Friday's Class Notes

Sorry about not getting this back to you sooner, but for those of you who missed class on Friday, here are the notes from our discussion:

By Next class...

Finding your Topic by going through your questions.

 

Your research question...

1) Must be debatable (i.e. more than one side)

2) Must be relevant to your profession.

3) Must be relevant to your future goals.

4) Must be more than a yes/no question.

5) Must be, eventually, answerable within the scope of your lifetime.

Cross out any questions that do not match the above criteria. 
Draw lines between the questions that are similar.

After that, circle 3 of your best questions (questions that you are most interested in answering) and use that as your "working research question.

Some tips on your interviews
1) contact people ahead of time in order to set up an interview.
2) Ask them for resumes or ask Fact based questions first (e-mail it to them first)

2) Ask "Process" questions (or How questions first)

3) Best way to ask evaluative question is asking: What did you think it would be like?  What was it actually like?

4) Don't give them all your questions.  Keep a list of important questions you would like to ask separate.

5) Listen to what they have to say and ask your questions according to how the interview goes.

6) Record your interview with your phone, but test your microphone first and make sure you have enough battery/memory to record all of it.

7) Formulate your questions based on your 20 questions (rewrite them to be subordinate to the 3 main questions that you want to answer in your research.