Assignment One Introduction
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This assignment is intended to help you to narrow a topic and formulate the direction you want your research to take. As you will discover from the reading assignment for this topic, the strategies used in getting started with a topic are very important if you want the product to be of any worth.
Let’s consider some principles:
Research Has a Purpose
You need to buy a new car, and you certainly want something better than the lemon you currently own. Knowing your own transportation needs and your budget, you decide to do some research on automobiles. For weeks, you scour every website you can find. You even take notes on what you are learning and write a summary of your findings. Then you put everything in a drawer and buy the same model of car that you had before, except that it is four years newer.
Foolish? Of course it is. Your past car was a lemon, a disaster. After all the research you did, you surely must have seen data about better automobiles. But finding a better car depends on identifying a research goal and naming it: "What car should I buy this time?" If you were simply gathering information about cars in order to summarize it and put it in a drawer, you were not working to a goal. You were not, in fact, doing research at all, just gathering data.
Let’s consider the reason why we do research: We do research because we have a problem to resolve. Research has a purpose, a goal, an intent. It is not just the gathering of data. You shouldn't be able to solve your problem just by looking something up.
For a presentation on this, view the following (open to full screen):
(Prezi presentation)
There’s a Difference Between Data and Information
Data constitutes the facts about a topic. Information is what you do with those facts. Let’s look at it this way: When you did your research on automobiles, your intent was to find out which car you should buy, given your budget and transportation needs. In other words, you began with a question you needed to answer, a question that was focused and purposeful: What car should I buy? You may gather as much data about cars as you want, but if your data doesn’t lead ultimately to an answer to your question, it’s of limited value. Only as you sift through the data and do some analysis does it become information that can bring you to a solution.
All too often, people assume that we do research in order to discover facts. Actually, we do research to gather facts that will help us answer a question. Facts must never be an end in themselves. Rather, they are a means to determine what we should do or believe.
Let’s consider a few examples:
- You want to investigate the claims of the theological position, "Open Theism." You could simply find some sources describing Open Theism, along with a few writings of some Open Theists, determine what this theological movement is saying and then conclude with something like, "There appear to be some critics of Open Theism, so it might be a good idea for someone to investigate its claims." But that isn't really research until you actually do the investigation yourself and come up with a conclusion on Open Theism. You could ask, "To what extent does Open Theism present a biblically accurate portrayal of God?" That question would demand analysis and problem-solving.
- You’ve been told to write a research paper on Sigmund Freud. Your research and subsequent paper could be entitled "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Freud in Ten Pages Plus Table of Contents and Bibliography," but if you have simply gathered facts in order to regurgitate them, you have not really done research. It is when you ask a question like: "Has Freud's approach to psychotherapy demonstrated the success rate that proponents of Psychoanalysis assure us exists?" that the data becomes information.
The relationship between data and information works this way:
Data = the facts about a topic.
Information = evaluated data used to answer a question.
In its most basic form then, research is the gathering of data to identify information that can answer a question, leading to a conclusion that will influence belief or action. Anything less than this is not research. It will never tell you what car to buy or what you’re supposed to do with Open Theism or with Freud’s success rate.
Read the material related to this assignment from the Research Strategies textbook. The APPENDIX is especially helpful, because it contains lots of examples. Be sure that your research question is focused, researchable, and that it is only one question rather than several. You want to avoid gathering existing information just so that you can report on it (information as goal). You want to use information to solve a problem or deal with an issue whose answer is not obvious (information as tool).
Create a Sermon-Free Zone
Seminary students love to preach. They are often so eager to preach that they do only minimal investigation before launching into a huge exhortation intended to make all things right in this fallen world.
But you must remember this dictum: A research project is not a sermon, nor is it a how-to manual.
What's the difference?
| Research Project | Sermon/How-To |
| Investigates options | Presents results of investigation |
| Evaluates various points of view | Promotes one point of view |
| Is a question leading to an answer | Is an answer leading to an application |
| Generally asks why, looks at cause and effect, etc. | Generally takes a how-to approach that leads to action |
Don't preach sermons when what you need to do is investigate an issue in order to find an answer.
[Click on the file link above to download a template in rich text format (works in most word processors). It will form an outline so you can insert your answers under each heading. You can then submit the complete document to Prof. Badke by email attachment].
Here are some assignment instructions:
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1. Read Research Strategies, Preface, Chapters One to Three, and Appendix, A.1.1-A.1.8 (The appendix is especially helpful.).
2. View the presentation below, "What is Scholarship?" and answer the following questions arising out of the presentation. Don't just copy information. Interpret the presentation's information in your own words. [open to full screen]:
3. Answer the following questions.
a. Explain what is meant by the statement, "Authority depends on context." What are the two contexts you must consider in evaluating authority of a piece of information?
b. Why is it important to understand the process by which information was created?
c. What are four "dimensions of value" given to information?
d. In considering Research as Inquiry, what is true research and what is not?
e. What is meant by "Scholarship is a Conversation?" Be sure to explain what is meant by "conversation."
f. In what ways is searching "Strategic?"
Choose two topics from research projects you are doing for other courses, or from the list in Introduction to Assignments or from your own interests.
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Some tips:
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1. For each of your topics, consult Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) and one more established reference source, such as what you find in the reference collection of a library (for example, Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianty, or Encyclopedia of Counseling). The best way to find established reference sources is through our Research Guides (link from library home page - http://libguides.twu.ca/?b=s). Once you get there, navigate to a particular subject discipline, click on it, then choose the Encyclopedias tab on the left to find links and information on relevant reference sources.
2. List the titles of the reference sources you used and indicate the titles of the entries you looked up in them - I'm just as interested in what you searched for as what you found.
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You will thus have:
After clicking on Research Guides, choose a relevant subject area from the list, and then choose the Encyclopedias link on the side to find electronic dictionaries, encyclopedias and guides. For topics on biblical passages, choose the e-commentaries. Open to Full Screen Click on CC icon at bottom of screen for subtitles |
In 200-300 words, present a working knowledge summary of each of your topics (the basic facts required to make someone familiar with the topic), based on what you have discovered about the topics from your reference sources (one summary of information for each topic). Do not here describe what you want to do with the topic. Rather explain the basic features of the topic itself - what it is, some of its main facts, etc.
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Some Tips: 1. Make sure you include the relevant basic information and issues that you think are going to be important to know. |
For each of your topics briefly formulate 3-4 possible research questions, even though you will only be choosing one of these possible questions as the one you will use in your project.
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Some Tips: 2. This presentation will also help you with developing good research questions: 3. Formulating a good question is not as easy as you may think. Above all, avoid asking questions that just call on you to gather information and report on it. You need questions that deal with real issues or problems.
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Choose what you believe to be the best one of the possible research questions for each topic. This will then become your research question for that topic (though you may revise it in the next few assignments as you learn more about the issue).
| Some Tips: 1. Make sure for each topic that you have one question that is narrowly focused and deals with a problem or issue for which analysis is required. 2. Recognize that your question may need revision/refinement as you complete the next few assignments. |
Prepare a 3-4 point potential outline for each topic based on your research question and drawing its main points out of your research question.
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Some Tips: 1. Each outline should include what you need to cover in order to answer your research question and should be firmly based on that question. 2. Draw your outline out of words and phrases in your research question so the outline corresponds well with your question. This guide will help: |
Don't forget to use the assignment template at the top of this column as a framework in order to do your assignment correctly.
Rubric for Assignment One. Highest grade meets these criteria:
Land Acknowledgement
Trinity Western University's Langley campus is located on the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the Stó:lō people. We are grateful for the opportunity to live, work, and learn on this land.
