Thinking about essay planning and literature reviews

As I said on Tuesday, Chris had found an informative textbook that concentrates on projects and how the process should be carried out in steps. Chris advised us to look at chapter 6 which focuses on how to approach the essay writing aspect of the project,  including some helpful tips and possible headings of paragraphs. I spent today's session looking at this guided structure, and using the tips given I can now start to plan my own essay and possible ideas that I am thinking of including, as well as where these ideas will fit into the essay. It is important to plan my essay before writing, as my supervisor has emphasised many times, as I need to refrain from mistakes such as waffling on about something so it ends up taking up the majority of my word count, contradicting myself, repeating myself, wrongly using a piece of information which doesn't support an idea, confusing myself as I progress further into the writing, and jumbling up information so that it results in a messy, incoherent piece of writing. I believe this advised structure given by the textbook will help me massively when it comes to planning my essay and organising the information I have into writing, and there is always the freedom to play around with the structure into one that I feel suits my project topic best. To add to this support, he showed us a powerpoint from the University of Leeds which also shows a demonstration of a good essay structure, and the kind of headings that can be considered for each paragraphs, as well as the possibility of sub-titles.

Today, my supervisor also reminded the class the importance of literary reviews and that we need to be keeping track of our sources and our evaluation of each individual one, such as noting the credibility, the reliability, and the origins of the source. My literary review process is still on-going as I remain in the midst of carrying out research, but I feel as though I am recording and evaluating each one of my source to an valid standard.

Moreover, Chris said that we should start to think about the writing of the abstract of our essay, as well as the introduction. He showed his own dissertation as an example, which included an example of a literary review, and I plan on taking a look at when it comes to writing my introduction for support.

UPDATE ON PRIMARY RESEARCH: Still no responses back from professors!

First day back after Christmas and Mid-Project Review!

Today is the first day back after Christmas and luckily we have EPQ! I'm uncertain on the direction we have to had in next with our project and this period has reassured me massively. Before continuing with our independent objectives, Chris went through a summary of where we should be at in terms of our primary and secondary information and, as I  am this stage, I feel reassure with my project. He also reminded us that we need to keep up-to-date with our log books as we don't want to be rushing around at the end trying to piece it altogether.

As the essay writing is becoming even more imminent, Chris reminded us that we need to be getting our heads down in research so we have a sufficient amount of information to work with. He also mentioned that he had printed out a textbook that aims at supporting with writing essay and how it should be structured, so I plan on looking at this to assist me with my essay, therefore I will be more confident with planning, as well as writing the my essay.

Also, as we didn't get chance to have our Mid-Project review meeting before christmas, I requested to have it today as I felt that I made a lot of progress during the Christmas holidays and I wanted to discuss with Chris my change the planning of my tasks, as well as how to separate the research I had found, which I had typed up. He advised me, as I had around twenty seven pages of a typed up research, to separate the information based on possible subheadings that I may use in my write up, such as the role of women, complications of love, Austen's writing style, key events, family life, etc, with the reference of the source above it so I can easily track where it came from. I believe this will help a lot when I arrive at writing the section of the essay where I will be incorporating and referencing much of this research. He also encouraged that I read through this information, highlighting and annotating the key pieces of information that stand out as vital or interesting, and will enable me to form a clear narrative. Furthermore, as I was unable to find the date for some of the information that I found online, I asked Chris what to put in replacement as I was initially using (XXXX). He looked it up, as he was unsure to, and found that the best method to put '(n.d.)', which I will use during my write up. I think I forgot to method that I have decided to use Harvard referencing for my product as it is the most common for academic research papers and I have found it, generally, the easiest to understand and use.

Essay ideas!

As I am progressing forward with my research, I am starting to come up with a lot of ideas that I may want to include in my essay when I arrive at the writing process. I have come to realise that I need to record these ideas as the creation of the end-product of our project is very near, therefore I need to start focusing on what I am going to write about, as well as the research. Recording them as I continue with my research will be useful for when I come to plan and write my essay as I can reflect on my previous ideas and expand/develop them with newly conjured ideas that I received from new information.

Today, for part of my research into Jane Austen's personal life, I decided to watch 'Becoming Jane', a biographical romantic drama film which depicts the early life of Jane Austen and her lasting love for Tom Lefroy. I especially chose to watch this film as the screenwriter, Kevin Hood, said that he had "attempted to weave together what we know about Austen's world from her books and letters," and believed Austen's personal life was the inspiration for her novel, Pride and Prejudice.

