Where research begins : choosing a research project that matters to you (and the world)
Thomas S. Mullaney and Christopher Rea
- London : The University of Chicago Press, c2022
- 210 pages ; 22cm.
include index.
Part 1: Become a Self-Centered Researcher -- Chapter 1: Questions A Topic Is Not a Question TRY THIS NOW: Search Yourself TRY THIS NOW: Let Boredom Be Your Guide TRY THIS NOW: Go Small or Go Home SOUNDING BOARD: Start Building Your Research Network You Have Questions -- Chapter 2: What’s Your Problem? Don’t Jump to a Question (or You’ll Miss Your Problem) Stress-Testing Your Questions TRY THIS NOW: Run a Diagnostic Test on Your Questions TRY THIS NOW: Use Primary Sources to Educate Your Questions TRY THIS NOW: Make Your Assumptions Visible TRY THIS NOW: Identify the Problem That Connects Your Questions SOUNDING BOARD: Get Leads on Primary Sources You Have a Problem (in a Good Way) -- Chapter 3: Designing a Project That Works Primary Sources and How to Use Them (or, Fifty Ways to Read a Cereal Box) TRY THIS NOW: Treat Your Primary Source Like a Cereal Box TRY THIS NOW: Envision Your Primary Sources Connecting the Dots: Getting from Sources to Arguments Sources Cannot Defend Themselves TRY THIS NOW: Connect the Dots Using Your Sources (in Pencil) Taking Stock of Your Research Resources TRY THIS NOW: Decision Matrix SOUNDING BOARD: Is Your Decision Matrix Complete? Two Types of Plan B Setting Up Shop TRY THIS NOW: Get Money for Nothing (Prepare a Formal Research Proposal) SOUNDING BOARD: Share Your Proposal with a Trusted Mentor (Who Understands How Preliminary This Is) You Have the Beginnings of a Project -- Part 2: Get Over Yourself -- Chapter 4: How to Find Your Problem Collective Identify Researchers Who Share Your Problem TRY THIS NOW: Change One Variable TRY THIS NOW: Before and After TRY THIS NOW: Map Out Your Collective (Secondary Source Search) Rewriting for Your Collective TRY THIS NOW: Find and Replace All “Insider Language” SOUNDING BOARD: Does the Lay Version of My Proposal Make Sense? Welcome to Your Collective -- Chapter 5: How to Navigate Your Field Find the Problems within Your Field Read Your Field for Their Problems: Reimagining the “Literature Review” TRY THIS NOW: Start Your Own “What’s Your Problem?” Bookstore (aka Organize Your Field into Problem Collectives) TRY THIS NOW: Change Their Variables TRY THIS NOW: Rewrite for Your Field SOUNDING BOARD: Find a Sounding Board in Your Field Welcome to Your Field -- Chapter 6: How to Begin Don’t Worry. It’s All Writing. TRY THIS NOW: Create “Draft 0” See What You Mean: Writing Draft 1 TRY THIS NOW: Move from 0 to 1 Perfection Is Boring SOUNDING BOARD: Talk to Yourself Welcome to Self-Centered Research What’s Next in Your Research Journey? TRY THIS NOW: Find a New Problem and Start a New Project TRY THIS NOW: Help Someone Else.
"This book leads you to your research project while keeping your own preferences, abilities, and values centered. The authors place a strong and welcome emphasis on finding a research project that is right for you and that matters to you. The book includes student-tested exercises and many excellent examples of how-to-do-it and how-not-to. Each chapter includes "Try This Now" exercises and games designed to help you achieve a specific set of goals: generating questions, refining questions, discovering the patterns that connect the questions together, and the problem that motivates you--and other researchers. "Commonly Made Mistakes" are highlighted, as is advice for when and how to approach a "Sounding Board" (a teacher, mentor, or other advisor). At the close of each chapter, the key tools and exercises are revisited, providing a clear sense of the benchmarks you've reached."