Pinning Down Research Questions
I have had some (unending, absolutely soul-crushing, insurmountable Everest's in tornado level storms) issues pinning down research questions. The temptation to a new researcher (well apparently to me anyway) is to always believe that the research questions are not encompassing enough. This makes it very, very difficult to actually write a question. What you get instead is a paragraph. Or sometimes, five questions cunningly packaged to resemble one holistic questioning scene. In my third attempt, I made each research question three questions, carefully separated by commas, so they were secretly one question in sections, thereby permitting a total of nine questions. As you can see, there is a reason I’m not taking a PhD in Maths. I have to say, the PhD Supervisors are not particularly fooled by this approach. For some obscure reasons that cannot possibly be linked to my suddenly non-existent research talents (I am skimming the R’s now in the Oxford dictionary for the meaning of the word research, because after all these years, I have imposters syndrome and have realised I know literally nothing and am blagging it, just seriously blagging it, please for the love of all the pasta in Italy do not ask me anything more difficult than my name, and on that note, WHO AM I???) they actually seem to want three clear succinct questions, that they are then going to rely on me to write about, on the basis that I can. The fools.
I think, especially on a PhD dissertation, the word count is the issue. Eighty to one hundred and twenty thousand words, you can’t even say it fast. It’s an automatic following reaction to assume that you cannot possibly talk or write so much about three tiny little questions. This is just a perspective though, as so many things are. Is that really such a big word count? Well, yes. I mean hell yes. But I have thought about this, and if I had woken up this morning and decided to write a novel, then I would be aiming to write more than that, and I’m not sure I’d even be thinking about the word count. I’d be thinking about story, narrative, characters, flow maybe, I don’t know, whatever authors think about after breakfast, apart from coffee and possibly what they did with their socks. The whole issue of word count barely crops up, but the end result is a Whole Book. Nobody even really looks that surprised - I mean good grief, why not?! Surely it’s a huge achievement every single time? On the same subject though, I regularly throw out three or four thousand words on a work topic, just to explain a minute changing factor on a daily event. I can easily talk about something I know very well. Force those words through your fingers into a PC and that’s a word count, which to be honest is where my proclivity for writing has actually always come from anyway. I’m opinionated and argumentative, I just don’t have the vocal chords or focus to follow through so written flyers are easier.
Surely then, that means, as long as you really know the subject - and let’s face it, the whole point of research is to really know your subject, or at least, the bit of it that you are studying - then you can talk about it, pretty endlessly. If you can do that, then you can produce an arguably endless word count, which will hopefully (let’s assume that we are not actual imposters and are genuinely just panicking here!) engage in the arguments of the rest of the researchers in your chosen field. If you can do that, then as long as you have followed the guidance, have an interesting thesis concept and are fairly confident you will be making a contribution to research, it really does not matter, surely, if you tighten your research questions to the actual three questions required? So, why does this keep backfiring on me? I have to admit, the only answer I’m coming up with is a self-confidence problem, because each time I haven’t realised I’ve done it until I’ve received the feedback. The slightly embarrassing thing is, the only person who seems in any subconscious doubt here is me.