Since I am focusing my study on this particular novel, I thought that this film may provide me with a bigger insight into Austen's personal bubble by exploring her first, and probably only, true love and the struggle for making their love possible in a society where social expectations and customs dictate how you live and who you marry. It was interesting to see how they portrayed Jane herself, played by Anne Hathaway, and Tom Lefroy, played by James McAvoy. After watching it, I got the impression that the film version of Jane and Tom parallels heavily with Elizabeth and Darcy in the novel as both pairs face turbulence in their relationships and the possibility of being together. Although there are similarities between the two stories, as Jame McAvoy himself said, "the screenplay was nothing like Pride and Prejudice. The screenwriter probably speculated on some of the inspiration for Pride and Prejudice but it is a completely different story. "

I recorded transcripts of key scenes I found useful and informative during watching the film so I can refer back to them in my study.

Overall, the film was helpful with helping me to find factors that could have possibly influenced Pride and Prejudice, while simultaneously educating me on the social customs and expectations of 18th century British society. While I am aware that some fictional features may have been added as it is a film, I plan on dissecting the film with other information I have collected so I will be able to separate fact from fiction.

Rethinking my project title

As I progress forward with my literature reading and reviews, I am beginning to rethink my question as I have found that it is quite restrictive in terms of the areas I am researching. I have found that I want to explore more about the author, as well as the social and economic problems of her time. In particular, I want to look at her upbringing and how her experiences of the late 18th to early 19th century have contributed to shaping Pride and Prejudice, and the characters of the story. I feel as though my current working title of 'How representative is Jane Austen's novel, Pride and Prejudice, in terms of the social and economic problems faced within the 19th century?' is too specific, thus restricting my desire to branch out into other contextual areas that surround the novel, including the author. This question focuses too much on the problems of 19th century British society, whereas I would like to focus on Jane Austen's personal experiences of the society around her, as well as its characteristics.

As a result of this realisation, I am currently thinking about a new title. Some ideas that came to mind were:

• How reflective is Jane Austen's novel, Pride and Prejudice, of the 18th century British society in which she experienced?
• Is/How is Jane Austen's novel, Pride and Prejudice, an illustration of the society of her time?
• Are Jane Austen's personal experiences of 18th century British society represented by her novel, Pride and Prejudice?
• How did the characteristics of 18th century British society influence Jane Austen's novel, Pride and Prejudice?

I believe that all these questions will present me with an opportunity to branch out in my project as I feel too confined when researching this question. Although I am looking at using a new title, I will not have to completely change my course of research as the information and resources I have already found remain incredibly useful due to the fact that I am merely extending my area of study, rather than scrapping it completely. I will have to divert my course of research slightly, but not too much that I will feel panicked or not on course. Also, despite not having chosen a title from these ideas, they all focus on the same area of research so choosing a title right this second will not prevent me from continuing with my research.

I will update when I have selected a title. 

NEW PLAN?

While in the midst of this research period, I have found that using a Gantt chart is proving to be quite difficult and not very suited to my project. It does not allow me to be specific enough when describing my tasks and stating when I plan to have them finished by, nor does it allow myself to justify when I didn't reach a certain deadline or the complications which accompanied. As a result of this revelation, and with the writing of my essay fast approaching, I have decided to create a new plan, using my old Gantt chart for guidance, to direct my course of direction and will allow me to be more detailed and specific, therefore I can feel more organised.

TASK

START TIME

DEAD LINE

COMPLETED WITHIN DEADLINE?

COMPLICATIONS?

Here is a copy of the headings of my plan. By creating my own plan, I can modify it to my own liking and I can add other features, such as any complications I face during the completion of a task, how I resolved them, and describing what I plan to do in each task, as well as explaining how it will benefit me and why I have decided to incorporate it within my EPQ study. I believe that, by using this plan, I can plan out my future tasks in a more understandable way while remaining detailed and specific, but also leaving some room for adjustments so I can document my adjustments and complications as I'm completing my tasks, meaning it will be easier to reflect, and to evaluate.

Christmas = Time to Progress!

I haven't updated at all this month which can be rooted down to one reason - mock exams. I've been extremely busy revising for mocks, and since I do 4 A-level there was a lot of them, so I haven't had much time to develop my research further. However, now it's christmas break, I have two weeks to catch up with my research and literary reviews. I still have a bunch of resources to go through that I obtained from Hull University library, as well as a list of websites, so I will be mainly concentrating on reading and writing about those, while searching for more. I am heading into town tomorrow, where Hull Central Library is located, so I will have a look in there for any viable material that can help me with my project. I am determined to use these next two weeks to make strong progress in the research field, therefore I will have extra time to do other tasks when the term begins again.

UPDATE ON PRIMARY RESEARCH: Still yet to have any responses back from the other three professors I emailed.