(no subject)
Hmm...it's not going so well today. I've decided my dissertation is going to be called crab-monster from here on.
It doesn't have anything to do with crabs, but I'm having real trouble pinning down precisely what it is going to be about. Not good given I've just realised I ideally need to have it finished in 2 weeks, not 3, 'cause then I can see my supervisor and have it all - literally - mapped out ('cause it'll already be written), so the fact that I'm going home early won't lead to missed supervisor-time, and won't affect my mark. :/
I've spent all day trying to figure out what I'm going to do it on though (well, since 11 - I went out for some milk - and I've had about 3 half hour breaks).
My ideas have already gone through 3 'official' incarnations - so first thing I did today was go over what they all were, and see if I could spot common features, which could potentially all add up to one dissertation. All I got from that was the knowledge that my 3rd idea had pretty much done all that, and my supervisor had shot that down as being too big to cover.
So then I tried to see how it could be simplified, but all I could really figure out was that I didn't want to go into much detail on science, or on technology - I want to focus on the more module-oriented stuff, like anomalies, animals, consciousness, & media. But I have to focus at least a bit on science, because my supervisor pointed out that quite a bit of what I was theorising off-hand was covered in the Science & Society module that the year below me is doing.
So today I actually started ploughing through the two books she recced I read about it. I had to give up on the first one because I just didn't see how it was relevant to what I was trying to think about, and it was really hard to read...so basically I couldn't be arsed to try and understand it when it didn't look like it would even be useful! The second one was more easy going, but while I've got a few good points from it, and think I can use it in my dissertation, I don't think I could or would want to make it into a big part of the essay.
So now I'm back at the beginning basically!
I have lots of small bits and pieces I want to bring in...but I have no large over-riding question that I'm trying to answer. And I need a large, over-riding, question to give my dissertation a direction and something to structure it around.
I've just been going through the marks for the assessed essays I did last year, and what I've got from that is that I do my best essay writing when, a)I have an opinion about the topic/question, and b)when I'm studying other theories (particularly ones which I struggle with - for some reason those essays come out better than ones I understand; perhaps 'cause they force me to put more work & effort in...?).
But right now the only 'opinion' I can come up with, is that society is stupid & contradictory.
I can probably apply that to sociological theories - 'cause on the whole they're stupid and contradictory too...and if they're not, then the criticisms and 'contradicting' theories that come after them are. But it's still not something I feel confident about writing a dissertation on. :(
It's got to be something hard enough to force me to pull out all the stops just so I understand it, but it's got to be something I can conceptualise to begin with!
I tried to think up some random questions, which I think would possibly exist if there was a module on my vague ideas - just so I could toss about ideas for the direction of the dissertation - but all I came up with was the word 'science'...
*growls and bangs head on desk*
I do believe this is worse than when I had to come up with an original conversational phenomenon to study!
Think I'm going to go downstairs, get another cup of tea, groan to the other two, and then get back to pulling my hair out.
It doesn't have anything to do with crabs, but I'm having real trouble pinning down precisely what it is going to be about. Not good given I've just realised I ideally need to have it finished in 2 weeks, not 3, 'cause then I can see my supervisor and have it all - literally - mapped out ('cause it'll already be written), so the fact that I'm going home early won't lead to missed supervisor-time, and won't affect my mark. :/
I've spent all day trying to figure out what I'm going to do it on though (well, since 11 - I went out for some milk - and I've had about 3 half hour breaks).
My ideas have already gone through 3 'official' incarnations - so first thing I did today was go over what they all were, and see if I could spot common features, which could potentially all add up to one dissertation. All I got from that was the knowledge that my 3rd idea had pretty much done all that, and my supervisor had shot that down as being too big to cover.
So then I tried to see how it could be simplified, but all I could really figure out was that I didn't want to go into much detail on science, or on technology - I want to focus on the more module-oriented stuff, like anomalies, animals, consciousness, & media. But I have to focus at least a bit on science, because my supervisor pointed out that quite a bit of what I was theorising off-hand was covered in the Science & Society module that the year below me is doing.
So today I actually started ploughing through the two books she recced I read about it. I had to give up on the first one because I just didn't see how it was relevant to what I was trying to think about, and it was really hard to read...so basically I couldn't be arsed to try and understand it when it didn't look like it would even be useful! The second one was more easy going, but while I've got a few good points from it, and think I can use it in my dissertation, I don't think I could or would want to make it into a big part of the essay.
So now I'm back at the beginning basically!
I have lots of small bits and pieces I want to bring in...but I have no large over-riding question that I'm trying to answer. And I need a large, over-riding, question to give my dissertation a direction and something to structure it around.
I've just been going through the marks for the assessed essays I did last year, and what I've got from that is that I do my best essay writing when, a)I have an opinion about the topic/question, and b)when I'm studying other theories (particularly ones which I struggle with - for some reason those essays come out better than ones I understand; perhaps 'cause they force me to put more work & effort in...?).
But right now the only 'opinion' I can come up with, is that society is stupid & contradictory.
I can probably apply that to sociological theories - 'cause on the whole they're stupid and contradictory too...and if they're not, then the criticisms and 'contradicting' theories that come after them are. But it's still not something I feel confident about writing a dissertation on. :(
It's got to be something hard enough to force me to pull out all the stops just so I understand it, but it's got to be something I can conceptualise to begin with!
I tried to think up some random questions, which I think would possibly exist if there was a module on my vague ideas - just so I could toss about ideas for the direction of the dissertation - but all I came up with was the word 'science'...
*growls and bangs head on desk*
I do believe this is worse than when I had to come up with an original conversational phenomenon to study!
Think I'm going to go downstairs, get another cup of tea, groan to the other two, and then get back to pulling my hair out.