Have you got your title figured out? Once you've got that it should be a lot easier to distill your ideas.

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My dissertation is due at the bindery on Wednesday. I'm writing on cloning in contemporary literature, and NEED A FUCKING BREAK.

*dissertation. Maybe spelling it right will get you off on the right foot.

I'm trying to work out what my title is but the only titles I can think of are huge ones that cover everything.



e.g How the internet is changing how we view and distribute media.



The problem is I'm writing about a topic that is at the very beginning of discussions, there arent any books written about it yet, people are predicting media specific books will be coming out sometime next year after I've done my dissertation.



Its a good thing because I'm writing about something very, very new I'll be impressing whoever marks it and they'll actually be reading something different but my other problem is non of my lectures have any expertise in this area because again new media, is well so new.



The oldest successful company (most companies have failed) is collegehumour.com and thats only 9 years old.

Was it a lack of forethought?



My advice, give yourself as much time to do it as is humanly possible and then add a bit on.

I did mine on the recreation of literature through film and the socilogical need to rewrite our history to better fit the mores of the current era.



I focused on Last of the Mohicans and the creation of an American Identity in art.



IT was 48 pages.



I knew my idea, and decided to focus on it my tracking it through the recreation of a single work - so maybe you can do the same? Pick a webtv show and through THAT bring out your points, so you have a central focus.

Nicola, good luck, but that does sound like an interesting topic not something I'd want to take a stab.



Cheers gargo there good tips.



Cliffdogg, sorry need to work on my spelling its pretty weak.

I would really try and narrow your title down as much as you can before you get going with writing it, then you should be able to go at it with a clear path in mind. Maybe brainstorm everything that's relevant now, think about what most interests you and what the most important elements are, and try and compose a less huge title- looking at something from a really specific angle will generally work itself into a much tighter and more engaging thesis than trying to cover everything

How about specifying one area of new media? Ethics, for instance.



The ethics of image distribution etc.

IT was 48 pages.



crivens!

Mine is, like... 80 pages. And I haven't even finished yet. Suuuuucks.



Why don't you focus on media aimed at a certain demographic? Or the rise of user-generated content.

Tonteau, I've been thinking about this topic for a year and a half but I think thats part of the problem I have litterally hundreds of articles saved on my digg account about this topic I know more about the subject matter than most people but I have too much information.



But its the only topic I want to write about, if I dont own my own web tv company I'll be working for one.



Victorya, that actually sounds like a pretty good idea though I'll probably have to focus on a company (so far web tv series havent really done very well).

What about the ethics of piracy? You seem to know about that.

Knock-off Nigel, what a grubby little mannnn.

Accept that you will have to sacrifice saying some stuff that you really want to say.



Start to note down the basic themes you want to tackle, then list the points within those themes. You can start to order it once you've sorted that.



Get somone smart to read it through, that really helps.

i don't know stubbs, but you can help me out here

honesty bro, start with an outline. write down all the points you want to make from start to finish, and then take out what you don't want/need and go from there. you don't want to write a long paper and cut at that point.

What I'm thinking at the moment is talking about the baby boom echo for a little bit and discuss how we consume media (subtantially different from any previous generation), argue that tv is dieing (online ad spend is now substantially above tv ad spend) then focus on a company thats doing well.



I could talk about failed companies to show that no ones got the answer yet but that might end up being distracting.



user generated content is a big issue that needs to be talked about because it seems to be vital for a companies success but I'm going to have to keep that very focused because that could slip into another discussion e.g the rise of web to tv stars like human giant (they had a net tv series and then got picked up by mtv).



But I also want to talk about using the internet for creating a buzz, which does cover piracy (e.g how it can benifit companies) but it also covers stuff like twitter, blogs, digg and fandom for example if you go online you can usually find fan music videos often with anime clips.

Mine is, like... 80 pages. And I haven't even finished yet. Suuuuuck



What's the word limit? I don't know how many pages mine was, but I'm sure it wasn't that long! But then, I think the limit was lower than a lot of people's





Stubby, all that information is no good if you can't turn it into a coherent essay- you gotta fillet the prime cuts. And the important bit is what you have to say about the information, not the information itself- if they wanted that they could just google it- they want you to interpret it in a new way!

but again I've gone huge, using the internet to creat a buzz could be a whole dissertation.



I think I need a brake I seem to be going round in circles.

^sorry, wrote that before your last post, stubby

read 'amusing ourselves to death' that'll probably give you focus.



it's a good book, even if a little outdated, though I think they made a new one to include the internetz.



I'm sure you could get a thesis just out of threadless.tv and using it as a way to combine entertainment and consumerism in the soundbyte era where an attention span isn't really needed.

20,000. :(



Stubby, you can't say that TV is dying and then measure Human Giant's success by the fact that it was picked up by MTV. It's completely illogical.



Fall Out Boy just did a pretty big viral marketing campaign for their new album, and if you catch it all now then it'll all still be up. As part of it they distributed a free downloadable mixtape.

at baron: Yeah the blogs getting pretty confusing, I think I need to plot out all my thoughts before I can really decide what my focus is then I can give the reader the most important info.



Snaggle tooth, yeah the last thing I want is an essay that gets cut off because of the word limit it needs to be coherant (a.k.a my weakness).

At nicola: thats actually a very good point, I probably wouldnt of caught that if you hadnt pointed it out. I guess I also need to define just what exactly I mean by successful.



The problem is no one really knows how to use the industry yet, some people think that the internet is a testing ground to ship things back to tv, others think its brand new format where we will be watching everything but if thats the case how do you make money and retain viewers?



Some companies have had $65 million invested in them and they've yet to make a profit where as some companies have done it on a shoe string budget but are now making $10 million a year.

Yeah, the way to do it is to be as specific and focused as possible while still giving off the impression that you know all the other stuff, but don't need to discuss it in detail. Rather than chucking in millions of case studies, pick the one company that you find most fascinating, and which you can say most about, and then use your other examples to expand and elucidate it, and to put it into context. The dissertation is your chance to become an expert (in a very real sense) on a highly specific, maybe even tiny, topic- try and use that to your advantage.

you can't cover every detail of everything. decide on one and focus on it as an example of what you want to talk about, or be general and touch on a few specifics

First I think you should pick just one main topic and split it into logical sub-topics. Then you should pick a number (lets say five) websites that you feel really define this topic and go from there. OR you could pick just one website and then use other similar websites to compare and contrast.



When you finish doing that, if you don't have enough pages, you can add another sub-topic and go from there etc. It seems like you want to talk about so much right now that its hard to know where to start from.