Transcript Early in the Research From “The Craft of Research” by Wayne C.

Early in the Research
From “The Craft of Research” by
Wayne C. Booth
Gregory G. Colomb
Joseph M. Williams
What are you worried about?
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How to look for a research topic?
Where to find relevant information?
How to organise the information?
There is no reason to worry
Even experienced researchers
feel a bit anxious when they
have to undertake a new
research project.
Are there any similarity?
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They too may not know precisely what
they are looking for at the beginning.
When do they start writing?
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Once the plans start execution.
From the beginning of the project to its
end.
Do not wait until the end of the process.
Why to write?
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To remember what they find.
– Listing sources, assembling research summaries,
keeping lab notes.
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To understand and to see more clearly
the relationships among the ideas
– arranging and rearranging the results in new ways,
outlines, diagrams of how facts relate, summaries
– to see connections and contrasts, complications and
implications.
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To gain perspective
– to improve the thinking
– to see the ideas in a clearer light
Significance of a research
problem
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If you can find a problem that you alone want
the solution, you have achieved something
substantial.
If you can pose a problem that the others
recognize not just as your problem, but as their
problem as well, a problem whose solution will
change their thinking in ways they think
significant then it is excellent.
http://www.racematters.org/devahpager.ht
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First steps to take in planning
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Must settle on a topic specific enough to let you
master a reasonable amount of information.
– Not “the history of scientific writing,”
– but “essays in the proceedings of the royal society
(1800-1900) as a precursor to the scientific article”
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Out of the topic, develop questions that will guide
your research and point you toward a problem
that you intend to solve.
Gather data relevant to answering your question
– as collect, sort, and assemble your information, plan
to do lots of writing to remember and understand, may
not in the neat order
Finding topics and questions
If you are free to pursue any research
topic that interests you, that freedom
may be frustrating - so many choices,
so little time.
Finding a topic is only the first step and
does not mean that once you have a
topic, you need only to search for
information and report what you find.
Researcher must view their task
differently
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Aim not just answering a question, but at
posing and solving a problem the others
also should recognize as worth solving.
– Do not feel dismayed if at first you cannot
find something as above, but at least
something you might find worth solving
(genuinely)
Questions
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Asking the right questions is key to successful
research
Start with ‘who, what, where, when’ (facts),
but move on to ‘how’ and ‘why’ (analysis)
Question your topic from as many angles as
you can think of – questions give your
research purpose and direction
Listening to other people’s questions might
help you formulate your own
There are some questions that have no
answers
From a question to its significance – three useful steps:
a) Name your topic: I am working on/studying …
b) Suggest a question: I am working on/studying ...
because I want to find out how/why ...
c) Motivate the question/find a rationale: I am
working on/studying … because I want to find out
how/why … in order to understand how/why …
(Cf Booth et al, pp. 42-5)
‘
The ultimate question is:
So what?’
Problem
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Your questions should help you solve a
research problem
A problem is something you do not yet
know or understand
Ask yourself why are you asking certain
questions
A problem might be the origin of your
research …
… but you may not be able to formulate
your problem fully at the outset
Structure
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Any thesis needs a clear focus and a mode
of argument
Your chapter outline ideally reflects both
Possible foci: author/s, text/s, generic
groupings, historical issues, theoretical
issues, …
Possible modes of argument: revalue a
reputation, analyse an aspect of style, relate
text/film to historical/literary/aesthetic
context/s, describe/interpret a text/film, take
sides in an ongoing critical argument,
exemplify critical theories/approaches with
reference to a particular text/film, …
Evidence
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All answers must be based on evidence
What is your evidence?
Always ask yourself: what is it in the text
and/or context that makes me think this
is the right answer?
Always explain: what is self-evident to
you might not be self-evident to others
Always avoid generalizations
Topical Examples
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Here are some titles of MA theses from 200607:
Timelessness in Homer’s Odyssey
Forms of Vengeance in Ancient Greek and Shakespearean Theatre
Mrs Dalloway: A Postmodern Pastiche
The History Behind the American Gangster Film
The Beast Within: A Study of Victorian Gothic
From Albatross to Automaton: Depictions of Femininity in Baudelaire
Titles raise expectations but they don’t say anything
about the success of the thesis
Research interest and topic
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Interest
– a general area of inquiry that we like to explore
(e.g., society and language, textual coherence and cognition, ethics
and research)
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topic
– an interest specific enough to support research
that one might plausibly report on a book or
article that help others to advance their thinking
and understanding.
