It would be perfectly logical to assume that one should start with a clear question and then proceed by researching that question. However, going through the process of simply starting with a topic and then researching without a clear question already in my mind has taught me that one can actually be more successfully when one formulates a research question only after already doing a significant amount of research. While work-shopping the primary sources in class, I had to think more critically about the research question that was beginning to form in my mind. As I thought about the sources and my unrefined question simultaneously, I could ask new questions that lead me in a slightly different direction. If I had already formed a solid research question before looking at the primary sources, I wouldn’t have tried to see how the sources could best inform my question. After going through the process of the last two weeks or so, I have now been able to work myself to a research question which is both interesting to me, but that I also know that I can back up with the sources that I have.<\/p>\n
My research question: What were the residents of Brook Farm originally expecting to receive from community life, and why did the purpose of the community then change (from Transcendentalist community to Associationist phalanx)?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It would be perfectly logical to assume that one should start with a clear question and then proceed by researching that question. However, going through the process of simply starting with a topic and then researching without a clear question already …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2472,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[51105,33147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-group-4-new-crobuzoners","category-student-posts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6CkTy-6M","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasspring2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasspring2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasspring2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasspring2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2472"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasspring2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasspring2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasspring2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasspring2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fysutopiasspring2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}