The Discovery Process
Research can quickly become overwhelming if you do not have a process to control its boundaries. As with most things in life, it is easy to become distracted. You may wander as you research simply because of the sheer pleasure of learning more about your topic or related topics. As you investigate your area of interest, use the following process to stay focused yet flexible. For the comprehensive examination you must be more selective and continually focus on answering the exam questions.
Identify Your Topics
Recognize Related Ideas and Choose Them Wisely
Review and Regroup
Organization
Additional Resources
Identify Topics
If you are preparing for comprehensive exams, your independent research will be focused on filling in gaps or adding to the knowledge you have gained up to this point in your program. Your search strategy will often hone in on specific facets of a topic.
As you learned in the previous section, one of the most common problems with dissertations is a lack of depth and focus in the research question. Moving from a very general topic to a very focused question will take time. If you are unsure of a topic that interests you, it can help to look talk with your mentor, coworkers, or fellow learners to help clarify your interests. Spend time doing preliminary research before you chose your final research topic, including finding articles and books and exploring dissertations published on similar topics. This will help you know how much and what kinds of research has been done on your topic. Specifically focus on the research methodology, further research section, references, and on anything the author would have done differently.
Recognize Related Ideas and Choose Them Wisely
Often there are ideas that overlap in materials which take you down new and interesting paths. When searching for effective drug treatment programs for juveniles, for example, you may find that some of the material also addresses recidivism, or relapses. This is an additional idea that you may wish to explore. If you then search for information on recidivism, you may find material that also touches on socio-economic conditions as a factor, which may further interest you. This can take you beyond the perimeter of your topic. Ask yourself whether the additional ideas and topics taken from the boundaries of your research are helpful or an unnecessary distraction. Some instructors recommend setting a timer while doing library research as a means of staying on track and focused.
Review and Regroup
It is important to build in time to review your research and take stock of materials you have collected and read. By analyzing your materials, you can often eliminate unnecessary items and identify missing elements. You may have to research specific gaps through further research.
This process - selecting topics, searching, uncovering additional issues through overlapping topics, and reviewing and regrouping - will typically need to be repeated a handful of times before you can feel confident that you have fully explored a topic. Over time you will begin to see the same authors, theories and themes emerge again and again. Allow yourself plenty of time for this process. Your rest time between search efforts can often afford you new clarity when you return to your work.
Organization
Hopefully, during your coursework you are developing methods to keep your research organized. This may include using file folders, post-its, index cards, Excel spreadsheets or other techniques. These skills are even more important during the comprehensive exams and dissertations due the time constraints and scope of the projects. Begin these projects with organization in mind. Good organization skills will also allow you to be systematic as you do library research so you don't have repeat the same searches you have done. You can also be more confident about determining when you have fully explored a topic.
Resources:
Bibliography Mining and Cited Reference Searching (PDF)
Reading Chart (PDF)
Scholarly Research Log (PDF)
