Thesis on OOTS

[Ranzunar]

A little over a year ago I posted that I was thinking of making my Master's thesis about Order of the Stick. I am proud to announce that the proposal of this thesis is finally approved and I am scheduled to defend it this May. As it stands, the thesis is titled "Piecing the Parts: A Narratological Approach to Microserialized Webcomics" I'm writing about the history of serailized narratives, how narrative strategies are applied to webcomics generally and how they are applied in OOTS. Thank you my forum friends, for your varied ideas and discussions, you are certainly more than just "traditional readers." I think the proper term is readership community or collective narratee. And of course, thanks to the Giant. Your awesomeness has inspired me to write and I just hope I can give it academic justice.
Thanks again people and wish me luck because I have thesis chapters to write and quickly.

[Katana_Geldar]

What is your degree Ranzunar? MA?

[Hardcore]

Damn cool! I hope you send one ex. or two to the Giant, I am sure he would love that:smallsmile:

[[TS] Shadow]

Wow...I wish I could do schoolwork on OotS. Good luck!

[CoffeeIncluded]

Hey man, good luck! Wish I could do that in school...

[MlleRouge]

That's very impressive! Best of luck, I hope it turns out well.

Things like this go to show what real literary value OoTS really has :smallbiggrin:

[Asta Kask]

Hey man, good luck! Wish I could do that in school...

You could translate it into Latin. :smallsmile:

[Acrux]

Curious - are you doing any comparison of the serialized narratives popular up through Victorian times to the partial resurgence today in serial comics? I have a feeling that these types of webcomics reach a much broader and varied audience than traditional comic books ever did.

[Starscream]

Heh. I did something similar once. Not a whole senior thesis, but I got twenty pages out of comparing Superman and Batman and the different ideologies and heroic archetypes they represented.

Got the best grade in the class, too. The teacher thought it was very thought out and well done, but really I just didn't want to do any research so I read a stack of comic books as high as my waist instead. I call it research, but I would probably have done that anyway.:smallamused:

[gosh]

Wow! I wish I could use OOTS for school. :smalltongue: What's your degree?

[Asta Kask]

A little over a year ago I posted that I was thinking of making my Master's thesis about Order of the Stick. I am proud to announce that the proposal of this thesis is finally approved and I am scheduled to defend it this May. As it stands, the thesis is titled "Piecing the Parts: A Narratological Approach to Microserialized Webcomics" I'm writing about the history of serailized narratives, how narrative strategies are applied to webcomics generally and how they are applied in OOTS. Thank you my forum friends, for your varied ideas and discussions, you are certainly more than just "traditional readers." I think the proper term is readership community or collective narratee. And of course, thanks to the Giant. Your awesomeness has inspired me to write and I just hope I can give it academic justice.
Thanks again people and wish me luck because I have thesis chapters to write and quickly.

Will you post the text somewhere and provide a link?

[Zelthax]

Congrats man, and good luck defending it. Keep us updated!

[silversaraph]

I think that's pretty cool, but REALLY weird.

[ref]

Awesome. Best of luck.

[derfenrirwolv]

Oh boy.. i can just see this

Hey, half an hour till this goes to the printer. Let me check for an update *click*

Oh my god.. this totally undermines my thesis.. its wrong.. ALL WRONG! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[Hatman]

i can already imagine my responce to reading your these.
TL;DR

[Kastanok]

Awesome idea, best of luck :)

[Meg]

Man, that's 12 kinds of awesome.

[veti]

So you're planning to write a whole master's thesis... before May?

Congratulations - and even more, good luck. That's a lot of work to do. Enjoy.

[ref]

Man, that's 12 kinds of awesome.

:roach: But they don't know about some of them yet.

[ZerglingOne]

So you're planning to write a whole master's thesis... before May?

Congratulations - and even more, good luck. That's a lot of work to do. Enjoy.

It's not as hard as you might think, recently I had a 1 week programming project that ended up as over 80 pages of code. Given code is significantly less dense than a master's thesis would be, it's not on the same level. However, the average master's thesis is about 40 pages with figures. If I can write 80 pages of code in a week, he certainly can write 40 pages of thesis in around 4 months. Hell that's 10 or so pages a month, easy. edit: easIER than you might think....a master's thesis is never easy. I hope to get a chance to read your insightful work.

