Extra research and lit review

This week has been our half term, so I decided to utilise this time off in order to catch up on research and progress further with my lit review. I have read, highlighted and annotated the journal articles I printed off, as well as review them, and I found them to be extremely useful in providing me with a deeper insight into my project. The journal articles I read are feminist and marxist critical readings of Pride and Prejudice which I thought would be significant research as my project focuses on social and economic factors, women and class/wealth included. As marxist and feminist readings focus on gender and class in particular, this enabled me to receive a profound grasp of how these topics are explored in the novel, and the extent to which the predominance of these topics in society influenced the novel. They also went into great depth about Austen's beliefs and her aims at presenting these factors in the way she did, showing the different ways in which she was influenced by her own society.

I have also progressed onwards with my lit review, in which I will include this extra research as I found many different, interesting points, some which supported, and some which contrasted with previous views I found.

Introduction

Yesterday, I finished writing the introduction to my project. I included details such as why I picked the title I did, what I plan to explore in my essay, and the different argument which may arise as I unpick the question and look at the research to use to answer it. Although Chris advised us to leave the introduction last, I thought it would be beneficial, to me personally, if I write it first as I can use it to refer back to when doing my write up. However, I am aware that the direction of my project may change as I progress further with my write up, therefore I have left an element of vagueness so I can go back and adjust it if necessary, depending on whether my essay goes in a different direction to what I expected. I am now continuing with my literature review, using my plan, while simultaneously carrying out extra research which I may choose to add into my write up. This is why I have left my introduction as quite vague as I may find a piece of research which alters the direction of my project.

Project Product Review

Yesterday, I had my project product review with my supervisor, Chris. This meeting mainly consisted of looking through my folder, which is a working progress, to check I had everything I needed to this moment. I already have a lot of the research which I have collated throughout the course of this project, with annotations and highlighting, in it, alongside my literary reviews, plan, diary entries, etc. Although I had a lot of my work in there, Chris reminded me to put everything I've touched relating to my EPQ in there as I mentioned that I haven't included other bits of planning, such as planning of initial ideas, title ideas, areas of research, etc. He said this will show the depth of my thought process and how far I've progressed from the very start to where I am now. I agreed with this as I have made a few adjustments to my project, which I have explained in my diary, but including my planning will support this explanation by showing my ideas attached to the adjustments. Chris also mentioned to add extra annotations to my research to show my thought process of the planning of my essay and my own comments on the things said by different sources. It will also show how I had linked together different sources and how they are similar/different, and what this comparison shows when relating it back to my question. Furthermore, as I am progressing forward with my final product, which is my write up, I am asked my supervisor questions relating to my introduction as I did not know what to include, and he gave me some ideas on what I could possibly include, such as a summary of Jane Austen and her work, and then descending into a break down of what my project study consists of.

Also, I should mention that I have reverted my question back to one similar to my initial question. It is now ‘To what extent is Jane Austen’s novel, Pride and Prejudice, representative of the social and economic realities of Regency England?’ When I first started to write my essay, I didn’t think I had enough research to write about just the social and economic issues of the 18^th century, therefore I decided to expand my research area. However, while putting together pieces of my research and realising the mass amount I have discovered about social and economic while using Austen’s life as a research area, and while progressing forward with my write up, I have found that I have a lot of material which I have managed to sew together into a narrative revolving around the social and economic realities of this time. My supervisor suggested to me, during my review meeting as I mentioned whether changing my title was possible due to how far we are into the project, that I still include Austen in my write up, but I could concentrate on an aspect of her literary style, which led me to bring up the idea of evaluating how her writing style may have hindered or restricted representation of 18^th century Britain in her work as I read that she has a style of writing that was evident in her works.  

My next steps in my project are to continue with annotations and adding material to my folder, progressing forward with my lit review, and continue with research while working on my lit review. I will also be writing my introduction soon, using the advice Chris gave me as a guide.

Where next?

For the past week, I have spent most of my dedicated EPQ time cutting down my research into relevant, categorised sections, such as Austen's writing style, key events, practicality of marriage, complications of love, etc. I believe doing this before I start to write my literature review will enable my writing to be more organised and understandable as I will only be talking about the key points I want to make. Furthermore, it has allowed me to effectively link together and compare/contrast different sources, which I can comment on in my review.

However, before I start writing this, I think it will benefit me best if I write my introduction first as this will mean I have a clear view of what I am aiming to achieve by the end of my essay.

I also need to continue printing everything I have collated up to now as this will mean I won't be rushing around at the last minute and I can concentrate on my presentation/essay.

Feeling under the weather

Unfortunately, this week has been one of my most unproductive weeks ever, and this is down to my new friend, the flu. The drowsiness and overall unmotivated attitude this flu has given me means I haven't progressed as much as I would have liked to, but, that being said, I have finally gotten a folder and I have started to collate my research by printing it out and putting it inside, including emails, transcripts, academic journals, etc. Printing it all out now means I won't be in a rush to gather it together closer to the deadline. Moreover, I attempted to begin writing the literature review section of my essay, but proved to be a challenge as I couldn't figure out where I was going with the research I had. Therefore, I have decided to take a step back and spend some time looking at the information I have in front of me and work through it while annotating and highlighting. As I have been doing this, I have been putting the information into a plan and writing down my initial thoughts too so I can revisit these when I actually write it. I did plan on getting the majority of this done this week so I can start writing it next week. However, I haven't gotten very far due to being ill, though I do plan on sending the majority of this weekend continuing with my plan and working through the research.

Lit Review Struggle

Chris has advised us to start our essay with the literature review and compose the other segments of writing around this. However, since this means we are diving head first into the middle of the essay, I've been struggling with how to start the review section, which research/ideas to begin with, and how I incorporate my own ideas into the comments I make on the research I have found. I mentioned my struggle to Chris today and he sat down with me and began to assist me on the beginning of the literature review section. He advised that I break my review into smaller sections as he saw that I had already sorted my research into categories relating to my project question. For example, the first section may focus on the key events in Austen's life, and then the next may focus on Regency England. Also, he reminded me of the advice he gave earlier - start with the broader ideas and gradually become more refined and specific to my project question. As I have about 27 pages of research, this means I have be spending quite a lot of time going through the information I gathered from each source and picking out the key information and ideas I want to use in my essay.

Also, Chris once again reminded us to get a folder and dividers so we can start to collate all of our work and research together... looks like I will be going shopping this weekend.

Organizing my research

It is getting to that time where I need to start writing the literature review, but as I have gathered a lot of research material I need to concentrate on sorting it out by linking information together and comparing/contrasting them. Although I wish to continue with my research, I need to spend some time sorting through the information I already have before I can progress as establishing links between different sources will make it easier for me when writing my literature review.

Therefore, my next step will be to go through my individual source reviews, reflect on the main ideas which I extracted from these sources, and see if I can identify links between certain sources. I can refer to these links in my literature review and how it relates to my project. Furthermore, I can distinguish if the information leans in support of my project aim, or against it, and then I can talk about this in my review.