Diary of Learning: First Reflection

 

1.      Audience: Who am I writing for: committee, advisor, intellectual community, myself?

Right now, I am going to begin to write for the intellectual community of my field, although my goal is also to explain my research to readers who are interested in the Gothic literature I analyse, even if they are not scholars. So, I would like to write for both academics and non-academics. My idea is to see my thesis as my story, and my sources are used to enrich my storytelling. My focus is on the narratives of the British author Patrick McGrath, who writes the so-called New Gothic within the Gothic literature genre.

2.      Context: Where am I writing from my university, my discipline, my cohort?

I am going to write my thesis from the library of the University of the Basque Country and at home. I have already planned the chapters I am going to begin developing, and they are a continuation of the MLitt thesis I wrote in Scotland, at the University of Stirling.

3.      Time: When am I writing? Challenges of today would be the same in a couple of years? Do I write to review or as a final version?

I am going to write in the mornings, before work. Also at the weekends.  I am studying the third year of my PhD, so I would like to write my thesis in a couple of years (I am doing part-time). I am reading, gathering the information I need and preparing the bibliography. The main challenge I had was preparing a good methodology. I prepared an outline and my supervisors liked it. Now I am going to develop the chapters of my thesis following this methodology. Now I am writing to review what I do, the edits will be frequent, and the final version will be ready in a year or so.

4.     Me as a writer: My writing identity as an L1 writer vs. as an L2 writer. Cross-cultural communication. What is expected from me? How do I want to sound? How do I relate to other voices?

I have been writing assignments in English for several years now, as well as some articles and blog posts, yet I still feel that my grammar and vocabulary need to be richer. Perhaps I should include more epistemic qualifiers, and write shorter sentences, I need to be more accurate, more precise, while being understandable. I think a proficiency level is expected from me, and I need to relate to other voices by reading as many books and journals as I can. The more I read, the better I will write.

5.      Tools: What tools do I have for writing in English? Academic English?

I do not really use any specific tools to write in English, I simply imitate the chapters, books and journals that I read. I try to pay attention to the synonyms I can employ, and the specific terms required in my field.

6.      Learning. How do I learn? What kind of learner am I?

I like learning by reading and attending courses to improve my way of doing research and by listening to my director and supervisor. They are the ones who lead me to the research that must be done. Now I am reading Ursula K. Le Guin’s Steering the Craft to improve my writing thanks to a course I took at the University of the Basque Country on research publications. The teacher was incredibly supportive and gave us a lot of sources to work on from.

7.      Models. Where can I find my models? Who do I admire?

I think there are fantastic scholars who work on the Gothic (the ‘classics’ would be the likes of David Punter and Fred Botting), and they are my models to follow. More specifically focused on my research, I would like to recommend Magali Falco’s La Poétique néogothique de Patrick McGrath (in French), and I still need to find a great PhD thesis on McGrath in English.