The Milky Way
Photo source: Adriano Ferreira.
Gratefully adapted with a CC license from Flickr.
Most people, when they think of information, experience a feeling not unlike looking at a clear sky at night and being unable to recognize a single constellation. Something interminable sprawls overhead, broad and baffling in its detail. You feel lost, yet at home. You feel tiny and separate, yet part of a whole, whether gazing alone in a midnight field or browsing the Web from your dormroom desk.
Information. You sort through it all the time in your daily life, and for your research. But what does the word actually mean? This video offers some suggestions. With audio.
Just as planets belong to systems, systems to galaxies, and galaxies to a cosmos, so do facts and figures, opinions and gestures, belong to information types, and types to still larger heaps in an information yardsale: statistics, books, websites, videos, movies, body language, speech, music, news, blogs . . . So yes, information sprawls: data is constantly swimming up the channels of your brain, mating with what it finds there, and breeding correspondence.
Sports TV at a Shell Gas Station
Photo source: Rubin Starset.
Gratefully adapted with a CC license from Flickr.
Distinguishing fact from fiction and sound conclusion from breezy opinion is more of a challenge than ever. What with the Internet, and social media, and ever more advertising at gas stations, washrooms, intersections, and elevators, and ever more communication via text, email, chat, and smartphone, we literally live, many of us, in a thronging buzz of information, a semantic cosmos.
A thronging buzz is exciting, but it is also overwhelming. Clearing your mind for daily life is hard enough; teaching it to not just take in information but to also study it, sort it, compare it, and judge it is even harder.
Once you think of information as a cosmos of sources it becomes more manageable. Here are several ways to identify what you find:
1. PHYSICAL FORMAT: (e.g. book, DVD, magazine, ebook, microfilm, audio file, handwritten letter, webpage, film, cassette tape, photograph)
2. PURPOSE: (e.g. to inform, to entertain, to explore, to introduce, to analyze, to persuade, to sell, to discover)
3. INFORMATION TYPE: (e.g. Fact, argument, interpretation, criticism, opinion)
4. AUDIENCE: (e.g. scholars, children, general public, businesspeople, friends, family, a group with a shared interest)
5. RESOURCES: (e.g. tools used for finding sources such as catalogues, article databases, search engines, print indexes, bibliographies, subject headings, research guides, online text collections, webpages)
6. CONTENT TYPE: (e.g. newspaper article, book-length study, advertisement, movie, TV news broadcast, scholarly journal article, book review, documentary, interview, email, government document, lecture, statistical table)
7. MEDIUM: (e.g. print, online, TV)
8. TONE: (e.g. Formal or informal)
Use the slideshow below to try guessing the correct publication type based on the text alone. The exercise is intended to clarify the usefulness of different publication types used in scholarship.
A fair contest?
Photo source: Lonnon Foster.
Gratefully adapted with a CC license from Flickr.
Wading works best. Jumping straight into a scholarly journal article, a statistics table, a government report, or an in-depth study, is likely to leave you in the ring unfairly matched. Without background, you have no ground at all.
Imagine a party where, not knowing anyone, you hover around animated groups hoping to join the conversation. That's no fun--but it's exactly what will happen if you cliff-jump into research. Scholars of Irish literature, for example, may feel right at home with this scholarly journal article from the Review of Contemporary Fiction. Outsiders, however, may just nod politely and hope to conceal their confusion.
Luckily, no instructor expects you to be a subject expert: you are, after all, an undergraduate. Sure, professors hope you gain basic knowledge from listening in class and doing course readings and assignments. But in general, starting at close to zero is perfectly normal--and most of your fellow students will start there too.
Sort these research steps into the best order using this drag and drop example:
Successful research demands two contradictory approaches. Master these and an invigorating research adventure is much more likely:
1. General to Specific.
Work from a broad, general topic to a narrower, more specific one. This approach is true, not just for narrowing a topic but also for choosing resources. Opt for a general overview in an encyclopedia first, find out more in an introductory book, and then, when you feel more comfortable with the topic and have an idea where you're going, search for scholarly journal articles.
2. Non-Linear.
Instead of researching in a straight line from general to specific, you'll likely need to zigzag, retrace your steps, and constantly venture back and forth. That's because research is exploration. Not every trail leads to base camp, and not every footpath leads over the summit. Sometimes when you narrow a topic you narrow so much there are no books written on it; sometimes a focused topic seems less interesting, sometimes too confusing, and sometimes really perfect--but not what your instructor wants. So patience and openness in this process will help you.
1963 March on Washington.
Photo source: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
Gratefully borrowed from the public domain using Google Images.
Essay topics are broad. Professors know that the more specific a topic is, the less freedom you have to choose a focus that matches your interests and available sources. Nevertheless, broad topics need slimming down, and--for the most part--that's your job. The 1960s civil rights' movement in America, for example, is a huge topic. Maybe a scholar could write a 1000-page overview of the movement--but it's much too big for a 10-page paper; there just wouldn't be space to explore the topic in any depth. A more focused, more manageable topic might be: The 19th Century origins of the 1961-1962 Albany Movement.
