The reading in Knight this week really helped me with my dilemma but not in the way I think Knight intended it to. When Knight was discussing the different options of face to face research and the pros and cons of each, I was attracted to the sections where Knight discussed how to figure out what was relevant when doing research. I believe if I use similar methods in deciding what is most relevant, not only in my OGS proposal but also when I start researching for my end of term research proposal, I will be able to research more effectively. And that is the point of this course isn't it?
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Food for Thought
For the past few weeks, I have been working on my application for the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS). Like the SSHRC proposal, there are strict guidelines, limited space and a lot of hard work. I thought that because I have already written a SSHRC proposal, and was going to be proposing the same research, that writing my OGS research proposal would be easier. In a sense it was easier because I already knew what I wanted to research however, it turned out to be way more difficult than I had ever anticipated. The biggest challenge I faced was trying to fit my two page SSHRC proposal and one page bibliography into a single page. I remember when writing my SSHRC, the difficulties I had fitting my information into the page limit and now I had to cut that down by more than half! I had a very hard time gauging what was important, what message I wanted the committee to receive and what I ultimately wanted to focus on.
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Erika,
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't bother with a bibliography in the OGS statement unless you think that it adds something substantial. I think the content of your statement matters much more than your list of sources. That said, you may wish to identify your primary sources in the text of your statement. For what it's worth, I name key authors but not titles.
Does your SSHRC bibliography list primary and secondary sources or just secondary?
Karl
Karl,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the suggestions! I ended up deciding to be very general with my OGS proposal and not citing any authors. I explained my topic and my research without getting into specific sources. I did not have the space to name anyone!
As for my SSHRC bibliography I only listed secondary sources. The use of primary sources in my research is central, however, I focused more on the written scholarship in my proposal and stated that I planned to research, interpret and review primary sources when I actually began researching. Hope this helps!
Erika
Re: Food for thought
ReplyDelete"One of the very worst things that happens to social scientists is that they feel the need to write of their "plans" on only one occasion: when they are going to ask for money for a specific piece of work or a "project." It is as a request for funds that most planning is done, or at least carefully written about. However standard the practice, I think this very bad: it is bound in some degree to salesmanship, and, given prevailing expectations, very likely to result in painstaking pretentions; the project is likely to be "presented," round out in some manner long before it ought to be; it is often a contrived thing, aimed at getting the money for ulterior purposes, however valuable, as well as for the research presented. A practicing social scientist ought periodically to review "the state of my problems and plans."
This quote is from the sociological rockstar C. Wright Mills (1959)and I feel that the last sentence somewhat (if not totally) relates to Karl's insight on time and research.