#fictocriticism

Hello and thank you! 

I’m very impressed at the initiative you’re taking this far out from the beginning of Year 12. Pretty exciting times too, since you’ll be assessed under the new EE2 syllabus!! 

1. Beyond the obvious (i.e. brainstorming key words and phrases related to your concept and/or form and punching them into google), you should:

Come up with a research plan. 

Learn how to use Boolean operators to more effectively combine keywords and get what you want on the first or second page of a search instead of having to trawl 10 pages.

Learn how to use Google search operators (another list here). 

Get into the habit of citation chaining (which is the actual name for what I personally call reference hopping), which is chasing up references cited in articles or finding other sources that have cited an article - it’s actually quite fun and will get you into a rabbit warren of research quickly. (Hint:  this method is also applicable to Wikipedia.)  

Expand your knowledge of search engines and databases. Google is nice but Google Scholar is nicer. You’ve also got the State Library of NSW databases, which you can access with a (free) membership (or sign up via your local library card), and the oft-forgotten gem of Trove, run by the National Library of Australia. 

Visit a library. School, local, state, it doesn’t matter. Nothing beats spending a day in the library nose-deep in a book you didn’t think you’d be reading.    

Don’t forget to create a way of storing and organising your research! Whether you use a bibliographic program like Mendeley or Zotero, chuck everything onto the cloud, create a local folder on your computer, or buy a binder, make sure you keep your research in one easily accessible place (and that you back everything up periodically).  

As for texts, try to research as wide a range as possible. Peer-reviewed academic articles, videos, images, books, literary magazines (see my list), podcasts, actual examples of your form. Evidently, make sure you assess your sources’ credibility and learn how to distinguish legitimate information from shadier stuff.  

Keep a bibliography, too. It’s now mandatory so might as well start it early. 

2. Fictocriticism is admittedly kinda niche and I don’t know much beyond what I’ve mentioned in my (super small) fictocriticism tag. (There’s a link to a fictocritical essay at the bottom of the second post.) I’m aware that fictocriticism has been featured in previous Showcases, but I’m not sure which ones.  

Weirdly, I made a post about fictocriticism two years ago: [x] 

There’s such thing as “fictocriticism” for those of you who enjoy the analytical part of a critical response but want room to write creatively as well. (You would submit this as a critical response btw) 

Fictocriticism combines fiction, theory and criticism, rejecting rigid boundaries between them. It’s feminist in its origins and definitely postmodern, which are two things that seem to appeal to the tumblr community.

The only downside is that fictocritical works are somewhat niche, and actual examples of fictocriticism are, as far as I know, not easy to find or access. However, it’s definitely a workable form as there was one person in my cohort who did it, and I have a fuzzy recollection of a Showcase work being a fictocritical essay. 

Further reading

Discovering the self: Fictocriticism, flux and authorial identity 

The fictocritical essay is a blank map across which meaning is charted, less a space for confirmation and conclusion than a plotting of identity. This comes from the significance of language in fictocriticism, in the capacity of this ‘in-between genre’ to explore ‘the ways in which language – and especially discourse – becomes “second nature”’ (Gibbs 2005)

Fictocriticism, Affect, Mimesis: Engendering Differences

Fictocriticism is a way of writing for which there is no blueprint and which must be constantly invented anew in the face of the singular problems that arise in the course of engagement with what is researched. It is writing as research, stubbornly insisting on the necessity of a certain process in these days when writing is treated by those who determine what counts as research to be a transparent medium, always somehow after the event, a simple 'outcome' of a research which always takes place elsewhere, in the archive, in the field or the focus group, on the web. 

(Bolding mine)