Wonderful World of Academia: And we're back to square one.
Okay, not exactly because I managed to write twenty pages for the thesis since last Monday, and some of it even makes sense and probably doesn't need to be edited too heavily (yes, I adopted the NaNoWriMo approach for writing this sucker: write, write, write, you can edit it when you're done), unfortunately, I hit a major snag in the road: I. Have. No. Idea. How to go about my research.
Now that's unfortunate, indeed, you might think. Shouldn't she have thought about that a leeeeettle earlier, you might think. And yes, you are right. Except that this whole "how do I research" thing is kinda what I have been thinking about for, like three years and I thought I had it all figured out after talking to my advisor at the beginning of the year. I had a working theory, okay, I had two working theories and I was going to do discourse analysis because it meant that I didn't have to accumulate quantitive data (and, as I have finally accepted, qualitative approach suits me way more because I'm a lot better at analysing text than I am at analysing numbers. Probably a remnant of three years of literary studies or something, I don't know) and I was totally ready to do that.
Only I had another break-through last Friday concerning how to handle and possibly combine my two working theories since both have merit and both have weak points and I somehow instinctively knew that neither research probably wouldnt show a tendency for either of them and now I'd of course like my research to lead to my conclusion which is a lot easier said than done.
Basically (and for the new people), #1 theory is that the more invested an audience member is in a fictional source, the more likely it is that they will develop an interest in real world persons and/or events dealt with in the fictional source and draw connections between the way characters or events are portrayed in fiction and the way the real world pendants (such as, in my case, female soldiers) actually work/go/went (I call that process transference in my thesis, but it's not to be confused with the psychological term transeference, and yes, I make that clear in the thesis) while #2 theory says that the closer fictional content is to real life events and persons, the more likely it is that audience members will develop an interest in the real life pendants and make that connection between fictional content and real life issues. I didn't want to completely discard either of them despite both theories' weak spots because when I looked for example to show that the transference does happen (before going into examining how it happens), discourse analysis's tendency showed that both seem to be applicable.
So far, so good. Last Friday I had this kind of epiphany that the most likely turn out for this is that theory #2 probably works for everyone in the audience (kind of a no-brainer, when you look at how even people who aren't invested in fandom at all take part in discussions on shows like Scandal, The Good Wife or Homeland) while the investment theory works mostly for people who are actually fans and self-identify as fans, i.e. people who invest a lot of time in watching specific TV shows or playing specific video games, write and/or read fic, take an active part in discussions etc. (case in point but not exclusive to, any discussion on shows that don't feature content closely reflecting current real life events or issues, such as the discussion surrounding Eureka's S4 premier, "Founders' Day", and the erasure of Kevin Blake's autism).*
So now I'm stuck at how to go about proving that my hypothesis has merit and actually works because the only way to prove it I can come up with is that first I need to show that both approaches are factors in transference and then show how one approach works for everyone while the other requires a certain degree of self-identification as fan and, even more important, active involvement in fandom and most important getting so involved that you make contributions that require you to make connections to real world events and issues (or what we fanfic authors like to call research).
I know that discourse analysis could work for that, I have a hunch (and those hunches usually turn out to be right) that I need to incorporate fanfictions at some point and I know I'm this close to finding a way out of this mess but I can't seem to find the right angle to use and it's driving me bonkers. I hate it when that happens because there's no way to tell when that breakthrough that I need so much comes to me and when it does happen, usually happens when I have no way of putting it down on paper or into my Evernote account and I'm all "OMFG MUST NOT FORGET THIS!" and then I do take out my notebook (it's an actual notebook, made of paper and stuff because I'm backward like that), after all and end up with notes I can barely read because I took them on the bus :S
There really is no method to my scientific process, just madness and unprofessional scrambling and floundering about and procrastination and frustration at myself, interrupted by frenzied writing flashes that make me produce twenty pages in eight days and later hate myself because I just set way too high standards for myself and expect myself to produce four pages every single day instead of giving myself time to breathe and forgive myself for days when I barely put something on paper or no writing at all happens.
Or, in short, I write my scientific stuff like I write my fanfics: I totally just make it up as I go along. Ugh. I suck as a scholar.
*yes, I know that a lot of that stuff sounds like no-brainers but that's kinda a humanities scholar's entire life: you theorize something and everyone else goes "Well, that's a no-brainer!" because yes, we're all part of society and we all live in it, so naturally we will have made observations that make us go "Yeah, everyone knows that it's like that, why do you need to make a scientific project out of it?" and no one ever understands that the real difficulty isn't in theorizing something, it's in proving or disproving that theory. Because just saying "It's like that." without a proper scientific process to show that what you're saying has an actual, factual basis isn't an approach exclusive to STEM, it's mandatory and above all necessary in the humanities as well.
