Literature review

Good day's work today trying to sum up and categorise the existing literature on EU conditionality and look for gaps. It's really got my brain working and generating possible research questions. It is striking how often the conclusions made by authors don't seem to be backed up by any real evidence. In looking for gaps in the literature it's also hard to know if those gaps are there for very good reasons i.e. it's not an interesting gap, or it's too hard to research in that gap.

Brain hurts

Currently trying to summarise the literature on EU political conditionality in order to then identify the gap(s) for where my project will sit.

I've read so much about this topic but I'm finding it really hard to sum it all up. And how are you meant to know if you've covered what is already out there? I think I know the key authors, but given the range of potential case study countries I have, there could be much more out there that I don't yet know about.

Hmm

Didn't have a very good week last week. Missed the second philosophy seminar and I'm a bit worried about being able to get into the subject material for that course.

Have bought new books - Intro to social research by a Mr Punch, and I have re-bought a book I used to own called What is this thing called science? by Chalmers, which I think is a bit of an old classic.

So, week three next week and I'm hoping things will pick up a bit. I think it's harder than I thought to get my academic head back on, after years of non-academic work thinking, which is completely different.

Second course begins

Well, had introductory seminar today for my other MSc course, Research Design in a Cross-cultural context. Another large group, but at least this time the tutors got us talking to each other straight away. There's only 6 seminars for this course, covering things like ethics, formulating research questions, and what methodology to use. I'm hoping it will be useful for my research proposal.

Also used the postgrad work room this morning, and met D who is in the third year of his PhD. I think I will try out working on campus more rather than at home, where there are two many distractions.

Round table on the credit crunch tomorrow, and second philosophy seminar.

Let battle commence...

So, I've started the MSc course that I hope will lead on to my PhD. The very beginning of what will be a long and challenging, but I hope also rewarding and interesting, process.

The full title of the MSc I'm only going to type out once - Cross Cultural and Comparative Research Methods (Contemporary European Studies) - henceforth to be known as CCRM.

Had my first proper seminar last week for the course about the philosophy of social science. Was a bit disappointed really - the group was large and the tutor was not exactly very engaging. But, it's okay, it's only a ten week course and I'm hoping that having studied some of the subject matter before will help me with the 4000 word essay due in mid Jan. It mainly made me think about how I would have run the seminar differently - split into small groups, etc.

Next week the other course starts, the one about designing a research project. I'm hoping that will be more directly useful, although I'm a bit concerned that it is very influenced by anthropology approaches and reading material. We'll see.

Other than that, it's continuing reading on my main topic for my research funding proposal - which is to do with the changing nature of EU democratic conditionality. Read a good journal article today about Turkey, which emphasised the domestic political aspects and how conditionality alone doesn't provide an adequate explanation of the political reforms.

Roll on week 2 of term!