Where Research Begins

Book excerpt: "This book leads you to your research project while keeping your own preferences, abilities, and values centered. The authors place a strong and welcome emphasis on finding a research project that is right for you and that matters to you. The book includes student-tested exercises and many excellent examples of how-to-do-it and how-not-to. Each chapter includes "Try This Now" exercises and games designed to help you achieve a specific set of goals: generating questions, refining questions, discovering the patterns that connect the questions together, and the problem that motivates you-and other researchers. "Commonly Made Mistakes" are highlighted, as is advice for when and how to approach a "Sounding Board" (a teacher, mentor, or other advisor). At the close of each chapter, the key tools and exercises are revisited, providing a clear sense of the benchmarks you've reached"--