A Shift in Topic Focus

During the course of this semester, I did not believe that my topic had changed drastically or evolved significantly, partly because I presented on the topic at a colloquium in March in the context of the specific theme of that colloquium. However, for fun, I decided to make a wordle of one of my paragraphs in the final proposal to look at the differences between it and to a wordle I made for an earlier blog post. 

First Wordle

Present Wordle

While “Lollards,” “texts,” “influence,” and “practices” are still more common than others, I find it interesting that it now includes “society” and “literacy” as key words. Clearly my topic has shifted slightly over the course of the semester.

By presenting my paper at the Book History and Print Culture Colloquium, I was given an opportunity to share my topic to other scholars who were actually interested in my topic and asked questions that made me see the Lollards a little differently and helped focus my topic, especially for the contribution to knowledge part. The questions I received included: "Since the Lollards were secretive and did not actively share their beliefs, do you think that they felt elitist?" and "While women had access to the books, did you find any evidence of female ownership of the texts they used?"

I found these questions really useful in two different ways. For the first question, I answered that yes, they probably felt elitist as part of their belief system was that they were part of the Elect (a very Calvinist ideology). Thinking about it, a number of scholars depict them as a closed sect that was prosecuted for their beliefs, and are portrayed as a marginalized group. Yet, I'm not sure if perceived themselves as an elite group and in my own work I describe them as a marginalized, almost fringe group, that influenced others. Perhaps when I have access to primary sources, and can conduct archival research, I will look into this and study the language that used through language analysis methodologies. 

For the second question, I answered that no, I did not find any examples of female ownership of books, or even the passing of books through female inheritance. All the examples I came across in my secondary sources were of men owning books and passing on their books to male family members, never female. Since I don't have access to primary sources, it makes me question whether my secondary sources didn't find examples of female ownership, or found them and chose not to include them in their studies. I think this would be an important area to study since many historians argue that the Lollard group gave women greater agency than orthodox religious practices. 

This relates to the primary method I will be using, which is language analysis. When examining primary sources, historians look at the language used to find meaning held within it. They look for biases, intended audiences, the author's value-judgements, and rhetorical devices (Strange, 2012, p. 167). Using this method also provides contextual information about the creation of the document, including social and political influences on the author. Yet historians "must be wary of imposing meanings on language, especially when the written records omits what we want to know" (Strange, 2012, p. 178). Therefore, I will be using this method, not to evaluate the language in primary sources, but the language used by the secondary sources and analyzing their interpretations of the primary sources I cannot access.

Source:

Strange, J. (2012). Reading Language as a Historical Source. In Simon Gunn and Lucy Faire (Eds.), Research Methods for History (pp.167-183). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Week 12, Final Thoughts

My research as it has evolved during the course, to a degree became a lot more specific, which is the central goal. Narrowing it down to a research proposal that would be ‘doable’ and something that stakeholders would want to fund was interesting to map out. Things that I had previously not considered in depth, by this I mean digital copyright law as opposed to general copyright law (which include examples related to genetic mutation/modification as frequently discussed in my undergrad sociology courses…) were given a lot more attention in this course and during the formulation of my research proposals. Somethings that I am still grappling with are the ways to define and not define specific parameters in a grounded theory based-study. Bias, particularly in grounded theory studies as I discover can be difficult to avoid, but important to mention, perhaps as a limitation.

Lilian Le-Dang

Narrowing in on the Fundamental Question

Although the subject of my research has remained consistent throughout the course, I have found that I have developed my ability to narrow in and take things one step at a time.  Initially, my proposed research question was asking too many things at once.  I asked:  How do information policy, regulation, and law in Canada reflect the privacy concerns of fitness tracker users regarding the generation and potential collection of biometric data by third party data-seekers such as advertisers and data brokers?  In my attempt to develop a method that would go about answering this question, I came to a realization that I am asking too many things at one time, and that there’s a necessity to break it down into sections in order to arrive at the answer.  These sections actually function as individual research questions on their own, so I had revised my research question to ask one fundamental question that would act as a starting point in answering my initial question.  My revised question is:  How do users of fitness trackers or wearable health electronics perceive the privacy of their biometric data with regard to how it is collected, stored, and shared by applications linked to their devices?

I believe ambition is a good thing, and to me, a worthwhile proposed question for research should be one that is ambitious in its effort to provide answers to a certain way in which society functions.  I believe this is what I was doing with my initial research question, as I was eager to determine how information policy, regulation, and law in Canada reflected the desires and needs of Canadian citizens and users of new and emerging technologies.  However, before that question can be answered, I realized the first step is to gain an understanding of what these desires and needs are, which on its own is a very complex and fundamental question which must undergo its own research.

I continue to struggle with this question, as it is a difficult process to try to conclude on what a user group’s opinions, attitudes, and level of awareness are to a certain subject.  This is something that can be very emotionally charged and not necessarily concrete, however, by continuing to learn about such things as the sample survey process and gathering information based on behaviours and attitudes, I find myself coming closer to being able to ask the right questions to wearable device users in order to answer my own.

