# The Craft of Research  ## Metadata - Author: Wayne C. Booth, Joseph M. Williams, Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph Bizup, William T. FitzGerald - Full Title: The Craft of Research - Category: #books ## Highlights - They usually begin with a question and a plan to guide their search for an answer. ([Location 346](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=346)) - That plan for a draft helps researchers write, but it also helps their readers read. ([Location 351](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=351)) - In the broadest terms, we do research whenever we gather information to answer a question that solves a problem: ([Location 429](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=429)) - Experienced researchers first write just to remember what they’ve read. ([Location 457](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=457)) - A second reason for writing is to see larger patterns in what you read. When you arrange and rearrange the results of your research in new ways, you discover new implications, connections, and complications. ([Location 461](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=461)) - In short, we write to remember more accurately, understand better, and evaluate what we think more objectively. ([Location 472](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=472)) - But the most important reason for learning to write in ways readers expect is that when you write for others, you demand more of yourself than when you write for yourself alone. ([Location 483](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=483)) - Writing up your research is, finally, thinking with and for your readers. When you write for others, you disentangle your ideas from your memories and wishes, so that you—and others—can explore, expand, combine, and understand them more fully. ([Location 503](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=503)) - But writing is an imagined conversation. ([Location 535](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=535)) - In fact, writers can’t avoid creating some role for themselves and their readers, planned or not. So those roles are worth thinking about from the beginning, before you write a word. If you ignore or miscast your readers, you’ll leave so many traces of that mistake in your early drafts that you won’t easily fix them in the final one. ([Location 552](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=552)) - When you do research, you learn something that others don’t know. So when you report it, you must think of your reader as someone who doesn’t know it but needs to and yourself as someone who will give her reason to want to know it. You must imagine a relationship that goes beyond Here are some facts I’ve dug up about fourteenth-century Tibetan weaving. Are they enough of the right ones? ([Location 568](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=568)) - You establish your side of the relationship with your readers when you adopt one of those three roles—I have information for you; I can help you fix a problem; I can help you understand something better. ([Location 604](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=604)) - If you are starting from scratch, your first task is to find a research question worth investigating that will lead to a research problem worth solving. Here are four steps to that end: 1. Find a topic specific enough to let you master a reasonable amount of information on it in the time you have: not, for example, the history of scientific writing but essays in the Proceedings of the Royal Society (1675–1750) as precursors to the modern scientific article; not doctors in seventeenth-century drama but Molière’s mockery of doctors in three early plays. 2. Question that topic until you find questions that catch your interest. For example, How did early Royal Society authors demonstrate that their evidence was reliable? Or, Why did Molière mock doctors? 3. Determine the kinds of evidence your readers will expect you to offer in support of your answer. Will they accept reports of facts from secondary sources, or will they expect you to consult primary sources (see 5.1.1)? Will they expect quantitative data, quotations from authorities, or firsthand observations? 4. Determine whether you can find this evidence. There’s no point researching a topic unless you have a good chance of finding the right kind of evidence. ([Location 713](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=713)) - Data are inert, however, until you use them to support a claim that answers your research question. At that point, your data become evidence. If you don’t have more data than you can use as evidence, you haven’t collected enough. ([Location 738](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=738)) - Resolve to do lots of writing along the way. Much of it will be routine note-taking, but you should also write reflectively, to understand: make outlines; explain why you disagree with a source; draw diagrams to connect disparate facts; summarize sources, positions, and schools; record even random thoughts. ([Location 741](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=741)) - Will I find enough information on this topic to write about it? To their surprise they often compile too much information, much of it not very useful. They do so because their topic lacks focus. ([Location 771](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=771)) - As you begin a research project, you will want to distinguish a topic from a subject. A subject is a broad area of knowledge (e.g., climate change), while a topic is a specific interest within that area (e.g., the effect of climate change on migratory birds). ([Location 773](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=773)) - A topic is an approach to a subject, one that asks a question whose answer solves a problem that your readers care about. ([Location 775](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=775)) - If you can work on any topic, we offer only a cliché: start with what most interests you. ([Location 796](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=796)) - We narrowed those topics by adding words and phrases, but of a special kind: conflict, description, contribution, and developing. Those nouns are derived from verbs expressing actions or relationships: to conflict, to describe, to contribute, and to develop. Lacking such “action” words, your topic is a static thing. ([Location 852](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=852)) - Once they have a focused topic, many new researchers make a beginner’s mistake: they immediately start plowing through all the sources they can find on the topic, taking notes on everything they read. ([Location 873](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=873)) - So the best way to begin working on your focused topic is not to find all the information you can on it, but to formulate questions that direct you to just that information you need to answer them. ([Location 886](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=886)) - Start with the standard journalistic questions: who, what, when, and where, but focus on how and why. ([Location 887](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=887)) - How does it fit into a larger developmental context? Why did your topic come into being? ([Location 894](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=894)) - What is its own internal history? How and why has the topic itself changed through time? ([Location 896](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=896)) - How does your topic fit into the context of a larger structure or function as part of a larger system? ([Location 901](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=901)) - How do its parts fit together as a system? ([Location 903](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=903)) - How