reinventing the wheel

Today, I had my first meeting with the supervisor of my undergrad thesis. For the past...okay, ever since I was on holiday, I've been reviewing journals about my area of research (eyewitness memory), and I thought I had a pretty good idea of where I was and what I wanted to do.

Leaving his office, however, I felt like I had been asked to come up with a way to reinvent the wheel. Strangely enough, that is exactly what he said he wasn't asking me to do. He had a very valid point - research keeps going on, meaning there are always ways in which current research can be improved upon, or gaps can be filled.

But hello, these researches have been carried out by extremely learned professors. We have been trained to critique these journals, but reinventing them?

Delusions of grandeur!

Being third year students and all, I know there are certain expectations of us, like not relying completely on replications of what has already been done. But we're pretty much on our own. How many journals have you come across that were authored by one single person? I'd say it's a very small minority. And these people have been through years and years and YEARS of study and research. Pretending we're all at that level...how is this going to work??

I guess it's back to the drawing board.