Whoa, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? If this blog isn’t placed on the Internet, I would have to shake dust and cobwebs off it. After sending off my draft to my supervisor, my attention may have strayed elsewhere … for about a month. To be fair, it was my supervisor’s request that we would talk it over in June, instead of any time in May, since she was busy with another student. So, I took that as a free pass to chill out and focus on other things. Bad, bad, bad. I did read one or two articles but I’ve definitely slowed down my progress. I was worried about the draft and took a rather cautious standby mode because if she didn’t like any of it or demand a rewrite, my research for that month of May would be in vain right? Might as well put everything on hold first, right?
Well, turns out, she really liked my draft. Actually, she thought the draft was great! That if I kept going and writing on the pace that I was on, I could submit my thesis by the end of the year easily! Now, instead of just a 12-page draft, I am starting on the first chapter of my thesis!
Honestly, this supervisor meeting couldn’t have gone any better than I planned. I had been walking on eggshells for months, dating back to 2016, that I was already willing to accept for another rewrite or going back to the drawing board. And yet, here it is, the green light and I am allowed to power through. Also, when I say “power through”, it is exactly that because I am expected to submit my first chapter, which is about 30 pages, by mid-July. I may be screaming from the inside and it’s not entirely joyful screaming either.
After the initial happiness and excitement have subsided, it just hit me that I have so many things to do. I mean, the sheer amount of reading that I still need to do, let alone the planning and the actual writing itself. Listing down all the things I need to read just makes me go, “I should’ve read this YESTERDAY”. Also, it’s Ramadhan now and I’m fasting so my productivity levels is 70% down. It takes all my energy to read six pages of a journal article. I had to take a nap in between! I don’t know how I’m going to pull this off in a month and yet, at the same time, I already know I’m running out of time. I DON’T KNOW HOW I’M GOING TO DO THIS.
One of the difficulties I’m facing is that my supervisor said that I need to divide my draft under proper subheadings and that is problem because the way that I wrote it, it has a natural narrative flow. So, it’s quite difficult for me to know where one part starts and one part ends. I’m still quite unsure how a literature review supposed to even look like because I feel that everything I wrote so far refer to a ton of other references either way. Right now, I am torn between putting most of the draft underneath “Historical Context” or “Literature Review”. Basically, I don’t even have the basics on lockdown yet and my research is already sprawling all over the place.
Panic sounds about right.
Anyway, so far, I’ve written down a tentative Introduction outline. Keep in mind that I need to write 30 pages which is about 9k words. I’ve only clocked about 3k words in 12 pages.
TENTATIVE TITLE: The Myth-making of the Black Enslaved Woman
- Research Statement
- Research Questions
- Historical Background/ Context
- Literature Review
- Theoretical Framework
- Concepts of Womanhood and Motherhood (not sure if this is the right spot or it deserves its own heading)
- Basic Outline of Other Chapters
Does this look too long or too heavy? I’ve been looking at dissertations of other graduate students and theirs look very much straightforward whereas mine feels a bit information-heavy. I also feel that my work is touching base everywhere.
Anyway, since this is a Supervisor Note post, I will also include notes from our meeting. My supervisor did give me a very brief outline of what she is looking for in my first chapter, which goes like this:
- Topic
- Context (deals with Focus and Scope)
- Literature Review
- Theoretical Framework
Not going to lie, this seems a lot simpler. I think I may have a problem in just simplifying my ideas into basic paragraphs? I feel that my thesis would benefit more when I feed the reader with information bit by bit rather than have them clinically packaged in parts. At the same time, I do need to at least write 9000 more words. Am I making excuses? Who knows. I’ll figure it out soon.
Other notes to think about:
- Look into male slave narratives. This is rather simple because I’ve already checked this out. It shouldn’t be any longer than a paragraph. In fact, I already have an article waiting to be read precisely about this topic. Frederick Douglass, for sure, but my secret prize is Harriet Jacobs’ own brother’s narrative!
- Conceptualise motherhood and womanhood. This is tricky. I mean, we are looking into packaging concepts from THREE different periods of time: 19th century, mid to late 20th century and of course, 21st century on account that I would be looking into this with my own set of values and ideals. Also, where do I place these information? Under historical context, literature review or theoretical framework? All three? Some of them? I really need to figure this out.
- While working out the first chapter, my supervisor told me to keep in mind in outlining the third and fourth chapter. These chapters would be the ones analysing the two texts. This is looking way ahead but I guess, “keep it in mind”.
- Tentative deadline: 15 July 2017. God.
This post has gone long enough. I think the next post would be a TBR post and some Reading Highlights. I HAVE SO MANY THINGS TO READ.
My Thesis Log 