How to put together a detailed plan for your project
It’s a watchable film surrounding the changing urban landscape of Beijing — Hutong. Its producer and director describes it as “a type of 700 years old narrow street which lots of people used to live in it in the centre of Beijing”.
As the viewer learns from Tingyi Liu’s 15 minute film, Hutongs that once dominated the city are disappearing, making way for modern urban planning.
Liu’s film examines why this is happening from residents that still live in such neighbourhoods to those that have taken flight and moved into modern apartments. She finds a Barista driving her coffee business on the back of the idyll of Hutong, and an academic and government official who in so many words see them as the past. Perhaps, soon the viewer is inclined to think the only place you’ll find one is in a museum. Liu finds out.
The film follows a coherent narrative trail of subjects and officials (whom often fail to make appearances). But also one of its facets is it provides a firm illustration of research in action; in this case research within academia known as the Literature and Background Review.
What you see on screen is the culmination of reviewing literature and previous documentaries relevant to her research question: “How Hutong was produced in modern and high-speed development and whether Hutong can survive in the next ten years?”
But there’s an obvious catch. If you haven’t made a film yet, how do you know what to research? In part that comes from:
- the Research Question, hypothesising the end product.
- visualising what you’d like to make — which I refer to as the Cake effect, from an exercise on how visually making a specific cake, from better instructions can create better focus.
- to the use of writing workshops to hone the skill of writing up the Lit and Background Review.
Writing and sharing examples of one’s work can be a testing affair. It’s not uncommon for authors to feel anxious or a sense of inhibition. Writing is personal. Yet, even the greatest writers in the world such as Stephen King, understand you have to cross the rubicon. Before King became a successful author, his work, like many others would undergo rewrites from editors and subs. The art of writing is also about letting go and inviting critique.
Today with the help of recently graduated Masters students and first year PhDs we focused on (1) and (3) from above, mapping out the process with firm applicable tips on how to write the Lit and Background Review, focusing on the Introduction.
Get the Introduction right, and you’re on course, as what follows is a delineation of the Introduction in greater detail.
From the exercise we were able to locate authors whose writing included key areas you’d expect from this chapter. A tip sheet I put together called “Developing and improving your Literature Review and Background chapter” on learning central was seen as useful. There are also several videos on how to write a Literature Review on YouTube, such as this one from Scribbr
The “Background” elements of the review is a modification to include relevant material that gives context to what an author is reviewing. In the television industry, and media at large, Tony who lectures in TV news production reminded us the Lit and Background Review is the equivalent of the ‘brief’ which an editor will expect once you’ve pitched your idea.
If you’re making a documentary, an editor would expect to see examples of past documentaries covering your area. The same can be said for Print and Multimedia. This approach doesn’t exclude other media for your research, but for scholarly output “Semantic Scholar”, “Google Scholar”, and any school’s library and its research tools are invaluable.
There’s an old saying you can’t refine what you haven’t written. And so whilst the Lit and background Review looks daunting, one of the benefits from today’s workshop was how our temp supervisors, namely Max, Violet, Akshata, Naomi (online from Taiwan), and Adishri were able to provide critiques. Each of us was working from a uniform understanding.
The feedback from former Masters students and Phders was an acknowledgment of strong ideas. The task was converting them to a form that a reader may expect to see within the Lit and Background Review.
What was evident was that there were xamples of exemplar writing in the workshop, which provided a number of focal points for writers to consult with exemplars, as well as with former students.
Thanks to our team of temp supervisors for sharing their time and experiences in dissertation writing.
More images from the Workshop
