A budding research topic

I'll admit I was rather happy that we got to draw our daisies for this week's blog. There's something about working things out with pens and paper that helps me think much better than typing away at a computer.

I started out by going back to week two and taking a look at some of the key words my tag cloud highlighted and then I made a big list of all the different elements my research touches on. Because I plan to use a mix of bibliographic and historical methods, I've had to look through a huge variety of sources in order to chart things out toward a literature review. These varied sources gave me some insight into which fields are intersecting at the point of my research.

Here's the daisy I came up with:

The "Bedraggled Daisy" draft one.

The one thing I didn't like about Luker's daisy diagram (83) is that the petals do not seem to be arranged in any particular order. She is focused on the middle space where all the petals intersect, and not those intersections between petals. I felt that careful consideration of those joining spaces could make the exercise even more useful. There are already interdisciplinary journals and other works. Identifying smaller overlaps has helped guide me in terms of locating more sources and publications, so I was careful in how I placed my petals to provide additional points of reference for myself.

I also made an addition, which I hope doesn't encroach on the area of fractal geometry (I even kept it nice and flower themed!). I've added some leaves, which appear from behind specific petals. I noticed that Luker uses very broad and general terms for her diagram (Luker, 83) which would not be useful for a project like mine, which focuses on a specific text. That said, these hyper-specific terms aren't useful for identifying overlaps in the broader methods and areas which my work connects. The compromise? Leaves. These leaves give me space to visualize the hyper-specific elements while still allowing me to make connections with the rest of the flower.

I can already see some changes I would make in a second draft, and I have the ghosts of a few more petals which might bear adding, but I think this is a good start.

Source:

      Luker, K. (2008). Salsa dancing into the social sciences: Research in an age of info-glut. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.