Friday, November 19, 2010

Going the distance....

I really enjoyed reading Luker’s chapter 7 as it helped me focus on my research project for this class but also forced me to re-examine my research methods. She explains 3 main ideas: 1. Figuring out what you think you know 2. Figuring out what you need to know and 3. Figuring out where to get it (p. 142-145). After doing some in depth research on my topic, I realized that I didn’t actually know as much as I thought I knew and that my research questions covers many fields; not just library science. This obviously caused problems as I had to re-educate myself on the topic. However this delay allowed me to determine what I needed to know to write an amazing proposal. On the other hand, the problem now is that I’ve narrowed my research question so much, that I am having difficulty locating sources. At the same time after reading Knight, I realized I might need to use a different approach….perhaps a “multi-method design” (p. 127) and my topic for the proposal covers not only the role of librarians and public libraries but also health research and government. Reading both articles allowed me to grasp a better understanding of how to best design my research method.

1 comment:

  1. I also realized that I don't know as much as I thought I did about the subject. Especially after trying to break it down into its "elements".

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