HOW TO DO RESEARCH SELECTING A TOPIC.pptVIP

HOW TO DO RESEARCH Grant T. Hammond Air War College THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: WHAT WE WANT TO AVOID “Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.” Samuel Johnson RESEARCH From the French “recercher” to travel through or survey Careful, systematic, patient study investigation in some field of knowledge Undertaken for the purpose of discovering or establishing facts or principles DECIDING ON A PURPOSE What do I intend to do in this paper? Describe and analyze how something is done? Discover what happened at a particular time and place? Understand and explain a concept? Marshall evidence to persuade others on a particular point of view? DECIDING ON A TOPIC Let the ideas percolate for awhile. . . See what sticks, what you keep going back to What am I most interested in? Do I want to know a lot about a little or a little about a lot? Narrower papers are easier, broader ones more difficult DECIDING ON A TOPIC On what topic do I wish to do a paper? What is the subject or thrust of my research? How many elements are there to this topic? Can I make it more focused, more specific? What do I NOT want to investigate? What are the boundaries of the topic? How do I decide to include and exclude certain aspects? ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS All data is equal unless you discriminate among it with questions Cannot find an answer without a question Asking the right question is critical to doing good research Need to refine the relevant questions and focus on the most important one(s) The question is the focus of research HOW MUCH TIME WILL IT TAKE? Figure half the time is for research The other half is for writing--and rewriting How much time can you devote to it? In what increments? Over what period? Exert control over the material If you don’t set a time frame for research and writing, you will read and write endlessly THINK ABOUT THE TOPIC List all your potential working titles List the elemen