Re-Reading My Master's Dissertation: The Introduction

It’s a good thing that I’m the one reading this, because I know what I’m trying to say since I wrote the thing, but I’m not sure anyone else will

Reading the introduction of my master’s dissertation was not as painful of an experience as I expected it to be. In fact, I found that I was intrigued by some of the breadcrumbs I left behind for myself - ideas that I wanted to explore but couldn’t within the confines of this particular project. While I am a proponent and dedicated devotee of keeping a research ideas database, one of the first things I am taking away from this experience is the importance of revisiting those ideas within the contexts I originally came to them. More on that later.

Now onto my thoughts and critiques of the introduction of the diss! We’ll start with a line-by-line breakdown so you can see exactly where and what in the dissertation I am critiquing, and then discuss these thoughts in further detail.

---

Want to read along? Click the button below! And don’t forget to subscribe to follow along with updates breaking down each section.

---

Line-by-line breakdown

“In the face of increasing concerns over climate change and globalization in the 21st century, shopping for secondhand clothing can ease the anxieties of the sustainability conscious consumer while offering unique clothing options in an otherwise mass fashion landscape, and is often purchased in collective settings at secondhand clothing centric markets and events complete with exclusive access, music, food, and a built-in community of secondhand shoppers.” (1)

• The very first sentence of my thesis and it’s a run-on sentence. A bad habit of mine to be quite frank.

• This also doesn’t have a hook. When you only have a few sentences to really hook a reader, you should spend that space developing a narrative about the work to follow that makes the reader want to keep reading.

“However, many scholars, from McRobbie to Jenß, have tracked the development of vintage as a secondhand category unto itself - one that, through processes that associate it with connotations of time and heritage, and therefore quality, is sought after as something of value.” (1)¹

• I liked this sentence, I thought it was well written and showed that I understood the processes of valuation that go into transforming something from secondhand into vintage. These processes are something that I still think about today, and serve to frame the rest of the discussion of this research since I go on to argue how geographic place and space are a part of that process that has since been overlooked to an extent worth writing about.

“In examining its increasing popularity, scholars such as Carolyn Jean Babula have also explored vintage collections as an echo of the museum archive.” (2)

• I am still intrigued by this train of thought and would like to dedicate time to developing it, especially since I now work in an official museum space. These are some of the thoughts and questions that still come up for me when I engage with this idea:

  • Vintage collections as an echo of the museum - or is it the other way around? Didn’t private collecting come first, then followed by the museum, especially where garments/clothing are concerned?

  • ‘Intermediary collections’ - collecting practices beyond/outside the museum. Is this not what vintage markets are?

• Something my advisor once said in response to this idea was that vintage is ‘a collection for sale’. This comment still comes up in my head from time to time and I still don’t know what to do with it, but the fact that I continue to mull it over two years later tells me it’s something I should look into again.

“While there are many examples of spaces where individuals gather to engage with vintage, A Current Affair Vintage Pop-Up Market (ACA), offers a unique opportunity to examining such a construction of vintage".” (3)

• Here I finally introduce the subject of my study: A Current Affair. I needed to introduce this way sooner than page freaking three. I have this problem that I attribute to having ADHD where I feel like I need to give a bunch of context first before I can explain my point. This comes up over and over again in my writing, and is the most recurring piece of feedback I receive when someone reviews my work.

“My interest in this subject stems from my involvement in the vintage community myself.” (3)

• This section of my thesis has a lot of ‘me’, ‘my’, and ‘I’. In part, this was to help me claim my presence in the work where I was worried that the academic language of research would obscure the very real emotional experience of undertaking a large research project. I understand why I did this at the time, and I even modeled it off of other theses I looked at from this program, but I don’t know if I would do it again. It’s not the end of the world that I did this in an MA diss since this project is meant for learning the ropes of research, but from a reader’s perspective I’m not the biggest fan of it.

• I would also re-write this sentence, I find the structure to be… off.

“This has sparked my academic interest, leading me to seek an understanding of the ways in which vintage has become exponentially popular since its emergence in the 1980s, and how the spaces it inhabits, both physical and digital, contribute to its ability to construct and impart identity.” (4)

• I should have cited the Fisher article here, I think it would have made a stronger sentence.²

“In the course of my graduate education, however, I noticed that studies concerning secondhand and vintage tend towards investigating its presence in European cities and New York City.” (4)

• This is part of my claim/argument and could have been stated more strongly and probably could have used some citation or footnote that showed the state of the literature. I guess we’ll see if I address it in the lit review!

“In sum, this investigation of A Current Affair seeks to contribute to and enrich the understanding of the workings and value systems of vintage through the lens of both physical and digital spaces” (5).