can your topic be grouped into kinds? ([Location 907](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=907)) - How does your topic compare to and contrast with others like it? ([Location 909](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=909)) - Turn Positive Questions into Negative Ones ([Location 912](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=912)) - How would things be different if your topic never existed, disappeared, or were put into a new context? ([Location 917](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=917)) - Ask questions that build on agreement: • If a source makes a claim you think is persuasive, ask questions that might extend its reach. ([Location 922](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=922)) - Ask questions that might support the same claim with new evidence. ([Location 926](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=926)) - Ask questions analogous to those that sources have asked about similar topics. ([Location 927](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=927)) - Now ask questions that reflect disagreement: ([Location 929](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=929)) - Many journal articles end with a paragraph or two about open questions, ideas for more research, and so on ([Location 934](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=934)) - Avoid questions like these: • Their answers are settled fact that you could just look up. ([Location 940](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=940)) - Their answers would be merely speculative. ([Location 943](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=943)) - Their answers are dead ends. ([Location 946](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=946)) - Once you have a few promising questions, try to combine them into larger ones. ([Location 951](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=951)) - once you have a question that holds your interest, you must pose a tougher one about it: So what? ([Location 960](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=960)) - start by naming your project: I am trying to learn about/working on/studying ____________. ([Location 973](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=973)) - I am studying/working on ____________ 2. because I want to find out who/what/when/where/whether/why/how ____________. ([Location 981](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=981)) - This step tells you whether your question might interest not just you but others. To do that, add a second indirect question that explains why you asked your first question. ([Location 995](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=995)) - To summarize: Your aim is to explain 1. what you are writing about—I am working on the topic of . . . 2. what you don’t know about it—because I want to find out . . . 3. why you want your reader to know and care about it—in order to help my reader understand better . . . ([Location 1017](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=1017)) - 1. Topic: I am studying _________ 2. Question: because I want to find out what/why/how ________, 3. Significance: in order to help my reader understand _________. ([Location 1064](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=1064)) - When you move from step 1 to 2, you are no longer a mere data collector but a researcher interested in understanding something better. • When you then move from step 2 to 3, you focus on why that understanding is significant. ([Location 1069](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=1069)) - Too many researchers at all levels write as if their task is to answer a question that interests themselves alone. That’s wrong: to make your research matter, you must address a problem that others in your community—your readers—also want to solve. ([Location 1076](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=1076)) - Put in general terms, a practical problem is caused by some condition in the world ([Location 1096](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=1096)) - We solve a practical problem by doing something ([Location 1097](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=1097)) - But to know what to do, someone first has to understand something better. ([Location 1099](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=1099)) - Graphically, the relationship between practical and conceptual or research problems looks like this: ([Location 1107](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=1107)) - beginners sometimes think that having a topic to read about is the same as having a problem to solve. ([Location 1115](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=1115)) - Practical problems and conceptual problems have the same two-part structure: • a situation or condition, and • undesirable consequences caused by that condition, costs that you (or, better, your readers) don’t want to pay ([Location 1123](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=1123)) - practical problem, because it is (1) a condition in the world (the flat) that imposes (2) a tangible cost that you don’t want to pay, ([Location 1129](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=1129)) - To state a practical problem so that others understand it clearly, you must describe both of its parts. 1. Its condition: I missed the bus. The ozone layer is thinning 2. The costs of that condition that you (or your reader) don’t like: I’ll be late for work and lose my job. Many will die from skin cancer. ([Location 1134](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=1134)) - To make your problem their problem, you must frame it from their point of view, so that they see its costs to them. ([Location 1142](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=1142)) - We acknowledge a problem only when we stop asking So what? and say, instead, What do we do about it? ([Location 1151](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=1151)) - The condition of a practical problem can be any state of affairs that has a tangible cost for you or, better, for your readers. • The condition of a conceptual problem, however, is always some version of not knowing or not understanding something. ([Location 1157](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=1157)) - The cost of a practical problem is always some tangible thing or situation we don’t like. ([Location 1167](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=1167)) - The consequence of a conceptual problem is a particular kind of ignorance: it is a lack of understanding that keeps us from understanding something else even more significant. ([Location 1170](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=1170)) - you have to say more than Here is something I find interesting. You have to show them how solving your problem helps them solve theirs. You do that by explaining your problem’s consequence. ([Location 1174](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=1174)) - they fail to realize that researchers want to answer a question like that so that they can answer a second, more important one. ([Location 1203](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=1203)) - We call research pure when it addresses a conceptual problem that does not bear directly on any practical situation in the world, when it only improves the understanding of a community of researchers. ([Location 1207](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=1207)) - We call research applied when it addresses a conceptual problem that does have practical consequences. ([Location 1209](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=1209)) - applied research, the second step still refers to knowing or understanding, but that third step refers to doing: ([Location 1216](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01L0HWJ6E&location=1216))