hehe

After writing about the intimidation of the flashing curser I ran away!  To think and gain perspective of course ;0) 

I did come back though and wrote a paragraph.  And I am planning it sort of today but hopefully mostly writing (purging knowledge that has built up in my brain and is taking up storage space).  I am going on my old Masters' (yes plural, it is ridiculous how educated and utterly daft and, in these times and because of my inherent desire to procreate, unemployable I am) dissertations to remind me how to write an introduction.  Is this crackers?  Not knowing how to do an intro?  It has to be so long and thoughtful I am petrified of getting it wrong and this, obviously, is anathema to creativity ;0)  SOOOOOO I think I need to go to the library and look at another PhD thesis and glean tips on the intro and the lit review. In the meantime just emptying my head of its blathery rubbish will suffice. 

I know that I can write about:

• why I did this research (aka what I am looking at - although never say 'looking at', but 'examining' or 'analysing' ;0))
• Why it is important (hahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaa.  So important only three people in the world will read it, one of them a proof reader!)
• How it contributes to the literature on my topic
• The theoretical direction (though not too much on this as it will be done to death in the methodology ch)
• The actual thesis and synopsis of the research; concluding arguments
• Chapter outlines

I can't think what else at the mo but think this is a good start.  Problem is that I don't see how it will be very long.  Hmmm.  My Sup told me that the intro needs to be super-duper tight as the examiners will very likely only read the intro and concl with any real interest, the rest will be skimmed through (!).  Okelly dokelly.

Oh, and I think I need to invest in endnote.  I am all of a dither with my references and having something to do it for me would be lovely!  I have been rather a luddite thus far and doing it all by hand or using word to do it, but moving from one latptop to another has not taken my refs with it.  Eek!  And now it really is getting beyond my capabilities to hand type in every ref - having to find the paper etc woould be a pain in itself!  Which, I suppose, shows progress.  Hurrah!

Anyway, on to writing...

x J