The Craft of Research 4th Edition

The Craft of Research, Fourth Edition. 4th ed., University of Chicago Press, 2016.

Write while you research

Research is about developing a deep understanding of a topic by making surprising connections. Therefore, it’s important to write as you research. Don’t wait until you’ve gathered all the information to start writing. You might have fleeting thoughts that could provide really good insight into a topic. Make sure you’re taking note of those. Once you have your topic, the best way to start researching is to write down questions you have about it and find their answers (start with who, what, where, when, and why).

Don’t just accumulate random information on your topic. Make sure you’re writing down your thoughts and opinions, even if you don’t use them later on. Perhaps this is one of the most overlooked pieces of advice when it comes to research. It’s important to remember that if you thought about something, or had an interesting question, it is very likely that your audience will relate to that in some way. Make it part of your research if you deem it appropriate.

Keep your audience in mind

When you write for others, you demand more of yourself. What does your audience know? What might they need more information on? These are all questions to keep in the back of your mind as you’re researching. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes. Writing is an imagined conversation, and you want to make your audience a part of it. Talk WITH people, not DOWN at them or AT them. It’s easy to write from your own perspective, keeping in mind what you yourself know about a topic. To make a compelling case to others, you must think about the information that the audience should know about a topic before delving into it.

There are different types of research topics based on your intended goal / your audience’s needs.

3 types of research topics

• I’ve found some new and interesting information
• I’ve found a solution to an important problem (conceptual)
• I’ve found an answer to an important question (practical)

What readers want

• To be entertained
• To solve practical problems
• To understand something better

Can you meet your reader’s needs? What do they gain by reading your research?

Begin research with a question that interests you

Keep in mind what kind of problem you are trying to solve:

Practical problems: What should we do?

• How does my topic change the world in some way?
• Divide the problem into two parts: conditions and tangible costs. Ex. Missed the bus (condition), I’m late to work (cost)
• What is the practical solution to my problem? What are its benefits and consequences?
• This requires a form of applied research. You use this research to get a practical solution.

Conceptual Problems: What should we think?

• Helps us to understand the world better
• Has conditions and consequences
• Condition is always not knowing or not understanding something
• This requires pure research because it addresses conceptual problems by improving our understanding of it

How to start researching

• Start by reading tertiary sources to get a bigger picture of where your topic lays
• From there, look to the bibliography to find secondary and primary sources to use in your research
• Read article abstracts to see if the article is worth reading carefully
• Compile a list of keywords to research ex. skim a book’s table of content, indexes, bibliographies, and footnotes
• If you disagree with a view, investigate it
• Citation indexing – Looking at sources of a book you know (backward citation) and looking at other works that cite a book you know (forward citation). The more it’s been cited, the more impact that work has.
• Look for questions other researchers ask but don’t answer. If speculative questions don’t yield data, lose it!

Backward citations can expand your research in a more coherent and holistic way. It wasn’t something I learned to do in school, but I apply it to every paper I’ve written since learning about it!

Resources

You want to make sure you are using credible resources. Here are a few the authors recommend:

• MLA International Bibliography
• PubMed
• Library of Congress
• Project Gutenberg
• Google Books
• Virtual museums
• CQ Researcher
• Academic Search Premier
• Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Google Scholar
• Chronicle of Higher Education

Test your sources / engage with them more deeply

• Always record the bibliographic information of your sources FIRST
• Test your understanding by summarizing; if you can’t, you don’t understand your source enough to disagree
• Prove something that a source only speculates or assumes; expand a position; offer additional evidence; present a new perspective; even if you agree or disagree with the original source.
• Separate notes based on different topics, even if they came from the same source.
• As you are reading, notice your response to the text: where do you find yourself agreeing or disagreeing?
• When taking notes, write down supporting arguments for your conclusions
• Evidence must be representative – did you look at ALL the evidence and pick this one out as the most reliable, the most representative of the overall issue? Or did you pick evidence that seemed convenient, no matter how little the evidence clarifies the issue as a whole?

Drafting Checklist

Before you start writing your first draft, make sure that you can answer the following questions:

• Who is your audience? Why should they care about this problem?
• Can you answer the question you are posing?
• Do you have the evidence and reasons to back it up?
• Can you respond to objections or counterarguments your audience may have?
• Do you know the warrants that connect your reasoning to your evidence?

Planning and drafting

Exploratory drafting

• Start writing early. You might not use all of this in your final draft, but your best thinking can come from writing throughout the entire process.
• Draft quickly, revise carefully and toss out the rest.
• Use headings and subheadings even if you will not use them in your final draft.
• Keep your key terms at the top of the page so you can make sure your section is staying on track.
• The first draft is for the writer. What kind of case can you make and will it hold up to your own scrutiny?
• Make the end of your intro and the beginning of your conclusion CLEAR to the reader. Reinforce the thesis of your paper but in different words.
• Evidence and explanations must make up at least a 3rd of your paper, otherwise, your argument probably isn’t strong enough.

Drafting

Now that you have your thoughts somewhat laid out, you want to make a more in-depth version of your initial notes.

Introduction

• Start with a BRIEF summary of the most important points and sources (only those you intend to modify, challenge, or expand on)
• Contextualize the background, state the problem, and give a response to the problem
• Rephrase your thesis question as a statement, pointing out the flaws you’d like to address
• Sketch an answer for “So what if we don’t find out?”
• Put the point of your paper in your introduction, OR, save it till your conclusion to build a climax
• In your intro, circle 4-5 words that express those concepts. Keep bringing up those words throughout your paper.

Body of your Paper

• Define terms, larger historical/social context, spell out problems, etc.
• Create a page for each section of your paper. At the top, write the main point (the reason) you will be exploring in that section.
• Order your paper – part-by-part, chronologically; short to long, simple to complex; more familiar to less familiar; less contestable to more contestable; more important to less important (or vice versa); earlier understanding to prepare for later understanding; general analysis followed by specific applications.

Plan Each Section and Subsection

• Each section needs its own introduction. Use the keywords that distinguish this section from the others. If you can’t find any, what you wrote might not be contributing anything to the whole of your paper.
• Outline where to put evidence, acknowledgments, warrants, and summaries.
• If a paper is fact-heavy, end each section with a summary of how that section builds on the overall argument of your paper
• Start your paragraphs with the information that is old and familiar, and keep the new information / complex terms towards the end of the paragraphs.

Conclusion

• Re-state the point of your paper, and after, sketch its significance (so what?)
• Suggest new questions your research opens up that could be its own research topic for your audience to follow up on

AVOID

• Telling the story of how you researched and your thoughts as you researched. The audience doesn’t care. You can implement your thoughts as long as you keep them as objective and as focused as possible. People don’t need to know you came up with a thought while in the shower.
• Readers want your analysis, not a summary of your sources.