nicholasfalzon-criticalstudies

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Conducting a Literature Review Points

The main gist of the paper is about the research side of literature review, and the ability to find credible resources, and how to identify which resources are credible.

Points:-

Literature reviews summarise the subject field

They need to be focused

There are types of literature, all useful in their own ways

To identify Books, you have to check a series of attributes, such as the publication date and the author's credentials.

Web resources are as simple as using a search engine these days, as long as you make sure they are credible.

This can be done by checking for citations, intended audience, etc.

Searching for literature can be done by searching the internet, libraries and online databases too.

Start by searching normally, and then follow the paper trail of references to find the original papers/resources.

Make sure to keep your resources organised.

Using advanced search tools and wording your search statements can benefit your resource finding, as it filters the results to your intended finds.

Using mind maps provides branched off fields that can be researched to find more specific needs.

Creating a literature review:

Scan through the resources to familiarise yourself with them.

Identify the key points and note them down so they can be easily found.

Identify the structure you intend to use for the review.

Gather the related documents and apply them to the structure to see where everything is going to go.

Understand the key concepts

Quotations should be sparse and properly cited.

Used literature and other findings should also be cited.

Building a good bibliography is also important and is a process that happens along the way, there are multiple methods with their own guidelines to follow.

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Narrowed down questions

What games are played among gaming communities?

What game qualities affect the make/break?

How do different genres affect communities?

Do gamers seek out communities?

Are they purely restricted to online interaction?

How do these communities alter the gamers and their social lives?

I feel these question best fit the research question I have in mind and provide the most room for experimentation.

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30 Research questions

30 questions about community building and loss through gaming:

What games are played among gaming communities?

Do these games give positive interactions?

Do these games have negative interactions?

Why do these games bring gamers together?

Why do these games break relationships?

What game qualities affect the make/break?

What is the range between the lowest and highest points of interaction?

How do different genres affect communities?

What are the different types of gamers?

What type of gamer has the highest or lowest communities?

What attributes do these types of gamers have and how do they affect their community?

What do game companies do to build communities?

How does social media play into this?

What are the differences between small and large scale gaming communities?

How do these communities affect the gamers?

Do gamers seek out communities?

What importance do communities have to the gaming world?

How does age affect it?

Does gender have an effect on communities?

Do genders prefer to isolate or intermix in the communities?

Do communities affect upcoming games?

Are they purely restricted to online interaction?

What other fields are present apart from gaming in these communities?

How do these communities alter the gamers and their social lives?

What are the consequences of communities breaking?

How do other platforms affects communities?

How are live streamers using these communities?

Has anyone met someone through these communities?

How far have relationships progressed through it?

Has anyone lost someone as a result of the community?

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Research Question Paper Summary

The chapter in question is regarding the creation of research questions and developing them as the research process moves forward. The research question is important because it serves as a starting point that branches out into more fields and gives us a greater idea of what we are researching.

The author breaks down the ideal research questions into 6 characteristics:

Interest in the topic being researched, this provides you with easier means of maintaining rhythm while researching, and also making it more fun.

It needs to be relevant, meaning interesting for the community you are targeting, however your interest and the community’s should be balanced.

You must have the means and resources to do the research, don’t pick unanswerable questions within your restrictions.

Think about the question ethically, it is you main point so it needs to be ethical

The question needs to be understandable and easily read by readers, it’s important they understand the topic.

The question has to be answerable, check that a final conclusion can be reached, and the question can have a result.

They also break down the process of forming a research question into 4 steps:

Step 1 is to start mapping a large number of questions related to the topics of interest. These will help create a starting point to narrow down from.

Step 2 is narrowing the list, picking the most related questions and that challenge the topic you are striving for well.

Step 3 has you refine the narrowed list by looking at the question in parts. Understand what that question is trying to research, identify parts of the question that are still vague and looking into already existing assumptions about the question.

Step 4 is reviewing the remaining questions and checking if any further work is required to polish them.

Other stages are also developed as the question is, the research methods should be examined and thought about while developing what it is you might be researching. A literature review is often made as a tester for what the paper will come out as and what value it holds. It is also good to identify what methods of collecting data you will be using, what data you want to collect and what method will give the best result.

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A Cyborg Manifesto – Donna Harraway In this chapter, Donna Harraway explains how humans and machines have mixed over the years. Harraway explains the fall of humanity through a few points. The first, the evolutionary theory by Charles Darwin degrades humans superiority through its evolution. Secondly, she mentions how the introduction of machines has made humans solely dependant on them, turning them to a necessity. Thirdly, the technology of these days getting smaller and smaller is making it easier for humans to merge with them, creating an inseparable bond. These tiny pieces of tech become indistinguishable from people. She also talks about it in terms of feminism, saying that the unnatural nature of technology removes gender norms. Men and women both become the same because of this, disbanding the feminists.

Keywords: -Political-fictional -Socialist-feminism -Postmodernisms -Unity-through-domination -Marxian-humanism -Industrial Capitalism