Today I read through a couple articles and summarized them as I went along. Just trying to finish everything before Nov. 8th -- it is crunch time. I also started to organize my literature review and compile my references for the paper.

Work Time: 3 Hours

Re-assessment of Due Date

Today I did an assessment where I was at and where I needed to be. I realized that I am not going to make the deadline of the end of October for the assignments Dr. Shumway gave to me. I think I will need about another week and a half. I am projecting to be done by November 8th. I still have not started to write my paper and I will need to start that this week. As for everything else I am almost done reviewing the literature and I need to update the concept map. Today I spent time writing an email to Dr. Shumway, updating this blog, doing an annotation that I didn't finish from Saturday, reassessing the articles I have chosen and deleting some that I didn't feel would help me and finally reading some more articles.

Work Time: 3 hours

LONG SATURDAY

Well since I didn't get much work done this week I needed to get it done on Saturday. I spent the whole time reading a few articles and annotating them. I read two by Susan Cutter and then Lori Hunter's article Migration and Environmental Hazard (LONG ARTICLE) then I annotated them. I think I have almost read every article Susan Cutter has published in the last decade. Okay maybe not all of them but nearly. That was really all I did and it took me forever.

Work Time: 5 Hours

Today was friday and I have to be honest I was a bit unmotivated to do any work after the long week I had (20 page paper)!! So when I came home from school today I just spent an hour looking for new articles pertaining to population geography and natural hazards. I found a couple more.

Work Time: 1 Hour

I went to the Library today and printed off some articles and then had to find some other ones in the Periodical Section. Then I updated my list of articles. Recently I have found some good articles pertaining to Population geography and Natural Hazards they were written by Lori Hunter. There is still one more that I need to get. After getting the articles I read through a couple of them and summarized what they contained.

Work Time: 4 Hours

Wow I worked alot today!! I read a few more articles and wrote up summaries for them. Then I got onto the library website and looked throug some more search engines for more articles. Thus far I have only been using GeoBase but I recognized I probably should be searching some other ones. So I did a bit of research with some other search engines. Honestly I feel like I have a ton of articles it is just a fact of reading through them and analyzing them.

Work Time: 4 Hours

Today I read an amazing article written by Alison Fothergill from the Univeristy of Colorado. I really liked the outline and organization of her article and it helped me realize how I need to do mine for Dr. Shumway. He article was a complete review of natural hazards and race and ethnicity. I feel like I have a hard time critically analyzing the articles. However it is become more natural but I definitely don't see all the holes. I think my biggest problem is that I just read them and take it at face value instead of thinking to myself I need to be questioning their methods and approach. This skill is coming but I still feel like a tyro. I also finished some bibliographies I didn't finish from last week. Hmmm.. That was all.

Work Time: 3 Hours

This entry is for Thursday and Friday collectively. My brother came into town this weekend so i forgot to update my blog. On Thursday I got a another book from the Library called Assessment of Research on Natural Hazards writen by Gilbert F. White (My new Idol) He is the father of natural hazard research. Anyway I felt like just the first chapter would give me some insight into the type of research that was done before 1975. I read that chapter and then summarized it. I also read another article and summarized that.

Work Time: 3 1/2 Hours

Friday I got a book through from interlibrary loan called World Disaster Report 2005. They have the book electronically but I was able to pull some strings and get them to order one from another library. I got that today and went through some of that -- I don't think it is going to be too helpful but I will look at it more closely to evaluate it. If anything I think that it will really help me see the current situation with hazard research. I took some time to also download some articles and finish a annotated bibliography of one of Susan Cutter's books. This next week is going to be crazy for me (20 page paper!! need I say more) so I am not sure how much work I will get in.

Work Time: 2 Hours

Today I worked on getting all my citations done for the annotated bibliography, making sure that they were all cited right and in alphabetical order. I also read a couple more articles and used time to summarize them. I updated my concept map and that was about it!!

Work Time: 3 1/2 Hours

Today was brilliant!! I went back and revisited both the articles I read yesterday and honestly it made the world of difference. It was almost like I just needed a night to sleep on all the new information that I was gaining. They made complete sense and I was able to effectively evaluate areas of improvement. Today I read a couple more articles and wrote added them to the annotated bibliography. It is amazing to me as I am reading things that ideas for the paper just keep coming to mind. I also was able to add more information to the conceptual map. After all that was donw I went through all my sources picking just the very best ones that I felt would add to my knowledge but also help me get an overall picture of research that has been conducted. I figured out that I have 19 more articles to review and analyze. I have set a goal to be done going through all the literature by the 26th of this month. After I complete that I will begin writing the paper.

