Boosting the words

The theoretical approach overcomed. I will have to go back, one of these days, but not now.

I'm going ahead with a new chapter. I have to read the electoral manifestos of the political parties for the 2011 elections, overall and Barcelona.

Just started... to vomit. What a shame !

Stopped

No way

The theoretical approach remains as a schema after 3 weeks.

I have the need of writing some words based on Reniu's and Marquez's texts, but as far as I'm reading it becomes more and more difficult to know how to avoid a pure copy/paste.

One option:

Copy/paste without regrets, and re-writing, re-structuring. The truth is that there is nothing that I can deliver other than describing the exisiting theories

Let's try. I must go ahead

Lazy

I meet Dr Reniu the 18th of September. My document reached the 107 pages.

The advise was to make some changes in the internal organization of the document, on how to display the graphs, on how to use the colours and some basic tips.
I also have to add a chapter about the state of the art about coalitions ( Theoretical approach ).

For one month I have not been able to work again!

How to organize a new structure, keeping the work done in a rational structure ?

Yesterday I started again... so slow...

The document has been structured according to his advise, so I can go ahead again with the writing

80 pages

I was planning to have 75 pages by the end of August.
Today, still 20th of August, I count 82, but.... Is there any added value for a reader?. I mean is it worth for you or for anyone interested in politics to invest a bit of time in reading what I'm writing ?

Fear of SPSS

After more than one month I got a file from the CEO ( centre d'estudis d'opinió ) covering the public enquiry about political behavior dated June 2011

From the first day they told me that the only available format was SPSS, a statistical package that I have never used

Solved !!!

1- download the trial version of SPSS

2- open the file. ( as always : File/Open )

3- Save as...... EXCEL format

4- Remove SPSS from your hard disk

...and keep on working with the usual tools....

Methodology

I have been creating a list of all the responsibilities of each Councilor as written in the primary available sources.
When splitting for classification and standarization this creates a list of 18.323 words
For each one I have to make two classifications
The first one according to the importance of the responsibility, based on the results of the enquiry sent to more than 800 Councilors few months ago,  and the second one according to the legal list of services offered by the municipalities according to the Law ( 7/1985 )
I will need a speed of 600 words classifyed per day, This means that I can solve it in 30 working days and keep on working and displaying results

Holidays again

Holidays could be the main label of my blog. In fact I only can invest few weeks a year to my preferred status, but it is time to think about the past and the future. ... Stanislav Lem did it very well.

Two weeks ahead.

Currently I have 22 pages. Which is the right size for a graph ?

My graphs are as small as possible, but readable.I noticed that the size of the graphs and the tables is relevant to the total  number of pages--

I commited to have 75 pages before the end of August ( of 2012,  if you feel lost in this blog >).

I don't think this is very difficult, but still a challenge

Let's go ahead in the comming sticky summer days

Youtube ?

Yes is the answer

The structure of the study starts to become more and more clear, taking into consideration the collected information, and the quality levels ( own sources and external sources ).

As far as advancing the writting of the dissertation I'll record explanatory videos to load in youtube, so at this point I'll be using the traditional written documents, this blog, and a set of videos, in order to comunicate the result in as many options as possible

One more is over

Yes, All the information collected in paper or in digital format is already in the data base. This means that I'm in position to start analyzing data ..... and start the writting of the dissertation. I will have to read again most of the papers, because after one year... I hope that the summaries written in RefWorks will still be useful

As a result I have a matrix with 20 columns containing original data, all  manually inputed, and 10154 lines, making a total of 203.080 records.

Last step of a milestone

Yesterday I was at the Anoia Regional Archive, making pictures of the official books of Igualada from 1979 till 1991, covering a period of time for which I had no information at all.

Please, look at the details of the document, and the quality of the writting

Agreement fifth ( Cinquè ): to place the Catalan flag in the City Hall, aside the Spanish one


Getting this documents a milestone is over: stop collecting information.

Knowing the difficulties relating 1979 and 1983, I have to report in three groups:

1979-1983. The beggining of the local democracy
1983-1999. The democracy becomes a fact
2007-2011. The women take position ( Equality Law from March 2007 )

For each year, the percentage of available informaction from primary sources is :

1979	1983	1987	1991	1995	1999	2003	2007	2011
35,6%	41,7%	73,5%	70,5%	78,0%	89,4%	100,0%	100,0%	100,0%

ICPS data base

I have forgotten to comment on the database discovered one month ago:

Mistakes, only valuable informations since 2003, not complete, ....

I'm breathing again.....

Last day of March

Unfortunately I have to work every day, and this is delaying my research :-)

Last chance: Using the phone to call some municipalities, the ones with less information collected. Very promissing. The responsibles of the archives comment on the interest of my research and commit to send the missing information. One week later the truth comes up. Difficulties, time constraints, no way....

Some of them, extra kind, Parets, sent by post, Sant Joan de Vilatorrada to be picked at the City Hall desk, but the majority, again.... unacceptable: Sant Cugat, Badalona, they need an official request to be stamped at the information desk of the Municipality, in person.

Bureaucracy for the low performing administration. One must drive to knock on Heavens door if needed !!

It is because they believe they are God, when they are servants instead !

GRRRrrrrrrr !