There's teryaki on Bryman

I am having a deja vu. It's as if this time of year comes around every year. No, not the singing santas and goodilicious gingerbread cookies, but the sweat, nerve and anxiety about exams. Last year I was desperately trying to get my head around anthropology and myself into a red dress. This year I know the dress fits, but I don't have a freaking clue about epistemology nor research methods - the terms which unfortunately constitute the subject I'm taking this semester.

So, now I am work, for the 12th hour running, using my desk as a study place as it's as far as I need to be from little big planets, sack-people and Lara Croft. I've had Chinese for dinner and the teryaki unfortunately spilt onto my beloved book. Nevertheless, I don't think it matters if I can't read whether it's qualitative or quantitative research I'm supposed to conduct.

Normally when you have a 700 page book with a glossary at the back, these few pages usually gives you some kind of wrap-up or summary of the mayhem you have tried to understand for the past hundred hours of lecturing. However, not Bryman, no, he gladly distorts the picture even further by giving you obscure definitions that just emphazises the fact that you are, sincerely lost.

Let me give you one example, as I have problems understanding ontology:

Ontology: a theory of the nature of social entities. See objectivism and constructionism.

Ok, let me see objectivism them as this didn't make it much clearer.

Objectivism: an ontological position that asserts that social phenomena and their meanings have an existence that is independent of social actors. Compare with constructionism.

What? You describe one un-understandable word with another? How about constructionism then? (watch this...)

Constructionism: an ontological (here we go again...) position that asserts that social phenomena and their meanings are continually being accomplished by social actors. It is anti-thetical to objectivism.

Hmmm...nope, nothing, nada, zilch, zero. Didn't get it. Don't effin' knows what it's supposed to mean.

I'm gleaning through the rest of the glossary, hereby re-named confussary, to look for any enlightening stuff, and what do I see:

Missing data: when you are feeling lost in the curriculum and don't see otherwise obvious connections between the different paradigms and theories. Can be influenced by alcohol intake or exhaustion. Not a general indicator of dumbness, however will undoubtly affect the exam result. So basically, you are screwed.