Develop 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 other researchers are bring 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:

List ideas connected to one or two of your questions + generate questions to open up those ideas

Deepen these questions even further by asking about: causes and effects; classification or definitions of the concepts your are studying; relative value or importance; history and evolution (etiology); consequences for users or some other group associated with your topic; relationships among actors, actions, context and consequences in your subject..

Organize the questions you by focus

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

do some focused reading with respect to 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:

Detailed statement of your research question

Statement of purpose (what you hope to show/discover)

List of the information you need to gather

Preliminary list of sources

Plan for gathering your information

Links to sample web texts:

http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/12.1/binder.html?topoi/warner/index.html

http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/10.1/binder2.html?coverweb/lindgren/index.htm