Saturday, April 16, 2016

Finally!


After searching and searching, I finally found some research content that is relevant to my topic. It is a dissertation by Amanda Vicary. It is entitled, "An investigation into the potential romantic appeal of convicted killers." She stated, "However, to date no scientific research has been conducted in an 
attempt to determine what characteristics of women may lead them to be attracted to a killer and 
what characteristics of the killers themselves make them so appealing." So this tells me that I'm not going to find much more on the topic, however she does use bits and pieces from different books such as, Women Who Love Men Who Kill.  Unfortunately, I do not have time to read this entire book, but I may be able to look it up and read different sections. This dissertation does give me different references that I may be able to look into further.

As far as using the dissertation as a source, that I am not so sure about. Yes, she has done extensive research and cites many credible sources, however, she herself is not an expert in the field. But she is writing it in order to fulfill the requirements for the degree of the Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, so she is of an advanced level.  I just question whether or not it can be considered a "scholarly source." And if it can be, how much do I use to support my research? But what if its all I can find on the topic? It was a long process that led me to find this article, I am afraid that their won't be much more find. At the same time, this paper covers all the sub-topics that pertain to my focused topic, so it will be very useful, but I'm pretty sure I need more than one semi-scholarly source in order to have rounded research.

I am going to start my analyzing different sections of this dissertation, and then ask Dr. G. on Monday what is the best way to use this source.



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