Blog Post 4: Research Proposal and Integrated Literature Review Revision Plan

After reviewing the items marked on my returned Lit Review and the comment sheet attached, there are a few elements that I will be specifically addressing while polishing up my Research Proposal (which is 90% done).

1. I detest MLA format, but since it is the style used in English departments and PTW, I will (obviously) fix those errors. Part of the reason I dislike it so much is that I am thoroughly practiced in the in-text and Works Cited citation style used in Geography, which - in my opinion, which when combined with $2 will get a cup of gas station drip coffee - looks more professional and also comes more naturally. These are small, but numerous, dings to what I submitted, and they really shouldn't take long to fix.

2. Another formatting item I got zapped for was also related to formatting, specifically tabbing indents over to 1/4". Also not a problem to fix.

3. One thing that I got zapped for, and that I am going to be stubborn about fixing, was a rhetorical style choice. As I mentioned before, I've already done this kind of writing for years, and one of the rhetorical approaches I often employ is to ask questions (most of which tie to the research questions) in one paragraph, then answer them in the next paragraph or further into what I am writing. While I do acknowledge that it does make for some short paragraphs, it is a rhetorical approach that I have found makes a technical document more approachable - and, frankly, more enjoyable. While it is impossible to avoid jargon when dealing with more advanced topics, the sometimes mind-numbing blandness can be countered by breaking up the material in a more readable way.

I used to argue with my professors about this style choice in writing while I was working on my MA, but in the end, they admitted my style made the subject matter I covered in my thesis far more approachable considering I was dealing with a topic that not only had not been studied within the field but was reliant on synthesizing concepts from multiple disciplines to sell what I was researching.

My approach to writing documentation, technical or otherwise, is to ensure that my dad can read and understand the broad concepts even if he doesn't have the background to understand what I am talking about. 

There is also a bias on my part; what good is research if I'm bored to tears reading it, and put it down because I would rather have a root canal than try to slog through jargon-heavy text with all the life of four-day-old fish? Not only do I want the readers (and researchers) who pick up anything I write to use it, I want them to engage with it. The simple truth is that engaging reading will lead to better concept retention. Similarly, meeting a wall of text on a page/screen contained in one paragraph is more likely to shut down the mind of whomever has to read it.

I won't do it.

Does that align with the professional standards and structure we are familiar with when it comes to getting our stuff peer-reviewed and published? Not entirely, because journals are largely written by people who - in my opinion - are trying to make themselves sound smarter than everyone else. My position is the axiom that, if you can't engage someone to teach them the material, you don't really know your material (a revision of the maxim "You don't know what you know until you try to teach it").

4. One area I got zapped on in the Lit Review was my inclusion of a Discussion section. While I agree that that this needs to appear before the Summary section, I disagree with the idea of integrating it into the Introduction section or the body of the reviewed literature.

Stylistically and in terms of content, the Discussion section I developed for my Lit Review (and that I am including in the Research Proposal) does not align with other sections within the document. Because of the nature of my topic, it was more difficult to blend the different elements I pulled from my research into a more synthesized narrative; the Discussion section is designed to illustrate how the concepts drawn from all the different literature articles have a practical application and relevancy to the topic my paper addresses. 

There is an easy way to explain why my paper is organized the way it is; in some ways, this is a precursor to a MA thesis, which involves chapters (and each of the subheadings I have essentially correspond to the chapters of a thesis). Even in a literature review chapter in the theses I have read in my main discipline there are discussion sections following the review of the individual pieces of literature so that the thrust of the project and the relevancy of the project are better tied to existing research.

5. One unfortunate element that I am going to have to defend with regard to my project is that there appears to be an imbalance of material, specifically focusing on the amount of content I have related to the use of generative AI. Given that the underpinning focus of the proposed research is to test AI potential in the pre-writing phase for fiction, combined with the newness of the technology, that is unfortunately a significant component of the overall Lit Review and Research Proposal. About the only way to truly balance the structure would be to pull more research for my Genre, Psychographics, and Personae subsections in the body of the paper.

I do not plan to do that; I already have 19 referenced articles, and I've probably read about 60 articles just this semester, along with all the other reading and writing assignments I have. If I am going to do thesis-level work, I'm going to need more than one semester in a BA-level class to truly organize the project through significantly more literature review and organization into a thesis-length project in which the research I am proposing actually gets conducted.

I realize in some ways this makes me a difficult student and classmate, but I've already done the basic work in my original MA program. Should I decide to pursue the MA in Technical Writing and Digital Rhetoric, the work I'm doing for this project will be the basis of my thesis project (and thus, I plan to do as much of it now as possible while still conforming to the overall learning objectives of this particular BA-level course). 

Regardless, I need flexibility on the end deliverable. I know what the objective of the overall project we are assigned is. I'm also working on something innovative (at least, at the moment - I suspect some other student somewhere had the lightbulb moment of my topic, and they're probably already working on their thesis or dissertation about it). The sheer time investment to make it work (and this class takes about 75% of my time), albeit not "pretty", is already making me regret the topic choice.