And yes, I'm really sorry to bother you all with my thesis rants but apparently, I need those ramblings to clear my head and get some perspective on my writing. At least now I know that I really am close to finding out what's blocking me from delving into the research phase but yeah. That only does so much to make me panic a little less :S
Now that's unfortunate, indeed, you might think. Shouldn't she have thought about that a leeeeettle earlier, you might think. And yes, you are right. Except that this whole "how do I research" thing is kinda what I have been thinking about for, like three years and I thought I had it all figured out after talking to my advisor at the beginning of the year. I had a working theory, okay, I had two working theories and I was going to do discourse analysis because it meant that I didn't have to accumulate quantitive data (and, as I have finally accepted, qualitative approach suits me way more because I'm a lot better at analysing text than I am at analysing numbers. Probably a remnant of three years of literary studies or something, I don't know) and I was totally ready to do that.
Only I had another break-through last Friday concerning how to handle and possibly combine my two working theories since both have merit and both have weak points and I somehow instinctively knew that neither research probably wouldnt show a tendency for either of them and now I'd of course like my research to lead to my conclusion which is a lot easier said than done.
Basically (and for the new people), #1 theory is that the more invested an audience member is in a fictional source, the more likely it is that they will develop an interest in real world persons and/or events dealt with in the fictional source and draw connections between the way characters or events are portrayed in fiction and the way the real world pendants (such as, in my case, female soldiers) actually work/go/went (I call that process transference in my thesis, but it's not to be confused with the psychological term transeference, and yes, I make that clear in the thesis) while #2 theory says that the closer fictional content is to real life events and persons, the more likely it is that audience members will develop an interest in the real life pendants and make that connection between fictional content and real life issues. I didn't want to completely discard either of them despite both theories' weak spots because when I looked for example to show that the transference does happen (before going into examining how it happens), discourse analysis's tendency showed that both seem to be applicable.
So far, so good. Last Friday I had this kind of epiphany that the most likely turn out for this is that theory #2 probably works for everyone in the audience (kind of a no-brainer, when you look at how even people who aren't invested in fandom at all take part in discussions on shows like Scandal, The Good Wife or Homeland) while the investment theory works mostly for people who are actually fans and self-identify as fans, i.e. people who invest a lot of time in watching specific TV shows or playing specific video games, write and/or read fic, take an active part in discussions etc. (case in point but not exclusive to, any discussion on shows that don't feature content closely reflecting current real life events or issues, such as the discussion surrounding Eureka's S4 premier, "Founders' Day", and the erasure of Kevin Blake's autism).*
So now I'm stuck at how to go about proving that my hypothesis has merit and actually works because the only way to prove it I can come up with is that first I need to show that both approaches are factors in transference and then show how one approach works for everyone while the other requires a certain degree of self-identification as fan and, even more important, active involvement in fandom and most important getting so involved that you make contributions that require you to make connections to real world events and issues (or what we fanfic authors like to call research).
I know that discourse analysis could work for that, I have a hunch (and those hunches usually turn out to be right) that I need to incorporate fanfictions at some point and I know I'm this close to finding a way out of this mess but I can't seem to find the right angle to use and it's driving me bonkers. I hate it when that happens because there's no way to tell when that breakthrough that I need so much comes to me and when it does happen, usually happens when I have no way of putting it down on paper or into my Evernote account and I'm all "OMFG MUST NOT FORGET THIS!" and then I do take out my notebook (it's an actual notebook, made of paper and stuff because I'm backward like that), after all and end up with notes I can barely read because I took them on the bus :S
There really is no method to my scientific process, just madness and unprofessional scrambling and floundering about and procrastination and frustration at myself, interrupted by frenzied writing flashes that make me produce twenty pages in eight days and later hate myself because I just set way too high standards for myself and expect myself to produce four pages every single day instead of giving myself time to breathe and forgive myself for days when I barely put something on paper or no writing at all happens.
Or, in short, I write my scientific stuff like I write my fanfics: I totally just make it up as I go along. Ugh. I suck as a scholar.
*yes, I know that a lot of that stuff sounds like no-brainers but that's kinda a humanities scholar's entire life: you theorize something and everyone else goes "Well, that's a no-brainer!" because yes, we're all part of society and we all live in it, so naturally we will have made observations that make us go "Yeah, everyone knows that it's like that, why do you need to make a scientific project out of it?" and no one ever understands that the real difficulty isn't in theorizing something, it's in proving or disproving that theory. Because just saying "It's like that." without a proper scientific process to show that what you're saying has an actual, factual basis isn't an approach exclusive to STEM, it's mandatory and above all necessary in the humanities as well.
And yes, I'm really sorry to bother you all with my thesis rants but apparently, I need those ramblings to clear my head and get some perspective on my writing. At least now I know that I really am close to finding out what's blocking me from delving into the research phase but yeah. That only does so much to make me panic a little less :S