'There's no literature on this!' - MAPP Online Discussion

Since my MA started I have been involved in much more reading and writing, including academic writing.

This morning we had a conversation about the use of literature in our research.

We first spoke about where we were able to find relevant literature, and how we approached it. Some of us found a good amount of topic-related literature and had to choose what to include in our writing, in some other situations we could not find enough to 'support' our idea and topics. I found interesting to reflect about WHY there is not enough to document a topic. How was I researching the topic? Is it too specific or too general? Is it useful to question my topic again?

There also are different ways of approaching literature which means we could just 'paste' a piece of it in an essay and agree with it, or we could come across statements that are slightly different from our point of view, or even in contrast with it. It is interesting finding someone who wrote in contrast to your idea and see if, after trying to fully understand it, you are less in contrast with it, because it gave you something to think about.

Literature can be used to support ideas, but also to enrich them, challenge them, develop them. In fact this is what makes reading and researching a stimulating experience. It is a process of getting to know different opinions and researches, with an open mind. 

We briefly also spoke about bringing back old literature, but re-reading it with a different perspective or purpose. 

We mentioned how we look at articles online, personal blogs, and how one source can lead to further reading which gives us new ideas and thoughts. 

I believe literature is useful to support ideas and research, but also to discover new things.