The Plan

All right, I have a dissertation to work on here. I was always vague about my early research project because I am the only person ever to look at that particular relationship, but my dissertation is less unique. (Which is good, because I don't have to argue so much about whether it's a reasonable research question.) I am analyzing three sets of language samples, collected a year apart, for two groups of kids -- one with a set of risk factors and one without. I am running nine computerized analyses on a total of about 160 transcripts. Four of the analyses are big and hard and will provide me with opportunities to grow in patience. (You know how I love opportunities to grow in patience.) The remaining five analyses are easier, but three of those require me to use results from one of the complicated measures.

So: last week when Pete went back to preschool, I pulled out the transcripts I'll be analyzing, converted them to the appropriate format, and fixed the errors that popped up in the conversion. Now I am going to knock off the two easy analyses before I roll up my sleeves to tackle one of the hard ones. My goal for the week is to get the two easy ones finished and get the program I need running on this computer by Friday. We'll see how it goes.