(e.g., “Linguistic signals of social change in Elizabethan England”,
“the role of unauthorized immigration in shaping the American right
wing” “ the degree to which the current research is motivated by
under-the-counter payments”)
Setting the topic from interests
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Start with what interests you most deeply.
List four or five areas that you would like
to learn more about.
Pick one with the best potential for
yielding a topic that is specific and that
might lead to good sources of data.
Some guidance: Ask! Ask Ask!!
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Look at the matters of interest in your
field of study.
Looking in a recent text book.
Talking to another student.
Consulting your teacher/supervisor.
Or from another course.
Even from a general bibliographical
resource in the library
Warning
Ensure that the topic you have
selected is rich in literature.
If you pick your topic first and after
considerable searching discover that the
sources are thin, you will have to start over
Narrowing down a broad topic
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A topic is probably too broad if you can
state it in fewer than four or five words.
e.g.,
Free will and historical
The conflict of free will and
inevitability in Tolstoy’s War historical inevitability in
and Peace
Tolstoy’s description of three
battles in War and Peace
The history of commercial
aviation
The contribution of the military
to the development of DC-3 in
the early years of commercial
aviation
Narrow down topics using nouns derived from verbs
Advantage of a specific topic
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Easy to recognise gaps, inconsistencies
and puzzles that you can question, which
help turning your topic into research
question
What Makes a Question/Topic
Researchable?
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Not too big or too small
Question focuses on something that has
been discussed
It’s interesting and it matters
It’s in some way answerable
There is a method to answering the
question
It raises more questions
From, Ballenger, The Curious Researcher, 4th Edition
Remember
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Keep asking, so what?
Articulate what you are doing
– I’m trying to learn about ______
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Make it a question
– I’m trying to learn about _____ because I want to
know _________
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Now, motivate your question
– I’m trying to learn about __ in order to know _____
so that I might help my reader understand
________
Booth, Colomb, Williams p. 51
Caution
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You narrow your topic too severely when
you cannot easily find sources
The history of commercial aviation
Military support for development of the DC-3 in the early
years of commercial aviation
The decision to lengthen the wing tips on the DC-3 prototype
as a result of the military desire to use the DC-3 as a cargo
carrier
Four perspectives to organise
questions
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What are the parts of your topic and what
larger whole is it a part of?
What is its history and what larger history
is it a part of?
What kinds of categories can you find in
it and to what larger categories of things
does it belong?
What good is it? What can you use it for?
Further questions on topic
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Identify questions that begin with Who,
What, When or Where.
– They only about matters of fact
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Emphasise on questions that begin with
How and Why
Concentrate questions that need more
than one- or two word answer.
Decide which questions stop you for a
moment, challenge you, spark some
special interest.
Research problem: Practice
1. Topic: I am studying
.
2. Question: because I want to find out
what/why/how
.
3. Significance: in order to help my
reader understand
.
Source: Booth, W. C., Colomb, G. G., & Williams, J. M. (1995). The craft of research.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, p. 56
Research problem: Practice
I am studying the role of nurses in hospitals
because I want to find out why students
who study nursing at this college move to
other cities rather than pursue jobs here
in order to help my reader understand the
advantages of developing strong
relationships between hospitals and
college nursing programs.
Practice only; do not use this informal formatting in
your paper or proposal.
Research problem: Practice
I am studying leadership styles because I
want to find out how leadership actions of
project managers who display introvert
characteristics differ from those who
display extrovert characteristics in order to
help my reader understand the importance
of diverse ways of interacting among
leaders and employees in the workplace.
Practice only; do not use this informal formatting in
your paper or proposal.
From a question to its
significance
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You need to decide how significant your
research might be not just to yourself but
to others
– a simple guideline
Step 1 (Naming your topic)
• attempt to describe your work in a
sentence like
I am studying the repair process for cooling systems
I am working on the motivation of President Bushe’s early
speeches
From a question to its
significance - a simple guideline
Step 2 (suggesting and defining the topic and
the reason)
• describe your work more exactly by
adding to that sentence an indirect
question that specifies something about
your topic that you do not know or fully
understand.
I am studying X because I want to find out who/ what/
when/ where/ whether/ why/ how __________
fill in the blank with a subject and a verb:
From a question to its
significance - a simple guideline
Step 3 (motivating the question)
• add an element that explains why you are
asking your question what you intend to get
out of its answer
1. I am studying repair process for cooling systems,
2. Because, I want to find out how experts repairers
analyse failures
3. In order to understand how to design a computerised
system that could diagnose and prevent failures
Thank You