“If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.”
Research takes longer than you think. It's more than just searching.
Start any idea or topic with brainstorming. It's an important part of the research process.
(Albert Einstein by George Hodan is licensed under CC0)
Research topics should be:
Part A: What do you know?
As a class what is critical feminist or post-colonial research? Refer to course materials.
What are the different aspects of the critical feminist approach
What are the approaches of post-colonial research?
When considering your topic, what aspect of one of these approaches will you focus your research on?
Part B: Mind Map
1. Put your topic in the centre of your group mind map.
2. Think about the following questions to help you brainstorm:
You may use you background research and anything you may have learned about the topic in course readings to help you scope out your ideas.
Use Coggle to create your mind map, the worksheet provided or a blank piece of paper.
Part C: PEER SHARE
In pairs, share your mind map by discussing:
What is your development issue?
What are challenges and/or angles of the issue?
As a partner:
Part D: What, Who, Where, When and Why/How of your Topic
Further focus on developing your topic by identifying the who what where when of your topic.
Choose one challenge/angel which is the why/how. Then think of the what who where when. You may add to your mind map or create another one or use the worksheet provided below.
This short video demonstrates to students how to develop an appropriate topic for a research paper by considering goals, approaches, topic scope and helpful resources.
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