Chapter 3: From Topics to Questions
Subject:
- a broad area of knowledge
Topic:
- specific interest within an area.
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specific approach to a subject:
- asking a question, the answer of which would solve a problem that my readers care about
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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
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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.
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How to go from a broad topic to a focused topic
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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"
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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
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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
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Make an inventory of possible questions:
- start with standard journalistic questions: who, what, when, where
- focus, however, on how and why
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to engage your critical thinking, ask about:
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Topic’s history:
- how does it fit in a larger developmental context?
- how has its internal history developed?
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topic’s composition
- how does your topic fit in a larger structure?
- how do its parts fit together as a system?
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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.
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ask questions suggested by your sources (once you have done some reading about the topic):
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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.
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Evaluate questions:
- look for questions that may help you look at your topic in a new way.
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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
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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
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3 steps to achieve an answer to the "so what" question:
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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…
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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
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answer so what? by motivating your questions
- here you find out whether your your questions could interest not just you but others
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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