Master's thesis - lack of evidence, possibly poor topic choice I'm working on a social science master's thesis based on a discourse analysis of documents. I finished a proposal a few months ago, which my committee approved. But as I continue to scan my sources, I am getting worried that there isn't as much significant evidence available as I had thought when I started doing research. I've done everything I can to find new leads but there is very little academic work written about the topic. I am starting to believe that the topic is a dud, and that maybe there's little written about because it just isn't that interesting...

Aside from meeting with my supervisor, which I am doing soon, has anyone else had to deal with a similar situation, and how did you deal with it? I want to finish within eight months, nine max, so I do not think I would be able to change topics...
Don't panic. It's quite normal for the direction of the research to shift a bit after the initial proposal. It's common to find out that for one reason or another it's not feasible to do exactly what was proposed. After all, if you knew exactly how to do it in a way that's guaranteed to work, then it wouldn't be research!

Unless your funding is tied to a specific project, you can probably broaden the scope or make other adjustments. I'm sure your advisors will have some specific suggestions for you, but in the meantime, think about what you could do with the types of materials that you have been able to find.