Whether it has been for a long-term project like my senior thesis or for a final paper,
conducting research always has its highs and lows. I remember distinctly the first time I
had to write a final paper for a history class I took (which was “Social History of US
Public Health” taught by Professor James Colgrove, a class I highly recommend), I
wanted to examine the Hong Kong Flu and the discourse surrounding it in America, but ultimately had to pivot to another topic and the discourse surrounding it in America, but ultimately had to pivot to another topic due to the lack of archival sources and secondary research surrounding it. That experience has stuck with me mainly because it’s a reminder that research, which is conducted as a solitary activity, is firmly ensconced within a wider community.
My organizational method for non-digitized archival documents that I had the
opportunity to examine at the University of Southern California this summer, Photo Credit: Donna Qi
From the moment you start brainstorming a topic to write about, you turn to CLIO, JSTOR, or good old-fashioned Google to try to figure out what has already been written about it. Moreover, the most painstaking and important part of producing an end-product may be the effort you put into making sure every citation is correct, to affirm that we are all building on each other’s work. That all being said, I aim to dive deeper into the aforementioned highs and lows of long-term research by discussing my senior thesis, which I am writing for the History Department.
The Lows:
When topics change as you conduct research: I always try not to be too attached to
a topic because chances are, when you start doing a literature review or actually visit an
archive, what you find will have very little relation to what you want to do. This can be a
good thing because it shows an actual research gap, but it all depends on how rich the
primary sources are and whether or not an argument can actually be made from the
documents available. Conducting research is also always a learning opportunity
because it illuminates what actually fascinates you about the topic.
When I went to USC to visit the Zhang Ailing Archives, I had thought that I was going to
write a thesis about her translation work and how she navigated writing in both Chinese
and English. It was only through reading secondary literature that contextualized her life
and work within the cultural Cold War that I realized I was interested in how her female
characters were configured in hyper-political times, whether that was the Japanese
occupation in China or the Cold War era when she made the decision to immigrate to
the US. But this process was certainly not painless, as I had to wrestle with pivoting
away from hours of research that I had already done on one topic to move onto another.
That being said, it’s worth it in the long run to have that clarity about what you want your
project to be.
The Highs:
A lot of other things: As you may have already noticed, the lows that I have discussed
are sprinkled with so many of the highs of doing research. This includes taking the time
to explore a topic you’re deeply interested in and passionate about, learning more about
your own intellectual curiosity, and being a part of a community that is greater than
yourself. This latter point has been the most apparent for me in my senior thesis
seminar, where my peers, whom I lovingly refer to as “the village” in my head, have read
and offered feedback on all the work I’ve produced thus far and vice versa. It is also
deeply gratifying when you’re able to connect the dots between primary and secondary
research that you’ve conducted, or with past material you’ve learned. My thinking about
the relationship that Zhang had with gender and the ways in which it comes through in
her texts has been inextricably tied with what I was taught in “Gender and Power in
China,” a wonderful and, for me, groundbreaking, class taught by Professor Dorothy Ko.
That is all to say that for me, the experience of doing research has been overwhelmingly
positive. In my head, I’m a detective searching for historical crumbs that may be
relevant to how we conceive of and live our lives today. Hitting a dead end or finding
something that leads nowhere is always annoying, but the concept of creating a piece of
intellectual work that reflects the time and effort you put in is endlessly alluring. I’m not
yet sure of what future research I’ll have the chance to conduct, but for now, I’m just
grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to explore my wide array of interests in the classes I’ve taken.