Finding a Thesis

When we were first assigned an annotated bibliography I was reminded of other research papers I had done. Most notably, my high school senior paper, which was on ambient noise imaging. When I started that research project, I had this bright idea and no clue as to who might have already researched and tried it. Many dead-end search queries on online databases taught me the hard way that getting the right word or phrase was vital, so I began to keep a journal of what I found and how. Some absolutely brilliant work surfaced while I was hunting for the 'right' query, so, in spite of it not being quite what I wanted, I kept it. It was a fun, exploratory game. After about 8 pages of notes, I was ready to start my 10-page paper.

At the same time, I was looking into casting rather than sintering advanced ceramics. Naturally, this meant I had two running journals of what I had found.

The point? The idea of "keeping an annotated bibliography" might be new to me, but the practice certainly is not--complete with glib storytelling.

Problem is, I generally have to have some point, interest, or question I'm trying to answer, and I don't.

The original directive was simple and curiosity-provoking: non-European printing. I'll admit, my naughty side was tempted by the lack of temporal restrictions on this topic. Still, my curious side was drawn by it too, so I took it on.

In class I decided to aim for a thesis centered around Chinese culture's interaction with print. When I returned to the library today, I discovered that all of the relevant books I had discovered previously were AWOL, notably Knowledge and Text Production in an Age of Print: China, 900-1400. No centerpiece for my work. Starting from scratch. Woof. Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained, so I began again inspecting the local library shelf geography for alternatives.

This was quite productive! I hadn't realized that Chinese printing was only a shelf or two, and that other geographical regions were well-represented as well in that section. Narrowing my focus to just China and looking for newer books, I found three. We'll see where I end up from here--whole books have been written on the subject, and I'm hardly qualified to say much.

A pity that I hadn't read my classmate's bibliography earlier--had I been able to find it, the German bibliography might have been useful. I agree with both him and my other group member--seeing all of the different texts in so many languages was a bit of a surprise, a pleasant challenge, and a healthy nudge out of my usual box.