How does background/preliminary research help in defining a research topic

When you do background research, you're exploring your general area of interest so that you can form a more focused topic. You will be making an entry into an ongoing conversation, and you have the opportunity to ask new questions and create new knowledge.

Why is this important?

Have you ever done a project that just never seemed to come together?

"I had a general idea but not a specific focus. As I was writing, I didn't know what my focus was. When I was finished, I didn't know what my focus was. My teacher says she doesn't know what my focus was. I don't think I ever acquired a focus. It was an impossible paper to write. I would just sit there and say, "I'm stuck." If I learned anything from that paper it is, you have to have a focus. You have to have something to center on. You can't just have a topic. You should have an idea when you start. I had a topic but I didn't know what I wanted to do with it. I figured that when I did my research it would focus in. But I didn't let it. I kept saying, 'this is interesting and this is interesting and I'll just smush it all together.' It didn't work out." -[Guided Inquiry: Learning in the 21st Century]

Can you relate?

Doing background research to explore your initial topic can help you to find create a focused research question. Another benefit to background searching - it's very hard to write about something if you don't know anything about it! At this point, collecting ideas to help you construct your focused topic will be very helpful. Not every idea you encounter will find its way into your final project, so don't worry about collecting very, very detailed information just yet. Wait until your project has found a focus.

While you're doing you're background research, don't be surprised if your topic changes in unexpected ways - you're discovering more about your topic, and you're making choices based on on the new information you find. If your topic changes, that's OK!

A tool to help you throughout your project: the research log! Logging your research, and making a general record of the sources you find will be very useful for you at this point.

The reading you do in the beginning of a research process has two important, specific purposes:

1. It helps you to narrow your topic by finding out how much information is out there and, therefore, what is do-able within the page-limits you have been assigned.

2. It helps you get an idea of which specific aspects of your topic you will want to do more detailed reading about.

How to do preliminary research quickly

1. Prioritizing your reading

The biggest mistake most people make when doing preliminary research is doing too much reading [!].� Remember, the point is to narrow things and decide where you want to focus.� This should be a relatively fast process.� Here are some tips to help you make it so:

1. When you find a book, go to the index first to see if your topic is covered on some specific pages.� If it is, turn to those pages and just read those.� [Later, if you decide to use the book, you should also read its introduction, but only enough to get an idea of the author�s overall point.� For a quick way to do this kind of reading, see the reading tips below.]

2. If there�s nothing in the index, read the table of contents to see if it will give you a clue to which section might be most useful to you.

3. If neither of these things works, go to the book�s introductory chapter and do a speed-read of it [see reading tips, below].� This should tell you if any part of the book will be useful to you.� Whatever your results, you should stop at this point and start working with your next source.

4. With an article or Web page, you can�t count on having an index or table of contents, so you should speed-read the first three paragraphs and the last three paragraphs.� That�s where good authors always put their main ideas.

2.� Reading tips: how to go quickly

The type of speed-read I do isn�t skimming.� It isn�t about reading everything fast.� It�s about only reading certain things and thus limiting my reading and the time it takes to do it.� Here�s what I mean:

1. Read the places where authors put their big ideas.� This means reading a source text in the following order:

2. Opening three paragraphs of the introductory chapter or article

3. Closing three paragraphs of the introductory chapter/article

4. Once you�ve proceeded past preliminary reading, if the article or book looks promising, then read the first sentence of each paragraph

5. If that shows promise, then read the rest of the paragraph [i.e., do a complete reading of the text]

A good research process should go through these steps:

1. Decide on the topic.
2. Narrow the topic in order to narrow search parameters.
3. Create a question that your research will address.
4. Generate sub-questions from your main question.
5. Determine what kind of sources are best for your argument.
6. Create a bibliography as you gather and reference sources.

Each of these is described in greater detail below.

The research process is messy! Do not start research haphazardly—come up with a plan first.

Video liên quan

Recommended textbooks for you

Business/Professional Ethics Directors/Executives...

ISBN:9781337485913

Author:BROOKS

Publisher:Cengage

Financial Reporting, Financial Statement Analysis...

ISBN:9781285190907

Author:James M. Wahlen, Stephen P. Baginski, Mark Bradshaw

Publisher:Cengage Learning

Intermediate Accounting: Reporting And Analysis

ISBN:9781337788281

Author:James M. Wahlen, Jefferson P. Jones, Donald Pagach

Publisher:Cengage Learning

Personal Finance

ISBN:9781337669214

Author:GARMAN

Publisher:Cengage