I'm in very initial steps of my PhD project. I exactly don't know where to begin! The area of my study is very rich and it seems to me it would never be enough with reading...I feel lost, the whole project is so big and unattainable at the moment. Does anyone have any suggestion where should I start??

Do you have major authors in your area-subject or study? Who are the really big guns here and are you familiar with all they have to say on the general topic. To be honest, I think you would have to give more of an idea about what you are doing so people can be more specifically helpful. However I remember when I sort of had my Master's topic in this big grey fuzz in my head a couple of years ago , one of the very first things my new supervisor said in her first conversation with me was something along these lines. And that was where I started-with the handful of major authors and masses of reading. And working out how to expand my search terms so that I got relevant hits. Hope this is of moderate help...good luck and cheers.

Thanks for your reply. My study is a comparative study between two Romantics poets, regarding their radicalism and their further changes of their attitudes. Both writers are very productive and Romantic era is so rich and vast. I dont know how to restrict myself in reading texts and context. Also another question is that how should I keep in mind and later use what I'm reading, how to add something new and void overlaps... I guess if I dont have a good method of organizing the input material that I'm studying, it will be only waste my time. Please help me how do, you -Phd students -sort out and organize the outcomes of reading, how do you limit yourself when there is no end in reading...?

for many (most??) of us it is probably only through reading that we do sort ourselves and our thoughts out. For many, that's part of the challenge of the PhD. Ultimately with your thesis you have to show what YOU deem important to YOUR topic. You are not expected to read everything but you are expected to be able to sift through the vast amounts of material and become master of YOUR topic.

As Pjlu says, focussing on the seminal authors and texts is more often than not a good start. A complementary approach might be to skim read at the beginning. Try not to read too deeply but rather get a feel for what is out there and try to see where you will position yourself. Then and it is a gradual process, you will start to understand where your focus is and almost unconsciously be drawn to what is relevant to you.

A bit waffley maybe but my basic point is not to get too hung up at the beginning about feeling that you have to know exactly what you're doing :-)

Thanks indeed! this is very inspiring... :-)

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I found all the literature really overwhelming when I first started my PhD, there was just so much of it! What I found useful (and I think I sort of got this idea from Chris Hart's 'How to do a literature review') was to organise it all in a visual way. (I'm very much a visual learner.) I put the most relevant references in a table so that I had a small cell for each study with just the most important info: author, year, and whether it was qualitiative research, quantitative research, a literature review, an opinion etc. I printed all this out on sticky labels and sorted it into different topic areas and quant/qual research. I then did a big mind map on a piece of flipchart paper and stuck the labels (one for each reference) in the relevant place. I'm not sure if that makes sense! It worked very well for me because it provided a visual overview of the research area. I'm not sure if I've explained it very well though. :-) It was just an attempt to bring some order into the literature I found.

Good luck with your PhD. :-)

Thanks! I almost got you! Interesting
approach! As you described is too much of it!!! Have you had an outline or plan of where to start reading, where to go and when to stop? were you writing as you were reading...?

My PhD topic was fairly well defined but there still a lot of background literature. My approach just helped me to bring some order into it. Early on I probably spent a lot of time reading stuff I didn't really need, or a least didn't need till later on. Having a better overview helped me to be more focus and concentrate on one area at a time. To begin with I didn't really write while reading (apart from some note taking), but then I wrote it section by section (and am still doing so!). Also, I keep adding to it as I'm coming across new material.

I'm sure there are lots of different ways of doing in and it probably partly depends on your subject area, but also on what works for you. What really helped me was to have a visual overview of the topic. :-)