The Research Process
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Getting Started
Why are you doing research?
Yes, your professor is making you - but there's another reason!
Academic, scholarly books and articles are a conversation about a topic taking place between researchers.
Depending on the topic, these conversations can go on for decades!
Before you join a conversation about your topic, you need to understand:
- What information everyone agrees on, and
- What everyone is talking about now.
That way you can build on their work and can add something new to the conversation.
What's your strategy?
Research is a process, and you can be strategic about it.
Below are the steps. They're in a circle because you may do some of them in a different order, and you may repeat some, especially as you refine your topic into a research question and search for articles.
Knowing the steps – and knowing you can repeat them - will keep you from getting stuck. Just ask yourself: What am I working on now? What will I do next?