• Kind of a thesis statement, but still not sure if I really actually had one. I wish I had something stronger, but I do remember really struggling with having a solid idea of what questions I was asking. The questions/argument/thesis statements always come to me more clearly as I start writing. During the process of writing, I start to realize that I am writing to answer one of the many questions that I had when starting on a project and tend to go back and make that question/argument/claim clear in my introduction. I also keep it handy somewhere visible so I can refer back to it to make sure that I am staying on track with my analysis throughout the rest of the project.

“To do so, this thesis is organized as follows…” (5)

• This is a good signposting paragraph. It’s always important to give the reader a preview of what is to come, and it can help you as the researcher/writer stay organized as you write.

---

---

Discussion

First and foremost: I took WAY to long to introduce the actual subject of study and my ‘thesis’/argument. I don’t even mention the subject of my ethnography until page three! In addition, I find the introductory sentence to be really weak. As a reader, I would have preferred that I started with some kind of hook - a quote, an attention grabbing description, an observation from my field work, or even something an interview participate. Anything to give the reader a little bit of a teaser that makes them want to keep reading!

To follow up on the weak introduction, I am not entirely sure that I have a strong thesis statement, argumentative claim, or research question. In all the writing advice books I’ve ever consulted, a strong thesis statement or research question is paramount to the structure and direction of a piece of writing like this. One of my favorite books on the topic even has an entire chapter dedicated to formulating such a sentence!* This is definitely something I would have changed if I could go back and re-write the introduction. It would maybe sound something along the lines of: '“This study argues that geographic place and the spaces that hold vintage markets is an important component in conferring value to vintage garments”.

Next, I am, again, not sure how I feel about having the personal ‘I’ and ‘Me’ in this work. I remember being into it at the time, and I felt like it needed to be present, but I feel really awkward upon re-reading it. I’m not entirely sure if that awkwardness is because I genuinely don’t like it as a reader, or if it’s because it feels too close and vulnerable. I do remember admiring, very strongly, other researchers before me who did the same thing, and I was most definitely influenced by the need to acknowledge the presence of the researcher as a part of the anthropological method. I think all the right intentions were there, but the execution leaves something to be desired. To be honest, that is probably because of the ‘just write it and don’t think too hard about it’ mentality I had adopted because otherwise, it wasn’t gonna get done!

Now for something that was glaringly missing from my introduction - my approach! I know that this is missing since I’m the one who wrote it, so it might not have been missed by you if you’re reading along. But I think I should have introduced my anthropological approach and the theoretical concept of mediaspace in this section. At first, I wasn’t entirely sure if I agreed with myself on this thought since I do discuss it - at length - in the literature review section. However, other papers I have written since then that have been successful in the publication market did introduce key concepts in their introductions, and I think they are stronger for having done so. I then went on to expand on those concepts in the research context sections later on in those papers, but having a teaser in the introduction made for a more compelling and structured read.

Lastly, there were a few miscellany that needed some attention. While I am still very intrigued by the ‘intermediary archive’ idea, I think it was distracting from the main point of the research and could have been nixed. That would have brought the introduction of the subject of study to page two (if I made no other changes) which is better than waiting until page three! And finally, I missed some citations, and there are some punctuation and grammatical mistakes that could have been fixed with some extra editing - but these are most definitely not the end of the world!

In sum - not the strongest introduction I have ever written, but it has most of what it needs to properly introduce a research paper!

Next up is chapter one - From the Stigma of Secondhand to the Desirability of Vintage! This chapter provides the research context for the rest of the paper. It thematically introduces the state of literature concerning vintage studies at the time of writing, and goes over the theoretical orientation I used to frame the study.

So don’t forget to subscribe, and go check out the digital version of my diss to read along with me! Share your thoughts in the comments - what would you change? what did you find compelling? Let’s chat!

‘Till next time

xxKatie

Note: links with an asterisk (*) are affiliate links

1. Jenß, Heike, Fashioning memory: Vintage Style and Youth Culture. Dress and Fashion Research. London, England: Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, Plc; London, England, 2015.

Jenß, Heike. “Sixties Dress Only! The Consumption of the Past in a Retro Scene.” Essay. In Old Clothes, New Looks: Second Hand Fashion, edited by Alexandra Palmer and Hazel Clark, 177-96. Oxford: Berg, 2005.

McRobbie, Angela. “Second-Hand Dresses and the Role of the Ragmarket.” Essay. In Zoot Suits and Second-Hand Dresses: An Anthology of Fashion and Music, 23-49. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989.

2. Fischer, Nancy L. “Vintage, the First 40 Years: The Emergence and Persistence of Vintage Style in the United States.” Culture Unbound 7, no. 1 (March 12, 2015): 45-66. https://doi.org/10.3384/cu.2000.1525.157145