Week Three Project Development Seminar I: Topics Dr. Richard Nowell ¨Structure ¨ ¨Devising Research Topics ¨ ¨Formulating Research Questions ¨ ¨ ¨Targeted Learning Outcome ¨ ¨An academically viable and manageable research topic 1. ¨ ¨Who came up with your previous essay topics? ¨ ¨Have you ever had to develop your own topics? ¨ ¨How did you go about doing this? ¨ ¨ ¨Before starting the research and writing process, it is imperative we have a good sense of what we are doing … and by extension not doing ¨ ¨As a provisional starting point, we should be striving to do two things: ¨ 1.Identify the general area we will be researching and writing on 2. 2.Develop a research question relating to that general area. 3. ¨Note that at this point, we are not focusing on what we will argue, how we will organize our paper, and how we will present our ideas ¨ ¨And, of course, this is only provisional – the processes of researching and writing will take us in different directions, so things can change!! ¨ ¨ 1. 1. ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨Once we have identified a potential research topic, we need to be fairly confident that it is a) manageable and b) topic-relevant ¨ ¨We may fear our topic is too narrow to produce the required paper, but this is usually wrong: normally we will need to tighten our focus ¨ ¨NB: For a 6-8 paper, we really need to think quite small and zoom-in on a small number of case-studies that we will analyze in detail ¨ ¨We may fear our topic has already been examined by others: this is usually not a problem – there is usually something new to say about it ¨ ¨One thing we need to bear in mind is that we don’t have a huge amount of time to research or write, and we must work with limited resources ¨The relationship between the Research Topic and the Research Question is a little bit like the chicken and the egg: which comes first? ¨ ¨In reality, this relationship need not be linear: it is not always the case we identify a topic and then afterwards formulate a research question ¨ ¨Sometimes, we may start with a research question, and then tailor our research topic to help us best answer this already-formulated question ¨ ¨Other times, we may be interested in a topic, but only after we research it more closely do we discover the basis for our research question ¨ ¨Either way, by formulating a research question – even a “reverse engineered one” – we have a framework in which to imbed our analysis ¨What general topics have you been thinking about for this essay? ¨ ¨Does anyone see any challenges with these topics? ¨ ¨Does anyone find any of these topics interesting? ¨ ¨If so why? If not why not? ¨ ¨What do folks think about this general feedback? ¨ ¨When formulating a research project we need to identify a general area that you are interested in learning more about: our research topic ¨ ¨It is also essential that we zoom in on a manageable part of that general topic so as to formulate a research question we will seek to answer ¨ ¨It is essential we formulate a research question we can realistically expect to answer given the parameters of the assessment in question ¨ ¨At all times, we need to think pragmatically, avoiding topics/questions that are too broad or too narrow, or ones we cannot ever really answer ¨ ¨We should treat the topic/question as provisional, as our findings may ultimately lead us to revise, refocus, or streamline our topic/question ¨ ¨ ¨Date: 12 October ¨ ¨Instructor: Sarka ¨ ¨Topic: Project Development Seminar 2: Primary Sources ¨ ¨Outcome: Identifying and securing suitable primary sources ¨ ¨Preparation: What are the primary sources required for the topic of your interest and how and where would you secure them? ¨