Before you can narrow a topic you need to know something about it. Even a little may be enough to help you get started. Sometimes introductory lectures will do that, sometimes textbook chapters. Wikipedia—though you cannot rely on it—is a great place to start when you know nothing at all.
But the main tool you need is an encyclopedia. The UofT Libraries’ website has many subject-specific electronic encyclopedias you can explore online. These scholarly tools are ideal for gaining confidence in the general topic; picking up key themes, names, and terms; and getting lists of recommended books and articles.
View from Hambledon Hill, Dorset, England.
Photo source: Sheila.
Gratefully adapted using a CC license from Flickr.
An encyclopedia article is like the view you get at the top of a hill: you can see a whole world spread before you. A view like that helps you identify which village, river, forest, farmhouse, or backroad you want to explore up close. But it also helps you understand how all these possibilities fit together in one landscape.
Curious . . .
Photo source: Kristof Borkowski.
Gratefully adapted with a CC license from Flickr.
Introducing yourself to an essay topic--in a lecture, say, or an encyclopedia or textbook--is a great first step. With this introduction fresh in your mind, ask yourself questions and jot down thoughts. What you're looking for is a Research Question, a query prompting exploration and, ultimately, an answer called a Thesis Statement.
The best research question takes time. Fine-tuning it as you narrow your topic is one way to improve the question, but another important consideration is substance. Make sure the question requires a complex answer.
Simple questions lead to simple answers, and simple answers to paltry arguments, weak writing, and low grades. Open-ended questions using why, what, or how often work best.
Here are some examples:
What was the significance of Joseph's Conrad's Heart of Darkness in connection with European Imperialism?
What were the main causes of the Second World War?
Why did Stephen Harper lose the 2015 election?
What evidence is there for humans causing global warming?
What was life like for aristocratic women in the Middle Ages?
A research question launches your quest. Without a question--and without the uncertainty and confusion this question implies--there's no need for any attempt at an answer. You'll be relieved to know, however, that scholarship feeds on uncertainty. Pursue almost any topic and you'll find scholars disagree about some aspect or interpretation of it. Seek out an aspect you're curious about.
Suss out different questions. As you start to narrow your topic--a process prompted by your initial research question--you'll begin to narrow this question too. A query like What was life like for aristocratic women in the Middle Ages? might become What was social life like for married aristocratic women in medieval France?.
The Crack, Killarney Provincial Park, Ontario.
Photo source: jmcunnin2000.
Gratefully adapted with a CC license from Flickr.
Once you've got a basic understanding of your topic, it's time to zero in on a finer aspect of it. Focusing is important. It's only by whittling a topic down that you can write about it convincingly. Take these statements:
Aristocratic Life in the Middle Ages.
The Leisure Activities of Aristocratic Women in 13th Century England.
The first topic is so broad that the writer has no idea what aspect of life to start with. Without being more specific, she or he is likely to ramble through descriptions of hunting, or dancing, or cooking, or jousting, or education, or socializing, or spinning, or games, or romance,etc., from one sub-topic to another, without developing a clear line of thought. The second topic, on the other hand, is not yet as narrow as a thesis statement, but it is still much more focused than the first topic and offers the writer a place to start.
Here are basic 3 ways you can narrow your topic. Often a combination is effective. Decide what works best for you.
When brainstorming, write your broad topic in the middle of a blank page and then jot down anything related that occurs to you as fast as you can without judging its usefulness. You can look the sheet over afterwards for subtopics to follow up.
Brainstorming Session.
Photo source: S. Lister.
Gratefully adapted with a CC license from Flickr.
The idea behind categories is to have a ready-made template for narrowing almost any topic. Geography, Themes, Events, Significance, Socio-Political Factors, and Time-period are examples of ways to focus on one that’s manageable.
Both brainstorming and following up straightforward categories are useful; but they are also limited. A concept map goes further because it allows you to build on these first two methods and develop a sophisticated picture of your topic or research question. The key to this picture is relationships.
You begin with some basic information and brainstorm to get it on paper or on a screen. Concept mapping helps you flesh out this information in several ways:
Organizing it into similar themes, topics, and categories.
Sorting details into hierarchies, from general concept to specific instance.
Pinpointing connections among these details.
Take a look at an example below:
Now you can try it yourself with this drag and drop example. It's based on this encyclopedia article on the French Revolution1.
There is no one way to develop a concept map, but here are some basic steps:
Begin with some introductory information about the topic (e.g. from class lectures, an encyclopedia, or a textbook chapter).
Brainstorm everything about the topic that comes to mind, and arrange it visually on paper or on a screen.
Sort into groups by topic.
Sort again by their relations with one another (e.g. general to specific).
Drum up new details (broader or more specific) and, if necessary, delete others.
Re-arrange details if necessary.
Work out connections among different details and indicate these connections with arrows.
1. Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World, s.v. “Revolutions, Age Of,” by Donald Sutherland, accessed June 7, 2017, http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GVRL&sw=w&u=utoronto_main&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CCX3404900970&it=r&asid=a9ad6989a429bc0d685d315d2a92b4b8