Niche niche niche

As a doctoral students we are told to find an issue we're passionate about, on that's not too small, or too large, too hard or too soft. Use that area of passion, that question that keeps you up at night, to help develop your niche area and therefore your area of research. Easy right? So what keeps me up at night? Lately it's trying to develop a niche.


While reading Machi & McEvoy (2009) The Literature Review i can't help but think "what a great idea" if I lived in a parallel universe. "Schedule at time with no interruptions and quiet surroundings" (p. 10). Awesome now if the family, friends and neighbor's kids will just cooperate. For those of us in my Ed.D. program who are online students with full time careers and family responsibilities the idea of taking two hour chunks everyday to do a lit review with no interruptions seems somewhat far fetched. I'm sure it's good advice but not sure my boss will go for it.


But doing a literature review requires me to have a plan. A plan which starts with a question, an idea, that Ah-Ha moment where I say, yes that's what I want to devote myself to. And I had those, and I follow that string of thought until, in the course of my work or research I come across the next Ah-Ha, no that's what I want to do. I feel like Dug in the movie Up! — squirrel!

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