Tuesday 28th June

In our EPQ lesson today we discussed for and against points of both the Vancouver and Harvard citing systems and which best would suit us and our project. We also discussed how to select relevant information to use in our project and different ways of doing this, for example through spider diagrams and mind maps. We also learned how to efficiently skim read articles and that it may help us to allocate a rough word count for each section of our projects. We learned the difference between citing an article and plagiarism which I found very useful. I have also now thought of a working title for my essay ‘To what extent did Homosexual characters affect English Literature in the Twentieth Century?’

Monday 27th June

Today I met with my English teacher and she helped me finalise the ideas for my project, instead of comparing two books as I originally intended she suggested that I compare 4 books spanning the whole of the 20th Century. She suggest that Maurice by E.M. Forster and The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst were both good starting points, but she pointed out that one was written at the start of the century (1913-14) and the other was written at the end of the period (2004) so I should include some books from the middle of the period. The other two books that I want to include in my project are Radcliffe by David Storey (1963) and The Swimming Pool Library also by Alan Hollinghurst (1988) which would mean that I have 4 books that span the whole period. I visited the library to get the two new books and although they had Radcliffe, they didn’t have The Swimming Pool Library, so they are going to but me a copy by the end of next week.

Sunday 26th June

Started reading Maurice and found the book to be engaging, thought provoking and very modern considering when it was written (1913-14 but not published until 1971). I have been researching E.M. Forster and found a lot of information on him, so I think it will be easy to find information of him for later in the project.

Thursday 23rd June

Today we had our second EPQ lesson where the Library gave a talk in which they gave us information about where to find book and information on our chosen subject. They informed us about inter-library loans which will prove very useful because there are fewer resources on my chosen topic in print form. I can now borrow up to 12 books at a time. I also got an Athens password that means that I can access many online journals from home meaning that not only will my research be easier, I also don’t have to worry about whether the sources are credible because they are by reputable professionals in that area of study.

Wednesday 22nd June

Today I had a meeting with my tutor and we discussed my intention to explore some aspect of the representation of homosexuality in English Literature (and/or American). We discussed the merits of dealing with one author or comparing two texts from different historical periods or from two different cultures. I am looking at Maurice by E. M. Forster, Oscar Wilde, and Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty (all of which are included in the English reading list). We agreed that taking a 'compare and contrast' approach to two texts would provide clearer options for independent evaluation than a single author approach, so I am going to find out a bit more about these texts before deciding on an angle/title. So I went to the library and got the books out.

Tuesday 21st June

Today in our lesson we learned about credibility and how to access sources to make sure that they come from a reputable source so the information inside of them will be credible and useful to my project. We also learned how to check whether sources were written by a reputable person therefore whether it contained bias or a vested interest and that would contribute to how reliable the source was. We were given five easy steps to access whether a source would be useful to us and we did this using the RAVEN method of; reliability, ability to see, vested interest, expertise and neutrality. We were also told to look out for what the purpose of the material was, who is responsible for it, when it was produced, where it was produced, selective evidence and the URL address for websites. I think this will be vital when writing my essay as the research I use will need to be reliable and this will help me to ensure that the research I use is both credible and reliable.

Monday 20th June

Today I had my first EPQ lesson where we discussed what the EPQ involved and our teacher showed us an overview of what the project involved. I found this lesson very informative, learning that interviews, websites and books could all help contribute to the research for my project. My topic of English Literature was very broad so I decided to narrow my ideas. Firstly I decided to concentrate on Literature post World War 1. Although I initially thought that I would compare an English and American novel I decided that this may become too complicated so decided to just focus on English Literature. For my question I was thinking about what would be suitable; for my media project last year I focused on the topic of homosexuality and I found this very engaging so I decided to focus my initial research on that topic area. During the next week I will need to research what books will be suitable to include in my project and talk to my English teacher about whether this is a suitable project idea.