I’m currently engaged in writing a literature review. Which would be fine if I knew what one was. I have no criteria, no parameters, no guidelines, no word count, no content requirements, no assessment weighting… basically no fucking idea what they want. And when I asked the RHD advisor what these things normally look like, I got this response:
“Basically they won’t know what your literature review should look like until you’ve done it.” Why? Oh why, does that sound like I’m destined to re-do it in it’s entirety regardless of what I give them?
To the best of my knowledge it’s supposed to demonstrate a suitable engagement and understanding of current scholarship relating to my topic… and that’s all I got. So basically I’m pfaffing around writing things like:
“Dr Wanker asserted in his seminal work on widgets of 1972, “Widgets! Haa! What Are They Good For?”, that blah-di-blah-di-blah was the prevailing perception across the period in question regarding widget use, distribution and type specific popularity. Wanker’s theory of thought regarding widget usage was widely accepted and sustained until it was robustly refuted in Dr Prat’s lauded compendium “A Brief History of Widgets: An Essential Handbook for Anyone Enraptured by the Haunting Complexities of Widgets” which, citing interesting new developments and statistics relating to widget expansion into blah-di-blah-di-blah. Today, Dr Prat isn’t alone is his assertions, he is also joined by eminent Professor of Widgetry, from the prestigious Widget University, in his recent journal article “Everything You Never Needed To Know About Widgets” leaving us with the commonly held assertion that as pervasive and popular as widgets are they are still blah-di-blah-di-blah, fucking useless.”
One thing I can tell you for certain. While this blog may well be 99% nonsense and 1% indignation (Okay, okay maybe 5-10% indignation), it is good for one thing – keeping you in the habit of formulating your thoughts into the written word. I haven’t had to write an analytical research essay, a journal article, scholarly presentation or anything even vaguely in that ball park for over a year, but have taken straight back to it like a duck to water (I hate mixed metaphors but I did it to you anyway).
Academic writing is a particularly nasty sort of beastie that doesn’t even remotely resemble it’s more refined cousin – also known as, literature – I have recently found that having an almost daily habit of dumping your thoughts into informal and often hastily written words, even in this, the most maligned of formats – the blog – appears to have held me in good stead for returning to organizing and analyzing my thoughts and subsequently spewing forth the necessary bastardized, verbose, circumlocutive, enjargoned, and strangulated academic writing when required! 🙂
Who’d have thunk? Blogging might actually be good for something! :o)
