Early in the Research

From The Craft of Research by

Wayne C. Booth
Gregory G. Colomb
Joseph M. Williams
What are you worried about?
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?
They too may not know precisely what
they are looking for at the beginning.
When do they start writing?
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?
To remember what they find.
Listing sources, assembling research summaries, keeping lab notes.
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.
To gain perspective
to improve the thinking
to see the ideas in a clearer light
Significance of a research
problem
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
m
First steps to take in planning
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
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
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
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 peoples 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
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
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
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
Here are some titles of MA theses from 2006-07:
Timelessness in Homers 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 dont say anything about

the success of the thesis
Research interest and topic
Interest
a general area of inquiry that we like to explore
(e.g., society and language, textual coherence and cognition, ethics and
research)

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
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!!
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
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 Tolstoys War historical inevitability in
and Peace Tolstoys description of three
battles in War and Peace

The history of commercial The contribution of the

aviation 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
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?
Not too big or too small
Question focuses on something that has
been discussed
Its interesting and it matters
Its in some way answerable
There is a method to answering the
question
It raises more questions
From, Ballenger, The Curious Researcher, 4 th Edition
Remember
Keep asking, so what?
Articulate what you are doing
Im trying to learn about ______
Make it a question
Im trying to learn about _____ because I want to
know _________
Now, motivate your question
Im trying to learn about __ in order to know _____
so that I might help my reader understand ________
Booth, Colomb, Williams p. 51
Caution
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
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
Identify questions that begin with Who, What, When or Where.
They only about matters of fact
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
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 Bushes 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