Hello everyone! I'm feeling so overwhelmed by the amount of material to be read. It's not so much the reading of it (I enjoy that), but trying to assimilate everything and piece it all together. Is anyone else finding that the volume of resources is making their head spin out? Sometimes I just don't know where to go next! I think this has to be one of the most daunting aspects of being a PhD student. You always feel like your missing important works, and of course, you've only got your own judgement to work from. If you don't hear from me for a while, send out the recovery squad as I've probably drowned in a maelstrom of books and journal articles! :)

I think that is where writing as you go can help a bit--it is one thing to read an article, it is another thing to have to write about it and relate it to other things you have read. One thing that might help is to do a short precis of each article you have read ( whether or not you are told to do any writing at this stage) and part of that should be trying to relate it to other articles--are there similar themes? differing points of view? the same questions being asked, but not pursued by the literature? My supervisor suggested keeping bibliography of what I read, and starring those articles that seemed of particular quality and value, to separate them from those that were not--there IS a wide variety in the quality of articles available, and that said, even among great articles, you may find a particular point of view or writer resonates with you in a way others do not, and that is well worth keeping track of!