Yes - spew as in vomit or throw-up. Apparently it's a way of getting your ideas and thoughts on paper without being so critical and circumspect that the flow of the writing process suffers. I'm going to give it a try because normally my overwhelming need to 'make everything perfect' the first time around really acts as a barrier when I'm writing - making writing a really painful experience. I've marked up the chapter outline and hope to get cracking soon.
But of course I'm procrastinating, hence the blog entry of course. I took the bulk of the Easter weekend off - and only worked a little bit on Easter Monday. Since Thursday I've been reading very broadly around the area of research methodology - mostly about validity concerns. It seems such a long time ago that I engaged with this literature and it's hard to believe that at one time I really loved trying to unscramble issues related to methodology and validity, in particular. I've also been reading some theses, mostly around my research topic, that I procured from the British Library. It made for some very interesting reading - at times I felt completely inadequate when I read how eloquently and authoratively some people articulated their research study and the depth of their methodological understanding. Other times I truly wondered how some candidates' supervisors allowed them to get away with the obvious gaps in their discussion of a particular topic or their choice to present their literature reviews in the way they did. In these instances I felt confident - 'hey I can do this, and probably better than that candidate'. But besides the sort of voyeuristic benefits gained from this exercise I've been able to extract useful references, get a feel for how chapters have been structured, see how some people have chosen to write themselves into the research and importantly gain clarity on what I want to say about the research methodology and how I want to tell that story. If anything I'm clear that the heart of this chapter will be about my research experience and the choices (along with strong justifications) that guided my practices. I've decided I'm not going to tie myself up in ontological debates and epistemological dilemmas - I'm not going to take such a strong stance on foregrounding the ontological position of my research. I'm aware of the issues, and will make reference to them when I need to, but I'm taking an understated path this time around. Of course everything is ontologically driven - this very choice I'm making is deeply ontological - but at this point I've decided not to frame my discussion around this issue. Saying my research is interpretative and ethnographic speaks volumes about my positioning. I think anyway!
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