This is not to say that I’m the “beauty.”
Executing my thesis research has been a constant struggle. This thesis, which I has been coined my ‘beast’, is this constantly growing creature that will soon stomp around, tear down cities, and ultimately defeat me.
From what I’ve heard and what I’m currently experiencing, the hardest part of doing thesis research is not doing the research, but rather determinining what exactly it is that I want to research. I could study pretty much anything I want, and that lack of direction and structure is what makes me feel queasy.
Since starting grad school in September, I have went 180 degrees with my topic and another time after that. I’m expecting to turn about another 90 degrees this month. I came into grad school wishing to examine how Land Value Capture and Tax Increment Financing could be used to finance transit intrastructure such as the LRT proposal for Waterloo Region. As I always am with each topic, I come into a project being very gung-ho, but as soon as I begin my literature review, I realize how much work has already been done on the topic and I become increasing discouraged. Essentially, from what I feel, the revenue generated from these mechanisms do not even come close to paying off the high capital costs of building transit infrastructure. On top of that, I am often asked how will my research fit in and add value to the literature, and I cannot comfortably answer people.
So back to the drawing board. After sifting through Research Needs Statements from the Transportation Research Board, I realized that I’d like to do something related to transportation-GIS decision support, and I thought of the topic of measuring employment accessibilty using GIS in Greater Toronto. I want to understand the travel times to work depending on (1) where one works, (2) where one lives, (3) household income, and (4) employment type, through time. I figure this is a good topic, especially given the fact that the GTA wishes to promote an improved interregional transportation network— and I produced a research proposal based on this project. Then I realized during the process that Eric Miller, one of the most prominent transportation reserachers at U of T have already studied this topic to death.
So here I am again, hoping take a different spin on things without dramtically changing the overarching themes of my research topic. My advisor has been very encouraging and that’s been great. While it would be so much easier for me to just ask him to hit me a topic, I definitely do not want to resort to that right now— since that would be accepting defeat.
Perhaps I am not cut out for academia?
I’ll let you know of my progress.
when you think of a topic, wouldn't your advisor be able to tell you if it's been done already so you don't waste your time?
I think that's the difference between 'hard sciences' fields versus the 'soft sciences and humanities' fields. It is much more easy to say something is already done in 'science', due to its greater universality.
In 'humanities', a topic could be done to death, but just the geographical variables used could be what makes the research 'original'. Therefore it's hard to track whether something is already done or not-- so I don't blame my advisor one bit.
Essentially, I could measure employment accessibility in Waterloo, and that would be considered original, since the conditions are different. It will help to 'uncover' more of the puzzle. But, I don't know if I want to go down that route.
Perhaps you should just try to pick a topic that's publishable. When I worked at the school's journal, we often publish people's thesis which in turns become their launching pad for getting published in other journals. You'd be surprised at how far one publication (peer-reviewed) would carry you!
and if my experience at the journal is in any way indicative of what other journals are like, then you should pick a topic that's unique but contributes to existing scholarship. Doing a curial search on library and journal database would get you somewhere.
matt.. i could've told u that.. remember that year I worked at the school.. well anywayz .. good luck with ur topic searching.