Following the feedback from my proposal I arranged another meeting with Brian Robinson. Brian had already gone over my feedback before our meeting so getting him up to speed was not needed. The main problems with my first draft was the misunderstanding of structure, the absence of research questions and the misinterpretation of each section of the proposal as a whole.
To help me understand the structure of my proposal more efficiently, he suggested I question my area of study to a greater degree, leaving no stone unturned and to challenge every topic; why was lighting important in horror, how does colour inspire emotions and moods or what examples in film and video games are relevant to my area of study?
The next step was to take these questions and choose which ones would help break down the aims and objectives of my project, focusing on topic relevance and resources that would highlight these research questions. At first I was struggling to understand Brian's direction, telling him that I needed examples. Brian took out a blank piece of paper and asked me to choose an area of study relevant to my project. At random I chose lighting, to which he then he asked me to think of a research question, to which I responded, why is lighting relevant in promoting horror? Brian then asked me is there something I can add onto this question to reach an appropriate or definitive point, to which I added, why is lighting relevant in promoting horror and does the addition of colour make said lighting more effective?
Brian was happy that I was understanding his direction, to question the initial research questions themselves. The next step was to link these research questions to topic related resources in order to boost the effectiveness of these research questions, as well as to ensure that I was not straying off point at random tangents and instead, just answering the questions, plain and simple. With the structure and absence of research questions sorted, understanding each section of the project proposal was all that remained. The introduction was easier to understand now that the research questions were to be included in my next draft. Brian said that I should set a starting point for my literature review by highlighting the research questions and the relevance of these research questions, followed by the literature review itself which was to simply tackle each research question, link said questions to necessary resources and move onto the next research question, the key being trying to get each question to link, to flow together.
Moving onto the methodology, Brian noted that instead of detailing every step in which I would carry out my project, that I should highlight only the key steps, detailing the relevance of each method and how I would carry these out. This was not a problem as it was only a matter of separating important methods from the lesser-important. The conclusion was simplified in my mind instantly when Brian said that I just needed to sum up what I had done in almost bullet point form, I have done this, I have done that and then finally summing this paragraph up with the relevance of this research piece and any impacts or effects it may have economically, academically, scientifically, etc.
The abstract was tricky as I had too many theories and methodologies thus, confusing me to a great degree. Brian suggested I think of the abstract as a means to setting the scene, a summary, a short description and use this to almost sell or promote my proposal from an outside perspective.
This meeting was very helpful to me because it helped me tackle my second draft with greater ease and gave me a much needed confidence boost as I felt a little disheartened by the amount of feedback I received highlighting all of my careless errors. To take a step forward, I told myself to use my first draft of the proposal as a guide to understand where I had gone wrong and to take what I had learned from my meeting with Brian and use it as a means to correct my mistakes.
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