Narrowing down a research project
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom. It's a hell of a line by Kierkegaard and the title of maybe my favorite short story by Ted Chiang.
It also encapsulates the modal experience of choosing what to research. Students usually come to me with a broad set of empirical areas they care about. They get a bit closer with maybe wanting to focus on specific companies or newsworthy controversies. But when you can pick what you want to do, it is easy, inevitable to second guess yourself.
I developed the guide below, based on a task I had to do back in graduate school for a seminar with Nita Rudra.
The goal is to fit your entire project into 1-page.
The efficiency, the shackles, often prove to be clarifying. It can ground what you are really after. It's why I usually fill in this outline before any new project I start.
- Intro
- Puzzle:
- Research Question:
- Hypothesis:
- Lit Review
- Current explanations for Research Question:
- Why this matters:
- Gaps:
Hypothesis/Hypotheses:
Empirical Evidence
- Method:
- Data:
- Operationalization of DV:
- Operationalization of IV:
- Implications – so what?
- Theoretical:
- Normative:
If you want to give it a try, you can download a googledoc version of the outline here.