How Does A Research Question Evolve?

My topic remains, but my focus shifted, completely.

When the course started in January, I had a lot of questions concerning various aspects of copyright: its definition, content, language, purpose, effects, etc.

Now I have even more questions about copyright: its stakeholders, concept, philosophy, construction, etc.

Apparently, I have moved a step further. My original questions stayed at the superficial level of the topic. Four months later, I am able to pay attention to issues that give birth to my original superficial questions without being over-tangled by these issues. And that realization pleases myself.

So, how did I get here? To answer this question, let me take a long quotation from an article on WikiEducator (The research question, n.d.):

“How does a research question evolve?

A researcher starts with an area of interest: a topic or subject. These areas may arise from confusion that the researcher has about a particular topic, from problems that need solving, or from simple intellectual curiosity. But topics and subjects are very broad, and the process of formulating a question is a way of narrowing and focusing the area of study until it becomes truly researchable.

Developing a good research question is an on-going and iterative process. As the researcher does the background work to understand the topic, the topic will modify and change until a searchable and meaningful question emerges that will then become the primary research focus.”

Yes, that’s exactly what happened. I became interested in copyright because I was confused by it. Copyright caused problems to my work. I started talking to people (my peers and professors) about my confusion, and was advised to approach it in various ways with a variety of methods, in which process I learned to clarify my confusion so that people would be able to give me better suggestions. In the process of my research I read a lot of and watched a lot of boring stuffs, but some resources were so amazing that they made me think in ways that have never occurred to me before. And that’s when significant iterations in my research questions happened.  

I didn’t expect that the simple action of coming up with a question could be so productive. But I’m still wrestling with my research question. I was originally interested in developing practical solution to real life problems through my research, but now I find my research is becoming more like a “pure research” than an “applied research”. So, does that happen often? What can I do when it happens?

Reference 

The Research Question. (n.d.) In WikiEducator. Retrieved April 8, 2016, from http://wikieducator.org/How_to_get_started_on_research/The_research_question

Oh where has this research gone?

My research has taken quite a turn in the last few weeks. Most of my education until the iSchool was original research-oriented so this class was a very strange experiment in its own right. Having to come up with a research topic and manipulate it in this way was surprisingly difficult.

I started off thinking about how scholars communicate online and the implications of these communications on scholarly communications (altmetrics and all). I'm still interested in this topic, but not in way where I wanted to undertake a huge research project to think about it.

Through jumping from article to article on Twitter a while ago, I started seeing little glimpses of amateur (or citizen) science. I did a little bit of digging and realized that this was a relatively untapped area of research.

Source: Regalado & Mastracci

What made me really fascinated by this topic is that I see it all the time at the library where I work. Regulars come in to do their research and they are members of the public. There is such a wealth of literature on the information-seeking behavior of professional scientists. And yet, there has been little done on citizen scientists.

I think that I became more excited about this topic (even if it sadly came later in the term) because it's more closely aligned with what I'm most passionate about: outreach and social justice in libraries. So even though this final proposal won't be as flushed out as I would hope, I actually ended up finding a topic that I am genuinely interested in. Now, I can go back through the course material and figure out how to potentially make it happen.

Final Thoughts

My topic has not evolved much since I first started this project. Looking at how effective certain social media platforms are for archives trying to reach people otherwise unaware of their existence remains the focus. Platforms which allow users to go and look at content based on interest, geographic region, or even possibly some other specific category that might be related to a particular collection within the archives are still the basis of the research. Any platform that allows users to go on and see something based on any of those criteria without having to log in or make any particular effort searching for content may be worth looking at.

Much of the issues surrounding my topic were clear from the beginning for me as well, with stakeholders, context, and even sub-questions largely understood by the time I had finished the preliminary research. The way I was phrasing the question changed and became clearer, but the underlying question did not. What I had not done in the past was actually look closely at the different methods for doing academic research. In the end I found interviews would be the method that will work best for the majority of the questions surrounding my topic, particularly as qualitative information will allow for certain answers that otherwise could not be found. At the same time, some of the more quantitative methods actually turned out  to be a bit more interesting to me, even if they were not suitable for the particular question I was asking.

Where I learned the most throughout this process was in looking at the different research methods in terms of their strengths and weaknesses. Even more specifically, looking at the different methods through the need to answer a particular research question allowed for a much greater understanding of the different research methods, even if the research question itself remained relatively unchanged throughout the process.

A Look Back On My Research Project...

