Chapter 4: Reading & Writing
Beginning Your Research
Selecting Your Research Topic
You’ll be more efficient if you begin with a clear research question. That’s because research questions are more than handy tools; they are essential to the research process. By defining exactly what the researcher is trying to find out, these questions influence most of the rest of the steps taken to conduct the research.
For instance, if you’re seeking information about a health problem in order to learn whether you have anything to worry about, research questions will make it possible for you to more effectively decide whether to seek medical help–and how quickly. Or, if you’re researching a potential employer, having developed and used research questions will mean you’re able to more confidently decide whether to apply for an internship or job there.
The confidence you’ll have when making such decisions will come from knowing that the information they’re based on was gathered by conscious thought rather than luck.
Most of us look for information to answer questions every day, and we often act on the answers to those questions. Are research questions any different from most of the questions for which we seek information? Yes.
Regular Question: What can I do about my insomnia?
Research Question: How does his or her country of birth affect a child’s chances of developing asthma?
Research questions cannot be answered by a quick web search. Answering them involves using more critical thinking than answering regular questions because they seem more debatable. Research questions require more sources of information to answer and, consequently, take more time to answer. They, more often than regular questions, start with the word “How” or “Why.”
Choosing a Topic
The Controversy: A controversial topic is one on which people have strong views. Imagine the type of discussion that can become really heated, usually when the subject is something people are passionate about. Remember being passionate about a particular issue does not necessarily mean you recognize the merits of the other view (although that often happens); it just means that you have collected evidence (from a variety of sources) and synthesized those ideas to arrive at a particular point of view.
When you are trying to choose your topic for your persuasive paper, it is easier if you choose a topic about which you feel very strongly. You probably have realized by this point that when you are writing, it is a lot easier to write about a topic you already have some background knowledge on, and something you are extremely interested in. This helps to engage you and keep you interested in the writing process. No matter the topic you eventually decide to discuss, there are a few things you need to think about before you begin the writing process. You will need to make sure your subject is:
- Significant. Is a discussion of this topic one that has the potential to contribute to a field of study? Will it make an impact? For example, a significant topic would be to convince your reader that eating at fast-food restaurants is detrimental to people’s cardiovascular system. A less significant discussion would be if you were to try to convince your reader why one fast-food restaurant is better than another.
- Singular. This means you need to focus on one subject.
- Specific. Similar to the point above, your topic needs to be narrow enough to allow for you to really discuss the topic within the essay parameters (i.e., word count). Many writers are afraid of getting too specific because they feel they will run out of things to say. If you develop the idea completely and give thorough explanations and plenty of examples, the specificity should not be a problem.
- Supportable. Does evidence for what you want to discuss actually exist? There is probably some form of evidence out there even for the most obscure topics or points of view. However, you need to remember you should use credible sources. Someone’s opinions posted on a blog about why one fast-food restaurant is the best does not count as credible support for your ideas
Formulating a Research Question
In forming a research question, you are setting a goal for your research. Your main research question should be substantial enough to form the guiding principle of your paper, but focused enough to guide your research. A strong research question requires you not only to find information but also to put together different pieces of information, interpret and analyze them, and figure out what you think. As you consider potential research questions, ask yourself whether they would be too hard or too easy to answer.
To determine your research question, review the freewriting you completed earlier. Skim through books, articles, and websites and list the questions you have. Include simple, factual questions and more complex questions that require analysis and interpretation. Determine your main question—the primary focus of your paper—and several subquestions that you will need to research to answer that main question.
Here are some research questions. Notice that the main research question has no obvious, straightforward answer. It is necessary to research the subquestions, which address narrower topics, to answer the main question.
Topic: Low-carbohydrate diets
Main question: Are low-carbohydrate diets as effective as they have been portrayed to be by media sources?
Subquestions:
- Who can benefit from following a low-carbohydrate diet?
- What are the supposed advantages to following a low-carbohydrate diet?
- When did low-carb diets become a “hot” topic in the media?
- Where do average consumers get information about diet and nutrition?
- Why has the low-carb approach received so much media attention?
- How do low-carb diets work?
Narrowing Your Focus
Mina’s Story
Mina is doing an internship at a small press. Authors and agents submit children’s books for potential publication and Mina is responsible for reading them all and passing on the most promising ones to the editorial team. One day, the head editor says that she is frustrated by the lack of diversity in the children’s book manuscripts that she is receiving. She asks Mina to do some research about the problem.
Mina isn’t sure where to start. The topic of diversity in children’s book publishing is huge. She begins by doing some background research. A Twitter thread leads her to an article about how 50% of main characters in children’s books are white, 27% are animals, and only 23% are BIPOC characters.[1] Then, she looks at the submission history for her press for the last few months and realizes that the breakdown is pretty similar.
Mina narrows her research question from “diversity in publishing” to “How can our small press encourage more diverse submissions?” Narrowing the question was only possible because she did some initial research. If she’d found that the press received diverse submissions but only accepted books with white main characters, her research focus would be totally different. Her question is now both more manageable (which will save her time) and more useful.
From there, Mina does the following research:
- Reads articles about how other presses have encouraged more diverse applications.
- Follows some popular BIPOC authors on Twitter and learns about some of the challenges they’ve faced in the publishing industry, and interviews a few.
- Discovers that disabled authors face additional barriers and identifies this as an untapped market.
- Interviews a few agents to get their perspective.
- Looks at the website copy for different presses and realizes that her press’ website copy could be more inclusive.
- Writes a short report outlining her findings.
As you can see, a specific research question allowed Mina to save time and also made sure that she was asking the right questions. Mina also kept an open mind throughout the process. She didn’t go looking to prove her own theories, and was open to being surprised. She hadn’t thought about disability, but her research led her to this area. The result: her editor was able to use her research to make positive changes within the press.
Why Narrow Your Focus?
Once you have a need for research—say, an assignment—you may need to prowl around a bit online to explore the topic and figure out what you actually want to find out and write about. For instance, maybe your assignment is to develop a poster about “plants” for an introductory horticulture course. The instructor expects you to narrow that topic to something you are interested in and that is related to your class.
Ideas about a narrower topic can come from anywhere. In this case, a narrower topic boils down to deciding what’s interesting to you about “plants” that is related to what you’re learning in your horticulture class and small enough to manage in the time you have.
One way to get ideas would be to read about plants on Wikipedia, looking for things that seem interesting and relevant to your class, and then letting one thing lead to another as you keep reading and thinking about likely possibilities that are more narrow than the enormous “plants” topic. (Be sure to pay attention to the references at the bottom of most Wikipedia pages and pursue any that look interesting. Your instructor is not likely to let you cite Wikipedia, but those references may be citable scholarly sources that you could eventually decide to use.)
Background Reading
When you’re working on projects it’s wise to do some more reading about that narrower topic once you have it. For one reason, you probably don’t know much about it yet. For another, such reading will help you learn the terms used by experts who have studied your narrower topic. Those terms are certain to be helpful when you’re looking for sources later, so jot them down or otherwise remember them.
For instance, if you were going to do research about the treatment for humans with bird flu, this background reading would teach you that professionals and scholars usually use the term avian influenza instead of bird flu when they write about it. (Often, they also use H1N1 or H1N9 to identify the strain.) If you didn’t learn that, you would miss the kinds of sources you’ll eventually need for your assignment.
This initial reading could cause you to narrow your topic further, which is fine because narrower topics lead to greater specificity for what you have to find out. After this upfront work, you’re ready to start developing the research question(s) you will try to answer.
- https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=an-updated-look-at-diversity-in-childrens-books ↵
