Backroom Research

So much good stuff to mull over in these readings for class tomorrow. I am feeling less lost, more excited, but also feeling overwhelmed by all the work that lies ahead from formulating a research question, to carrying it out, and reporting and analyzing the findings. In particular, I want to mention Luker's emphasis on the review of literature as critical part of the research journey. She advises us to read and read often, and read whatever catches our attention. She also suggests investigating the journals where we could publish our article-- more reading. Once we have done that, then she encourages us to find a "synthetic" article that covers at least two of the areas that our research questions overlaps. Then, we should also read 5 or 6 different encyclopedia or dictionary articles on the same entry. Then we should use our discoveries to track down "the key suspect."  This could mean a book or article or the scholar herself who is also researching in exactly the area you are interested in. And, then "Harvard" everything-- read efficiently and intelligently. To top it all off, we will need to do this over and over again. According to Luker, a lit review must be done many times, as research is an iterative process, where we repeat the steps over and over again.

This week I made a research daisy to begin the tentative process of generating a research question and beginning to think about the possible research areas that my topic might overlap. I have no idea how much research has been done on vegans, ethics, information behaviour, and social media-- if it is as interesting as I think it might be, or whether or not it could shed any light on my bigger question of whether or not being more informed or having access to information leads to more ethical behaviour and awareness. I have a lot of reading and researching to do now. Better go make some cookies for the Inforum librarians and get ready to do some reading.