interact with each other like the instruments in a band of an orchestra. We stress the term research journal because this denotes an important difference from a personal journal or diary.

What a Journal Will Do:

What a Journal is NOT and DOES NOT:

Hints on Selecting Your Approach to Keeping a Journal

There are four traditional modes of discourse that you can use individually or in combination in your journal:

If your journal will be read by others, the readers' interests will be piqued if you:

Some Questions for Your Consideration When Writing Your Journal

The following questions are meant to help you reflect on the process of exploring the implications of moving across cultures, how to be effective in another culture, and how to learn about that culture.

Some VERY Practical Suggestions:

  1. Write daily: You will discover more about what you are experiencing if you write in your journal at the same time in the same place every day. Pick a spot that you are comfortable with -- a desk, chair, nook, cranny, couch, a café. Always try to write exactly 24 hours from the last time you wrote. It doesn't matter is it's at night or in the morning, the consistency is what's important. Transform it into a daily ritual. You'll be surprised how much of a priority your writing will become if you turn it into a habit.
  2. Turn the daily writing into a ritual. Choose the right book to write in. Buy a book that you can easily carry with you.
  3. Always write with the same pen, one that feels good to you and that you are actually pleased, with the way it feels and looks on the page. Try different inks; see which one you like best and stick with it. Protect your special book and pen and know where they are at all times.
  4. Buy and keep a small NOTEBOOK with you all the time in which you can jot down short rough notes during the day. Transcribe and organize them in the evening (or whenever your ritual writing time happens to be.)
  5. Leave some 1.5 - 2" space on your page in which you later can write annotations or make comments. Leave the opposite page of your writing empty for later amendments (or posting of photos, tickets, mementos - or your drawings and cartoons).
  6. Pay attention to where you are. Always try to maintain awareness of what's going on around you as you write. Fill your journal with the random sounds and smells of the present. Describe the space you inhabit, over and over, and pay attention to how it changes over time.
  7. Allow your mind to roam freely through the raw present, the distant past, and the shifting future. Don't deny whatever comes up as you are writing, no matter how silly it seems. You remembered it for some reason. Write it down. Respect the process of awareness wherever it takes you.
  8. Remember what people say and write it down in your stories. If you can't remember then work at writing what you think you remember people said. But say so!
  9. Write a little every day without hope and without despair. Isak Dinesen wrote: "Practice it." Don't judge your daily writing as either good or bad. Accept it as we do breathing: sometimes it is quickened, but mostly it merely keeps us alive.

And finally the requirements to get a decent grade for this assignment:

The absolute MINIMUM that has to be covered in the Research Journal [Remember that it is a DAILY exercise]: