How Things Work - Doha Academy of Tertiary Studies

chaPteR 4
Stating the Problem
Questioning How This Thing Works
Your research question should be more important to you than
your research method. What you are studying should be more important
than how you are studying it. Of course, some of us, maybe all of
us, enjoy particular ways of seeking understanding of how things work.
But our understandings would be fragmented and context-bound if we
organized our thoughts around our methods.
As I write this book, I am trying to think of you and your situation.
In certain ways, you are an expert. You have done some projects, maybe
dozens. You are becoming more specialized in your field or taking on
a new field. Some of you are thinking about capstone research for a
career. Others are thinking about the steps of thesis research, maybe a
dissertation. Some of the following chapters will deal with constructing
a proposal and laying out a plan for data gathering and analysis, for thesis
or capstone. These activities are going to make sense and go easier as
you select the topic you will study. Bear in mind what poet John Moffitt
wrote:
To Look at Any Thing
To look at any thing,
If you would know that thing,
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