Feng Shuang, a second-year economic major, regards the process of completing her digital research project a “miserable process of growing up”: 

The first stage of the research is choosing a topic and forming a tentative thesis, which I think is most important in the research process. However, it is one of my failures. My first topic is “the sensibility aspect in education”. I chose this because I find that even as a student with high scores, I didn’t learn much about how to love and how to conduct myself in the school. I am interested in the topic, but finally I have to give up because I am not familiar with the relevant literature and it’s beyond my ability to write an academic paper on this topic. Later I thought about “the medical care policy”, but I find it hard to form a thesis on it, so I didn’t dwell on it. When I reached my topic of the paper at last, half of the term has passed. The topic is about the favorable investment policy in china. I am interested in it because it is related to my hometown. Deeply, I hope the policy will bring prosperity to my hometown. When I first read these policy materials I did not intend to write a paper. But after reading them, I have some ideas (or worries), so I said to myself: Just this one! What I wanted to discuss in my paper is about the negative consequences of these policies. I wasn’t able to come up with a good thesis that can be well-developed at the beginning stage of my project, so I decided to form a thesis while searching.  I gradually had a thesis while searching and thinking on the topic--- the implementation of these favorable policies has formed a competition leading to some negative results.

When I started writing the draft, I found that my thesis and structure was not clear enough. The first draft came out to be hard to understand and the style is not as formal as APA style. I have to thank my partners, Dr. Spider, and Shirley who gave me so many good suggestions and encouragement. I tried to revise the outline to make it clearer, and the second draft came out to be much clearer than the former one. And I tried to use a clear structure to make my audience understand the oral presentation too.

On the whole I am not satisfied with my work.  Sometimes I didn’t try my best to make my work perfect.  With so many regrets, I want to share some of my experience with you.

First, do have a plan and control while searching digital information. Just as my partner Xu Huihui wrote in her paper, it’s necessary to use critical thinking skills before and during the searching process. I wasted a lot of time drifting on the web without a purpose or proper keywords in my mind.

Second, only through independent thinking can we promote ourselves. Sometimes, what really troubles me is not how many words I have to write or how many pages I have to read. Despite the fact that thinking on my own is much more difficult, I was gradually guided to analyze logically and being more thoughtful.

Third, we have to hold on and stick to our goals to achieve improvement. During the 16 weeks, many students, including me, had complained about the heavy tasks. However, as it comes to the end, we have all finished our work. If we complain less and work harder, I am sure the result will come out better. Facing any difficulty with more pleasure and more enthusiasm may be the right attitude.