What am I missing here?

I just finished writing my Graduate Lit Review, 4 days ago, and now I feel a bit nostalgic. In preparing for a paper of such massive proportions I spent much of my day online reading or with my head in some books over at NYU's Bobst Library.

Today, I have plenty to write. I DON'T miss writing. I have a case study due on Monday on TIVO and I'm working on a package on "Cadillac Records," the new film on the birth of rock n'roll opening tomorrow. I am also working on a piece about Walter Benjamin's "Unpacking My Library: A Talk About Book Collecting" for my understanding class. But I miss the Lit Review. It's disgusting, I know.

A good friend of my dad's came into town not to long ago, we were talking about grad school and what's easy and what's not. The friend said, "I could do research all day long, it's just sitting down to write it that kills me."

At the time I disagreed. I said "Oh no no no, I love doing the writing, I just don't want to do the research."

What was I thinking?? I completely agree. I hate putting my thoughts together, that is what writing is. It's putting a bunch of thoughts together on a page, so it all makes sense. I have found through writing this Lit Review, well...I don't think I'm very good at it but I like the research.

I assume this is the point of all this research, to put it all together. If you can't put it all together then what was the point?

For example I was up in the lab yesterday teaching myself how to do Final Cut Pro. I am a professional after one session with ...myself. I was researching on some tech site how to do everything. It had a little web tutorial and after I watched the tutorial, I went back to FCP and practiced. There you go. Research in motion..no not the Blackberry. The actual act of carrying out research. I was using my research to successfully accomplish something. Did I miss it?

In graduate research you have to accomplish something otherwise you are wasting their time, your time and your (parents) money. I struggle with this everyday. I can't write about anything because I don't know what I want to research? What do I want to write about? If I were to enter into a thesis tract what would I dissertare?

I am currently caught up in this idea that journalists of the future will be "Community Organizers" (see Buzzmachine.com) Although Jeff Jarvis blames the fall of newspapers on journalists, I still think he has some valid points about re-thinking how we journalize. Journalists of the future won't be doing all the researching and the writing, they will be helping people organize, helping the public set up blogs, mediating chat rooms, scanning comments for news, facilitating twitter comments, linking, bridging and collaborating with other journalists.

In a lit review the writer is looking for holes in the current literature on a given topic. The author argues a need for more research on an idea for a study. I didn't do that in my lit review. I didn't challenge the Jarvis' of the world and I didn't come up with any new ideas. All I did was talk about the decline of traditional media and the convergence of new media.

It's been done.

I'm writing this blog post because I'm frustrated. I'm frustrated with my lack of critical thinking. I did the research. I did the writing but I didn't do the thinking.

Yes, I miss the lit review but its not because of the research. Its not because I can or cannot write or because I can't organize my thought. It's because I have no thoughts. I miss the lit review because of the critical thinking.