Researching for a Research Paper
I underestimated how much time it would take to gather ten sources. What I thought would be a quick assignment turned into a 7-hour day. I think the reason I thought it wouldn’t be so hard is because I feel like my topic is pretty well researched. Was I wrong? No. In fact, there were multiple sources that I could have chosen. The problem was sorting through and figuring out which ones I really liked.
For the first couple of hours, I was looking at “Paradise Lost” critiques. At the fourth hour, I felt that I had read four papers that had all basically said the same thing. It got really repetitive, so I switched course and started looking for papers on women in religious settings. It helped me to feel like I was doing something different. I do wish I had more research on Bible critiques, but I felt that some of the ones I was looking at were a little too off topic to pick. If I have time, I will probably do another search on a different database.
If you were to ask me how much I know about this topic, I would say that I know a little more than the average person. I was, and still am, Catholic. I grew up learning about the religion in school, and when I transferred to a public school, I attended CCD. It was fun, and I do have faith in God, but I am also very aware that the way the Church operates can come across as disingenuous. As someone who believes in God, I do not believe that the Church is above criticism. Like any institution, it can be filled with people who do not have its best interests at heart, which is why I chose this topic. Pullman’s critiques of organized religion are not heretical. It is set in a fictionalized world that aims to critique the problems that he saw in the way religion treated women. It’s important to acknowledge faults and figure out solutions. I don’t know much about the criticisms of Pullman’s work other than the Church disapproves, but I am not fully looking into it in an effort to make my thoughts my own. Instead, I am looking at critiques of the works that inspired him.
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