I was about to write, like many of my colleagues, that my research project did not change much over the semester… wow! How can memory forget so much!? The right thing to say would be that my project has not changed that much in the past few weeks. I remember toying with my different research ideas in the first part of my semester (and I probably confused some of you with my blog posts that seemed to talk about a new project every week!), but since I’ve made the decision to research Geneviève Thiroux d’Arconville’s manuscripts held at the University of Ottawa Archives, I feel like this has been THE research project all along. Probably because I have been working on the research project a lot in the past few weeks. But then again, thinking about it, my research project did change, or should I say became much more narrowed. When I actually decided on this project, I was very excited and I think the excitement made me want to look in many different directions. I have written grant proposals in the past, but I do not think there I have ever written one that is so detailed and specific. Looking back on the course, I think it was an incredible exercise of thinking, re-thinking, writing and re-writing a thorough research project. I came to this course thinking “oh not, not another research methods course!” and I was pleasantly surprised to see (1) that there was much more I could learn and (2) that the readings, the lectures and the comments on the first version of my research project enabled me to come up with (what I think!) is a much stronger research project than I started with. I also think that hearing about all my colleagues’ projects through the blog posts made me take a different look at my own project and certainly helped making it stronger. I should also say that I was amazed at the variety, and mostly the quality of my fellow bloggers’ research projects. This has really pushed me to try and come up with the best research project possible.

It is not in my plans to pursue this research project in a near future (although, we never know!), but I am still happy I got to spend a couple of weeks thinking about it and building it. If any of you is ever in Ottawa and want to look at Geneviève Thiroux d’Arconville’s manuscripts, please visit the University of Ottawa’s Archives and Special Collections. The manuscripts will tell you about life as a (woman) scientist and writer in the 18^th century France, but also about art, war, education, politics, laziness, vanity, melancholy, music, dance, fear, seduction, liberty and avarice. Yes, about all of this, and much more, I promise.

P.S. If you are interested in her work but have no plans to go to Ottawa, there is also Wikipedia... but then, the picture that is on the page is not even of her, but of her sister... 

Some Final Reflections On My Research Project

To be perfectly honest, not much has changed over the past few weeks with my research project (from the time I actually nailed down what it was!), at least in terms of the question itself, or its theoretical or methodological basis. What has changed, however, are the people who I feel might benefit from it.

To recap, I decided to look into the way that graffiti is used as strategic outlet and participative communicative tool by marginalized groups. Despite some changes in the conversation surrounding graffiti, and the recognition of how important it has been during periods such as the Arab Spring, ideas of graffiti remain largely negative, and laws are harsh. My project involves conducting two case studies, involving widely divergent regions and time period, in order to create an understanding of the way that graffiti is used by marginalized groups beyond the constraint of a single time and/or place.

Initially, I had the usual target audience: other academics. However, when I began to examine the political scene, my audience gradually expanded to the policy makers and, even, politicians who are making the actual decisions. Following this further down the line, you arrive at the people who are actually being impacted by the existing laws, and would benefit from any changes: those individuals who are participants in the writing and revision of various graffiti texts.

I ended up dividing my intended audience into two groups: those who I hope to impact immediately (other academics), and those who are ultimately the target of the work and its primary stakeholders (those involved in graffiti making). I think that my biggest questions, then, would be the actual process by which this trickle-down would happen; however, I also don't believe that it it really much of a concern at this time. The process of reaching the point where it could effect policy change could take years, even decades - I am looking to start a conversation to bring about a natural shift in policy. I am not looking to force an artificial change.

Stay on target...

While the nature of my research question hasn’t changed drastically over the course of the term (the artifact, the method and the case study have all stayed the same) the reasons behind my project have evolved through reflection on numerous methods, all of which are remarkably not suited to answering the question I wish to ask.

As I’ve worked, my question has become more focused and detailed. From the daisy exercise (Luker, 2008, p. 83) which forced me to take all the tangled ideas in my head and write them down, to the process of trying to explain technical concepts in accessible and succinct language for the SSHRC proposed outline of research, I’ve been able to tease out the larger underlying question that I’ve been staring at all along and have struggled to articulate.

I’ve gone from looking at some books which I thought would be interesting to collate and analyze through bibliography to knowing that I want to examine the potentially culturally-biased assumptions which underlie analytical bibliographic approaches through a case study of the Sagabon Tales of Ise books.

Method after method interested me, but didn’t fit well with this project; I still believe that analytical bibliography and digital collation are the best method and technique to examine this problem through doing. The one thing which has changed the most was my search for a framework. This was a case of knowing what I wanted to do, and later why I wanted to do it, but being unable to articulate a proper set of terms and ideology in which to understand and explain it. 

Through gaining a better understanding of what, exactly, a framework was meant to provide me, I was able to finally link my project properly with McKenzie’s sociology of texts. His understanding of what constitutes a ‘text’ is the missing link I need to provide a framework for expanding these techniques to books which are not traditionally examined using these methods.

I think my biggest challenge going forward will be figuring out how to convey the highly particular tools associated with analytical bibliography [collation, analysis of paper stock and bindings, and even elements of descriptive bibliography such as a collation statement] in a way that is accessible more widely within the information and textual scholarship communities. Identifying the things which I know but which others don’t, as I work to ensure I contextualize technical terms correctly, will be challenging.

Sources:
Luker, K. (2008). Salsa dancing into the social sciences: Research in an age of info-glut. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.