[Killer Angel]

Very cool! good luck.


I'm writing about the history of serailized narratives, how narrative strategies are applied to webcomics generally and how they are applied in OOTS.

I'm not sure, but maybe, the Giant himself can give you a little help with this.
Have you considered to request him some material? (PMing him or an administrator?)

[Squeejee]

Your project is cool in abundance - I'm still a few years from having to do my own thesis, but as an English major and an OOTS fan, I'm sure I'd want to read yours!

Please provide linkage when it's done~

[JediSoth]

Back in '05, I wrote a paper for a literature class on OotS. The class was "Comics in American Culture" and my paper was called "Do Half-Orcs Like Puppies?"

It was an analysis of OotS #51. Not only did I get an "A" on the paper, but I got Rich to sign and doodle on it at Gen Con that year.

I think mine was the only paper that semester that focused on a Webcomic ("Dungeon Crawlin' Fools" had yet to be released when I wrote the paper).

Man, it was great to read comics for class. It was even greater when work reimbursed me for that class. :p

[Lecan]

Very cool! good luck.



I'm not sure, but maybe, the Giant himself can give you a little help with this.
Have you considered to request him some material? (PMing him or an administrator?)

If you ask, I would suggest having an outline or sample available to send him so he knows you're serious.

Edit: Forgot to say good luck.

[veti]

However, the average master's thesis is about 40 pages with figures. If I can write 80 pages of code in a week, he certainly can write 40 pages of thesis in around 4 months.

Ah, fair enough. That's a linguistic difference then. Where I come from, that would be called a "dissertation" - a "thesis" makes me think more like 200-300 pages...

[ZerglingOne]

Ah, fair enough. That's a linguistic difference then. Where I come from, that would be called a "dissertation" - a "thesis" makes me think more like 200-300 pages...

Ah see, here (United States) your thesis is the 40-60 page in depth study of something whereas your doctoral dissertation is your 200-300 page "first book" as some like to call it. I suppose where you come from it's the opposite of what it is here. That's rather interesting actually.

[Ranzunar]

Ok time to clarify some points that have come up. First of, I truly appreciate the votes of confidence and luck. My official degree is working towards a Master's in English Education. Luckily, studying the narratives of webcomics and OOTS has several pedagogical implications. Yes, technically anyone can study webcomics in an academic setting. How seriously will other people take you depends on how hard you really work at this. My Master's thesis is actually closer to one hundred pages with very few facts and figures. Don't worry, I'm using plenty of literary theories to take up the pages no problem. I'm actually presenting a significant part of the thesis at the Pop Culture conference in New Mexico this February. I would love to be able to post the whole once I'm finished in a blog of sorts so that you guys can read it, especially since I have you as one of my key intended readers. However I have to be careful about that whole intellectual property thing, partly because I would like to publish this thing as a book or something to that degree. Hope this clarifies a few things. Keep the love and the questions coming.

P.S. Yes this is weird and awesome in so many ways and I am loving every agonizing moment of it.

[maxon]

It's not as hard as you might think, recently I had a 1 week programming project that ended up as over 80 pages of code. Given code is significantly less dense than a master's thesis would be, it's not on the same level. However, the average master's thesis is about 40 pages with figures. If I can write 80 pages of code in a week, he certainly can write 40 pages of thesis in around 4 months. Hell that's 10 or so pages a month, easy. edit: easIER than you might think....a master's thesis is never easy. I hope to get a chance to read your insightful work.

Yeah - I actually did the writing part of my masters in about 10 days (40,000 words). The actual work took rather longer (you know, doing the reading, finding stuff, assembling data, analysis etc.) I don't know about the States but over here on the taught programmes we generally expect students to complete the research part of their degree in the final module - about three months. In reality, they start writing their proposals now (submitted Easter) and getting stuff together and will hand in in September but the bulk of the work with most of them will be done in July-Aug-Sep. If they're doing an MPhil, it's a different matter, of course, but then that's a research masters not a taught one. I assume the States is similar?

Anyway, well done Ranzunar on having your proposal accepted and have fun. Post-graduate study is supposed to be fun, remember that. Hard work but if you're not having fun doing it you're doing it wrong.