I’m really super super struggling to come up with a central research question. It just seems like such a massive job, having to encapsulate a 100,000 word thesis in a one-sentence question. I’m just not finding anything that really makes me excited; all my questions begin with “how” or “why”, and it just seems like any question beginning with those words will be way too broad.
My original question was, Can we regard blogging as a kind of narrative in which the writer engages in a storytelling of selfhood as a means of uncovering and fostering a sense of belonging, both on- and offline?
Asides from being way too long, that is kind of wanky, but it will more than likely work nicely (with some tweaking) as an objective/sub-question. After some last-minute fopping about today (I haven’t done much work at all for the past three weeks, to be honest, but I have a meeting with my supervisor this afternoon), I’ve come up with this:
(How) does writing for the purpose of blogging contribute to the construction of identity and the awareness of self?
The “how” is in brackets because I’m just not sure yet whether I’d rather start with “how” or “does”; to be perfectly honest, I’d rather start with neither, but I can’t really think of anything other than “can” or “why”, and they aren’t very good options, either.
I have all these things buzzing around in my head – must define the scope, what happens if the examiner thinks this, is the question too vague, do I need to define that, should I add “amongst bloggers” to the end of my question (or is that superfluous), etc. I’m sure that’s all the kind of stuff that will be worked out as I go along, but shit – it’s still a bit difficult, you know? I haven’t done anywhere near enough reading or writing (that is set to change as of Monday, given that I will be on a scholarship and supposed to be studying full time*), and I just feel so damn lost still, you know?
* I say “supposed to” because unfortunately $25000 a year just isn’t quite enough to live off (or rather, it is, but I know I’ll struggle), so I’ll be at uni all day Monday/Wednesday/Friday, and for a half-day on Tuesday & Thursday, as dammit – I just have to work. So I guess I’ll get my 38-40 hours per week in over those days.