So many books, so little time...

If I was to give one piece of constructive feedback about the Master's course overall, it is the observation that the amount of prescribed reading that was presented to us in the first year was quite overwhelming at times. Most modules listed myriad books, published papers, and/or academic articles at the end of each lecture as further 'recommended reading'. Granted, it was re-iterated many times that we were not expected to read all of the provided literature references but both myself and my fellow classmates got the distinct impression that we were expected to read as much as possible on a weekly basis.

While I started off with great intentions and managed to keep up with most of the reading in the initial weeks of the semester, once the assignments started coming in one after the other and various deadlines started to loom, the precious little spare time that I did have for doing additional reading soon fell by the wayside. Instead, I merely skimmed articles picking out the salient points and only referred to the book chapters when I needed to clarify something or seek out a particular piece of information.

I began to feel guilty about this after a while, wondering how I was going to come to terms with all the different terminologies and new theories if I didn't have time to follow up on researching them. While the lecture notes, podcasts, and slide presentations all gave an excellent overview and summary of the main concepts and topics discussed, I often felt the need to expand upon these by looking further into the literature. However, as mentioned previously - working full-time and prioritizing family commitments meant my additional time set aside for reading was often cut short.

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Many an evening, I tried to set aside half an hour before bedtime to try and get through some of the prescribed reading material but found myself dozing off after my usual 14 hour day of nonstop activity. Eventually, I hit upon the idea of bringing the books and/or printed material to work with me so that I could read through them during my breaks and/or lunch time. We are fortunate at work to have a dedicated library room although I often had to resist the urge to curl up and take a short nap instead of continuing with my reading.

In the end, what worked best for me was buying a dictaphone. Then I could underline key points in the books/articles - record any additional thoughts with the dictaphone, and then transcribe my notes later on that evening. This became an invaluable resource when it came to doing literature reviews both for the research report in the Autumn semester of 2019 and for the dissertation proposal in the Spring semester of 2020. 

Although I am usually quite quick at writing, I often find my thoughts trip over themselves as I scribble furiously on a notepad, and I usually can't get the words down on paper as fast as I am thinking them. Therefore, using a dictaphone resolved this as I can ramble on to my heart's content and then edit the content later when I transcribe my notes. Another advantage of this method is that it helps me remember what I've read as the spoken notes that I made as I went along, jog my memory as to the written content being referred to.

Now I've gotten to the point where I find myself re-reading articles and/or book chapters, purely for the enjoyment of them. One, in particular, that stands out is the George Orwell paper to which I dedicated a previous blog. Although it took me a while to find a method that helped me get through as much of the material as possible, one of the great joys of doing this Master's was rediscovering my love of reading. I have even found time to indulge in reading fiction books for pleasure, whenever my brain needs a rest from the academic side of things. And I can honestly say - and hope - that all of the reading has made me a better writer, and that is certainly something that I will always find time for.  

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"Reading is essential for those who seek to rise above the ordinary." ~ Jim Rohn