Enlightenment, Take 2
Monday: it all made sense
Tuesday: One drafting session in CRM and it all didn't make sense anymore.
Wednsday: Misery
Now: Saw my supervisor and IT MAKES SENSE. Until next CRM lecture.
Biggest problem was in that my research question didn't address my area of "expertise," namely professional writing/publishing/whatever it is we're calling it now. I enrolled in Publishing. It changed when they started dropping units and courses all over the everywhere. PWP = ? Who knows. Digress - the form I had chosen for creative production, ie feature articles, though I'm not completely sold to that idea, did not reflect my research.
Apparently, once upon a time when I wasn't doing honours, it didn't have to. The *content* could do the reflecting and the form could do what it pleased. But they changed the rules and no one told me. Or my supervisors.
So, reworked my research question, after my exegesis supervisor hurried out to ask my CRM tutor exactly what the frag was going on. It's still broad (probably a lot moreso than before) but I know that. I'm currently working with:
How can the information resulting from an investigation into player investment in v3.x of D&D be best articulated for a reading audience consisting of a) those players themselves and/or b) an external audience with pre-existing assumption about games/gamers.
Current issues: "articulation" is a word that will need changing. Choose either a or b for audience, or do both and find a more succinct way to put it.
However, I'm assured now that this is going to be easier because the research itself (ie, the interviews I do) are not going to come under scrutiny now. My discoveries of game theory aren't going to be the subject so much as the means, so I can get it vaguely wrong and not be marked down. No, what I'll be marked on now, is how I use my information to properly address an audience. Which is a whole lot less intimidating, because I am not a game theorist, and doubt I ever will be.
Methodology/approach: constructivist. Research is not empirical (as with positivist approach) but will construct so-called truths from answers gained through interview and by applying theory. (Theories used must also be constructivist.)
Objectives/method (still trying to untangle those) :
- investigate places to publish creative production
- analyse pieces from said places
- frame questions to pose to online community
- question online community (kinda... duh)
- research gamer investment theories
- apply investment theories to answers from online community
- use all of above to create pieces for creative production
Well, slag. That's a lot of work.
Meanwhile, Gary Fine's "Shared Fantasies," basically a sociology of of RPG, is fascinating.
Tuesday: One drafting session in CRM and it all didn't make sense anymore.
Wednsday: Misery
Now: Saw my supervisor and IT MAKES SENSE. Until next CRM lecture.
Biggest problem was in that my research question didn't address my area of "expertise," namely professional writing/publishing/whatever it is we're calling it now. I enrolled in Publishing. It changed when they started dropping units and courses all over the everywhere. PWP = ? Who knows. Digress - the form I had chosen for creative production, ie feature articles, though I'm not completely sold to that idea, did not reflect my research.
Apparently, once upon a time when I wasn't doing honours, it didn't have to. The *content* could do the reflecting and the form could do what it pleased. But they changed the rules and no one told me. Or my supervisors.
So, reworked my research question, after my exegesis supervisor hurried out to ask my CRM tutor exactly what the frag was going on. It's still broad (probably a lot moreso than before) but I know that. I'm currently working with:
How can the information resulting from an investigation into player investment in v3.x of D&D be best articulated for a reading audience consisting of a) those players themselves and/or b) an external audience with pre-existing assumption about games/gamers.
Current issues: "articulation" is a word that will need changing. Choose either a or b for audience, or do both and find a more succinct way to put it.
However, I'm assured now that this is going to be easier because the research itself (ie, the interviews I do) are not going to come under scrutiny now. My discoveries of game theory aren't going to be the subject so much as the means, so I can get it vaguely wrong and not be marked down. No, what I'll be marked on now, is how I use my information to properly address an audience. Which is a whole lot less intimidating, because I am not a game theorist, and doubt I ever will be.
Methodology/approach: constructivist. Research is not empirical (as with positivist approach) but will construct so-called truths from answers gained through interview and by applying theory. (Theories used must also be constructivist.)
Objectives/method (still trying to untangle those) :
- investigate places to publish creative production
- analyse pieces from said places
- frame questions to pose to online community
- question online community (kinda... duh)
- research gamer investment theories
- apply investment theories to answers from online community
- use all of above to create pieces for creative production
Well, slag. That's a lot of work.
Meanwhile, Gary Fine's "Shared Fantasies," basically a sociology of of RPG, is fascinating.