Worksheet for developing a research plan

1. Familiarize yourself with your topic:

• do some general reading about what others have written on your topic
• create some brief summaries of what others have written (keep track of your sources)
• make a list of the ideas/questions others are bringing to your topic

2. Identify a research question:

Develop a list of questions you might want to explore with respect to your topic

Strategies to deepen and focus your question. You might open up deeper thinking about ideas that interest you by asking and answering further questions about:

• causes and effects;
• classifications or definitions of the concepts your are studying;
• relative value or importance of ideas associated with your questions;
• the history and evolution (etiology) of ideas within the questions you are asking;
• consequences for students, writers, or some group associated with your question;
• relationships among the actors, actions, context, and consequence within the
• interactions you plan to observe

3. Decide what you need to know in order to answer your research question:

Do some further reading about ideas/research associated with your question + note the

questions other researchers have asked + how they answered them.

Using what you have found from your reading, map out the kind of information you will

need to answer your question.

4. Formulate a research plan that includes:

1. Statement of purpose (what you hope to show/discover)
2. Detailed statement of your research question(s)
3. List of the information you need to gather
4. A preliminary list of sources (work by other researchers)
5. Plan for gathering your information that includes:

• who/what you will be studying
• where/how you will collect your information
• what methods you will use to conduct your study
• what methods you will use to analyze your data

5. Additional writing to break your work into do-able tasks or areas of exploration

6. A timeline for gathering, analyzing + writing up your data