Sian's response to video idea

A reply from Sian in response to my question about the use of video. I can't disagree with any of the below. Basically, it would be good, but its not necessary, and my priority should be the writing.

Hi James

On the video issue: yes, I can see why you might be tempted by this, and I know you'd do it well. My only concern is the time issue, and that the technical and creative challenge of making them might just eat too much into the overal writing time. You'd be able to make most of the points you mention in the blog via a single video - so you might want to consider just restricting it to one rather than trying to be more ambitious with the three.

I'm pretty confident this is going to be an excellent dissertation: you don't *need* videos to make it so. If you feel the time sacrifice is going to be problematic, you can always think of the videos as something to do later - at the moment I think the main thing is getting the dissertation done in good time to move on to whatever comes next.

One other point is that I'm not sure a video would make the point more 'authentically' - while I know what you're getting at, I think authenticity is a tricky concept when it comes to academic knowledge of any kind. Perhaps it might be more useful to think about making the point more *critically* - and whether video would help you do that?

I hope this is useful - I'm not trying to put the dampers on this, just urging a note of caution.

The video idea was already on hold until I get the writing out of the way, however it has been useful to have this reaffirmed.