My Thesis: Autobiography

In a time when the world is flooded with information, what's the point of adding one more story to the mix? One more story that is not likely to get noticed? Yet the autobiography genre is still thriving with people from all different backgrounds penning their stories. Why?

My project seeks to study this phenomenon asking the question, "How does the process of writing one's autobiography impact the way one views oneself and one's life-story?" My sub-questions will follow the writing process first analyzing what motivates people to write about themselves, studying the steps required to write an autobiography, and finally examining what authors learn about themselves through and after the writing process. The study will culminate in an autobiographical piece written by none other than myself! I have a few hypotheses about the answers I find and I think they will have something to do with identity and self-perception, but we'll see!

Because this is my thesis project (and not a research paper) I will be doing all the primary research, not culling it from other sources. In addition to my own writing project, I plan to send out a questionnaire to a panel of autobiographical authors. I'm hoping to develop a sample group which consists of authors at different stages in the autobiography process (already published, still writing, editing etc.). Then I'll collect the responses, organize them, and incorporate them into my material.

The paper is broken up into five chapters: the introduction, an overview of literature, an explication of methodology, the results of study, and a conclusion discussing the results. The course mentor has also been really helpful so far; she makes the whole project feel a lot more manageable and a lot less daunting! Under her guidance, I feel a lot more equipped moving forward. Being so young and tackling such a large project (my undergrad thesis!) sometimes feelings of inadequacy nag at me. What if my project isn't good enough? significant enough? professional enough? or something else? What if it's already been done? I suppose I question the scholarship of my topic. But I'm holding on to the positive feedback I've gotten on it, both from my course mentor as well as from other students in the class and a variety of other people I know in real life. I try to stay positive because I know I am so close to finishing my degree! The end is closer than it appears!

"Diary" by Barnaby, used under a Creative Commons Attribution license.