Work Time: 4 Hours

Today I spent most of my time reading through some of the articles in Environmental Risks and Hazards. I was a bit frusterated with a couple of articles -- It was like reading something in another language. However, I remained persistant. I was able to get through a couple of articles and write the bibliography for it but to be honest it was just a bit of an off day. GRRR...

Work Time: 3 Hours

I had to go and pick up a book from interlibrary loan today. It is called Environmental Risks and Hazards edited by Susan Cutter. It contains a collection of various essential articles about natural hazard research. I spent most of my time going through the book and checking off articles I felt would be beneficial. I also read Susan Cutter's article in the book. That was all for today, I am off to have a great weekend.

Work Time: 1 1/2 Hours

I went in and saw Dr. Shumway today -- we talked really briefly about exactly what he was looking for in the annotated bibliography. That was really helpful. I also realized that I need to be looking more at Population and Natural hazard articles so that we can evaluate something that hasn't been done. Today I spent some time reading Dennis S. Mileti's book Disasters by Design. I just skimmed through some of it and then went to the chapter where it discussed further research that needs to be done in the field. Then I went through the articles I have read and written up their summaries for and looked through their references. I highlighted alot of articles that I think will give me an idea on what has been done in the field concerning an assessment of Natural Hazards and Population geography. Finally I went and requested some of the articles through interlibrary load. While there I checked up on the previous articles I requested and found out that two of them are actually in Chinese. LAME. Little good that does me and they were good articles too. All in all not the most productive day but accomplished somethings. Now I am going to set some goals on what I need to accomplish before I write this paper

Work Time: 3 Hours

Toady I read two of Susan Cutter's article's. It took me a while to get through them because I edited my conceptual map as I read. I also updated my working bibliography as I went. I am started to get my head around the research that has been done yet I still feel like there is much more I need to be reviewing. I was a bit worried today and I was thinking about how we could incorporate this research with Dr. Shumway's field, Population Geography. A lot of research has been done assessing demographic variables and vulnerability. I hope something unviels itself as a possible research avenue.

Work Time: 3 Hours

I thought it might be useful for me to go and check out my text book from the Natural Hazards class I took from Dr. Bekker. I also found some other good books that I think will be benefical for the project. The textbook we used was called Environmental Hazards: Assessing Risk and Reducing Disaster. At the back of the book there is an extensive bibliography. I took some time to go through each reference and assess whether it would help me. After doing that I went through all the articles I gathered last week and narrowed it down to the ones I though would be good. I also continued working on the Natural Hazards concept map. Having my text book from Natural Hazards class really helped to give some accurate definitions. Finally I found in the back of the text book a list of various websites relating to Natural Hazards and I spent the last 30 minute looking at some of them. Oh also while I was in the library I looked up Natural Hazards and Population Geography. I found some interesting articles which might help us get some further ideas.

Work Time: 4 Hours

Today I read a couple of articles and began the annotated bibliography. I also began doing a concept map of natural hazards as a subdisciple in geography. I further researched for more articles and books. I found some good books. One is by Susan Cutter and the other two are textbooks that will give me a broad knowledge of where the feild is at. I also had to request a few articles through interlibrary loan.

Work Time: 3 Hours

First Day as Research Assistant

Today I spent most of my time searching geographic databases to find out the historical and recent development of natural hazards research. I found thousands of articles that applied to my searches. However I will need to continuously narrow down these articles to get a more specific view of the type of hazard research that has been conducted and what is being done today in terms of hazard risk, vulnerability and mitigation. I found a spot-on article called "The Study of Natural Disasters, 1977 -1997: Some Reflections on a Changing Field of Knowledge." by David Alexander. I then spent another hour or so looking through the Electroning Disaster Journal. I found some great articles there. I am now off to find an article by Suzan Cutter and to read the previously mentioned article.

Work Time: 3 Hours

Preliminary Meeting

Today I meet with Dr. Shumway and we discussed potential areas of research that would benefit both of our interests. I was impressed with how accommodating he was for me. He outlined a few activities to get me started

1. Annotated Biliography
Pertaining to articles that I found about natural hazards -- seeking to answer questions like: Where the field is now? What has been done? What are they doing now?
2. Natural Hazards -- Subdiscipline Concept Map
Different parts of the discipline linking them to articles reflecting their ideas. How does it all fit together?
3. Write background paper on Natural Hazards Research
Looking at the current state of the field of Natural Hazard research

Overall Goal: Co-author a paper together relating to both Natural Hazards and Population Geography. Help me narrow down possible thesis questions/topics

Due Date: End of October