Skip to main content
A Word About Words

A Word About Words

·520 words·3 mins·
6010 Philosophy Education PhD Blog 4 Writing
Megan E. Barnes
Author
Megan E. Barnes
I’m Megan Barnes, a Ph.D. student at the University of North Texas, studying learning technologies. Join me on this journey as I grow as an academic, and share my excitement for technology, research, and the human side of technology with the world.
Table of Contents

Earlier posts:

  1. Power-Knowledge Ball & Wang
  2. How We Learn
  3. Technology & Learning

A Word about Words
#

Here is a list of words I like, but always stop to look up the definitions of:

  • Ontology - the philosophical study/consideration of what it means to exist (Oxford English Dictionary, n.d.)

  • Phenomenology - the study of consciousness, especially first-person experience (Smith, 2018)

  • Epistemology - an understanding of knowledge (Blackburn, 2008)

I have always loved these words and have a general understanding of them. I have also looked them up more than once, even within the resources that I cited above. I always like to confirm I know their meaning. Each one of those rolls off the tongue so beautifully (especially phenomenology) and I want to do the concepts those words represent justice.

There are two main questions being posed this week: one asking about the theories & philosophies covered so far, and one regarding if I feel more immersed in the style of thinking a Ph.D. is required to do.

Theory & Philosophy
#

I love all the theories and philosophy. As I have mentioned previously (if you’ve read previously), I did Lincoln-Douglas debate in high school. This gave me a solid foundation in the basics of philosophy and helped hone my argumentation. Even if you’re not great, the experience you gain in developing arguments on your feet comes in useful in life, and especially in a Ph.D. program.

On Ph.D. Thinking and Writing
#

This part is harder. There’s not been a shift in my thinking. This is in line with my Educational Specialist degree, although earlier and more in depth. I’m mostly enjoying the conversations, although sometimes the timing means I’m less enthusiastic than I might be if it were earlier in the day.

Except… earlier in the day I’m talking to 8 year olds. It’s whiplash at it’s finest.

The bigger struggle I’m having is finding the joy in the writing process. I enjoy researching, I enjoy reading and learning, and I enjoy sharing my knowledge. Right now, though, academic writing feels like 21st grade MadLibs. When writing analysis articles, I can handle the actual consideration and conclusion-drawing. It’s the hair-splitting linguistics where it stops feeling like natural writing and turns into parsing things so finely that true meaning is lost (and readability goes with it, honestly).

The shift I’ve had towards scholarly writing is … I’m less excited about it. I want to do meaningful work, and I want to share it, but I want to share it in a way that is more accessible to people than scholarly writing tends to be.  If we’re writing in a way where the important parts are a 150-word abstract, 250-word introduction, and conclusions…. why are we writing 5000 words?

I like this blog a lot, though. Oh - and I’m a fantastic partner for presentations. I love presentations.

Citations
#

Blackburn, S. (2008). epistemology. In The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 16 Feb. 2024, from https://www-oxfordreference-com.libproxy.library.unt.edu/view/10.1093/acref/9780199541430.001.0001/acref-9780199541430-e-1113. ontology, n. Meanings, etymology and more. (2004). Oxford English Dictionary Online.https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1554916519 Smith, D. W. (2018). Phenomenology. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/phenomenology/#Bib

Related

Power-Knowledge Wang & Ball
·620 words·3 mins
6010 Philosophy Education PhD
How We Learn
·493 words·3 mins
6010 Philosophy Education PhD
Can you please just stop touching your Chromebook?
·507 words·3 mins
Philosophy Education PhD Technology Ed Tech 6010