📕 Node [[the craft of research]]
📄 the craft of research.md by @flancian ️🔗 ✍️
📄 The Craft of Research.md by @luciana

Chapter 3: From Topics to Questions

Subject:

  • a broad area of knowledge

Topic:

  • specific interest within an area.
  • specific approach to a subject:
    • asking a question, the answer of which would solve a problem that my readers care about
  • How to pick a topic:
    • start with what most interests you
    • you do not have to be an expert on it, you do want to become one
    • make a list of interests that you would like to explore
    • choose one or two by:
      • skimming the subheadings of your topic in general guides/reference books/specialized indexes
      • look for online/paper encyclopedias or other reputed online references and check out the bibliography at the end of the entry for your general topic
      • find ideas in blogs
      • find what interests other researchers
      • skim latest issues of journals in your field (not just articles but conference announcements, calls for papers, reviews)
      • investigate which resources are particularly abundant in your library.
  • How to go from a broad topic to a focused topic
    • a topic: a starting point for your research (topos) from which you can head off in a particular direction and narrow it down from broad to focused
      • a topic is too broad if you can state it in four or five words: "Free will in Tolstoy"
    • a topic must be narrowed down by adding words and phrases, specially those deriving from "action" words: "The conflict of free will and inevitability in Tolstoy’s description of three battles in War and Peace
      • lacking these action words make your topic a static claim, and these do not lead anywhere: "There is free will in Tolstoy’s novels".
      • adding the "action" words transform these claims into something a reader could be interested in: "The conflict of free will and inevitability in Tolstoy’s description of three battles in War and Peace —> In War and Peace Tolstoy describes three battles in which free will and inevitability conflict.
      • these claims may seem thin but get richer as your project progresses.
      • caution: do not narrow down your topic so much that there is no information available regarding it
  • How to go from a focused topic to questions
    • beginners’ mistake: to collect any information available on the topic, which could produce a report on the topic, but does not provide an answer to any specific question, which should be the aim of a serious researcher
    • Thus, the best way to begin working on your focused topic is to formulate questions that direct you to the information you need to answer them
    • Make an inventory of possible questions:
      • start with standard journalistic questions: who, what, when, where
      • focus, however, on how and why
      • to engage your critical thinking, ask about:
        • Topic’s history:
          • how does it fit in a larger developmental context?
          • how has its internal history developed?
        • topic’s composition
          • how does your topic fit in a larger structure?
          • how do its parts fit together as a system?
        • Topic’s categories
          • how can your topic be grouped into kinds
          • how does it compare/contrast with others like it?
        • Turn positive questions into negative ones
        • ask what if and other speculative questions: what if your topic never existed, dissappeared etc.
        • ask questions suggested by your sources (once you have done some reading about the topic):
          • build on agreement
            • extend the reach of someone’s claim
            • ask questions that might support the same claim with new evidence
            • ask questions analogous to those that sources have asked about similar topics
          • ask questions that show disagreement
          • ig you are an experienced researcher, look for questions that others ask but haven’t answered yet: conclusions usually contain open questions, new research ideas etc.
    • Evaluate questions:
      • look for questions that may help you look at your topic in a new way.
      • avoid this kind of questions:
        • their answer is settled —> questions with how and why may lead to further thinking on the topic
        • their answers would be merely speculative
        • their answers are dead ends
    • Once you have a few promising questions, try to combine them into larger ones that could be potentially interesting to readers
  • The most significant question: So what?
    • Once you have a question you that holds your interest, it must be interrogated in a deeper way
    • why would others think your question is worth answering?
    • what will be lost if you don’t answer your question?
    • You may not have an answer to "so what" at the beginning of your project, but you must work on this questions throughout your project
    • 3 steps to achieve an answer to the "so what" question:
      • name your topic using nouns derived from verbs:
        • say what yoy are writing about
        • I am trying to learn about… the causes of the disappearence of large North American mammals…
      • add an indirect question that indicates what you do not know or understand about yout topic
        • because I want to find out who/what/when/where/whether/why/how
        • here you state why you are pursuing your topic: to answer a question important to you
        • I am trying to learn about the causes of the disappearence of large North American mammals because I want to find out whether they were hunted to extinction
      • answer so what? by motivating your questions
        • here you find out whether your your questions could interest not just you but others
        • add a second indirect question which explains why you asked your first question:
          • in order to help my reader understand how, why or whether…
          • I am trying to learn about the causes of the disappearence of large North American mammals because I want to find out whether they were hunted to extinction in order to help my reader understand whether native peoples lived in harmony with nature or helped destroy it.
      • this indirect question should seize your reader’s interest
      • if it touches on issues important to your field, even indirectly, then your readers should care about its answer.

Chapter 4: From Questions to a Problem

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