Effective Writing in Psychology. Bernard C. Beins
2 Formulating Your Ideas
It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.
Eugene Ionesco
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.
Carl Sagan
Identifying Your Focal Question
You have a paper due in two weeks but have not started doing research. Perhaps you have not yet decided what to write about. Where do you begin? How do you move from assignment instructions to article databases and to your argument? The purpose of this chapter is to offer guidance and guidelines for developing a research paper topic and thesis. We offer suggestions to help you identify a topic, use sources to narrow the topic, and develop your thesis in a way that reflects academic standards.
When you start a psychology writing assignment, you might already have a specific question you want to answer or a specific set of studies to evaluate. However, if you need to generate your own idea, how do you choose an appropriate topic with an appropriate focus? First, examine the writing project parameters closely. What is the purpose of the project? What objectives do you need to achieve? Who is your audience? After reflecting on these questions, you can go about narrowing your scope and developing a question through pre‐research and preliminary research before turning to focused research.
Pre‐research refers to research you do before you have a focal question or even a general topic for your writing project. Preliminary research comprises activities that help you narrow your focus once you have a general idea and give you background information on your topic. Journal of Comparative Psychology, Wikipedia, https://www.childstats.gov, and The New York Times can all be useful sources for preliminary research. Perhaps you will be watching the evening news on TV, sitting in class, reading a billboard sign, or overhearing a conversation when an interesting question strikes you. Because an idea that initially does not seem feasible might end up being the subject of an innovative thesis statement, we suggest that you initially cast as broad a net as possible and that you do some preliminary research before you commit to or discard a topic. Once you identify a viable focus for your writing project through pre‐research and preliminary research, the next step is focused research, or the work involved in reading and evaluating sources that you plan to incorporate into your paper.
Although these three types of research seem distinct, the differences between them blur during the research and writing process. You will probably move back and forth between pre‐research and preliminary research as you identify and narrow your focus. Furthermore, you may not use all the sources you find through focused research in developing and supporting your argument and may have to return to the library or article databases to find additional sources. Table 2.1 outlines distinctions between these three kinds of research to give you a better sense of their purpose.
Table 2.1 Different Kinds of Research
| Kind of research | Purpose | Activities |
|---|---|---|
| Pre‐research | To help choose a paper topic | Brainstorming lists of possible topics |
| To give you general information about potential topics | Skimming through popular and scholarly sources to determine if there has been enough research related to a potential research topic | |
| Slowly narrowing your focus to one or a few research questions about one topic | ||
| Preliminary research | To gather a broad range of information about a particular topic | Choosing the questions that seem the most viable as research topics |
| To determine what research questions have and have not been asked | Reading through scholarly sources to familiarize yourself with other research related to these topics | |
| To narrow your focus and start formulating a thesis | A combination of skimming sources and reading them more closely | |
| Taking notes as you read sources | ||
| Focused research | To give you in‐depth knowledge about a particular research topic | Reading scholarly sources that you plan on using in your paper and evaluating the sources' strengths and limitations |
| To help you develop and support your thesis statement | Reading sources closely and taking notes on the ideas in that source | |
| To find sources that offer a variety of perspectives on your topic | Keeping track of citation information for each source |
In the preliminary research stage, you start establishing your focus and considering the academic value of your research questions and claims. The focus is the scope of your paper and is shaped by the assignment guidelines, how broadly can you explore the topic, and your intended audience. Each of these aspects will affect how you approach your writing. For example, the focus of a paper about communication between identical twins will be different for a 10‐page and a 20‐page paper; if you are writing about the topic for an encyclopedia, a class project, or The American Journal of Psychology; or if you are reporting your own original research or analyzing others' research.
Furthermore, you want to pick research questions that are not so broad that you end up with too much information to sort through, and you do not want your topic to be so narrow that you cannot find enough information. Think about the difference between the following two focal questions: (a) What is the best strategy for students who are trying to learn material for a test? and (b) Do students learn more by studying in a single, long session or in a series of shorter sessions? The first question might be useful when you are starting your pre‐research because it is broad; however, because it is so broad it will be very difficult for you to answer thoroughly and meaningfully, even in an article‐length paper. Instead, you could use question (a) to guide your pre‐research to form a question more similar to question (b).
In order to assess the academic value of a research topic, consider your audience and why they would or should be interested in your topic. When you write an academic paper, you are taking part in an ongoing conversation among psychologists, and part of your job as a writer is to convince these psychologists that your contribution to the discussion is meaningful and important. Therefore, whether you are writing about your own original research or building on others' research, if you approach your topic in a new way or offer a thoughtful critique of existing scholarship, you can strengthen the academic value of your writing.
Locating Relevant Sources
During your pre‐research phase, two