Putting It Together: Asking Questions

  • Research is not a specialized, esoteric activity, but rather something that happens every day. By definition, we do research when we “investigate systematically.”
  • Research is often performed in community, and often within a discourse community.
  • A discourse community is a group of people that is united by the way the members communicate and the things they communicate about.
  • You belong to many discourse communities, even if you didn’t realize it.
  • The academic discourse community is like any other discourse community in some ways, but has certain distinct characteristics:
    • Academics build on what others have said about a topic.
    • Academics consider the value of their work, but don’t overstate the importance of their individual contribution.
    • Academics assume disagreement  .
    • Academics assume a voice of conviction and authority.
    • Academics use specialized vocabulary.
    • Academics foreground evidence.
  • Academic discourse can feel frustrating and stifling. These feelings are quite common.
  • Research starts from questions
  • You should try to research topics that interest you. One way to find these topics is to perform an interest inventory.
  • Research projects are often built around a research question. A research question:
    • Can be answered in some way, yet
    • Is arguable.
    • Can be answered using information that exists, yet
    • Hasn’t been answered yet.
    • Is specific and
    • Can be stated clearly and directly.
  • An academic discipline or academic field is a subdivision of knowledge within the academic discourse community. Disciplines are like lenses that allow us to see the world in different ways.
  • Interdisciplinary scholarship weaves together multiple disciplines.
  • A methodology is a system of methods that an academic discipline uses to carry out its research and pursue the answers to its questions.
    • Quantitative research quantifies a problem by transforming it into numbers.
    • Qualitative research focuses on discovering reasons, motivations, attitudes, insights, and other non-quantitative data.
    • Experimental research generate new findings by way of experiment.
    • Analytical research starts out with knowledge that already exists and analyzes this information.