1) Motivation/problem statement
(I didn't know there was a problem I was looking at? Maybe this means I'm going about this assignment completely wrong and that really freaks me out...)
We care about the problem because we want to know what it takes to make a government-level professional-caliber writer in the government workforce of today. My research is filling the gap of the question of how do we make a person/what does it take for a person to be able to work in this kind of setting. I am personally interested because I want to know how to make myself look the most attractive to employers when looking for a job and also to know what I'll need to know and keep up on so that I don't get left behind when/if I do secure said job.
2) Methods/procedure/approach
To get my results, I will be talking to a writer (hopefully) who works for the United Way. I will be analyzing things she has written including drafts, memos, emails, finals copies, etc. I will watch her as she composes her writing, looking at what she does or does not do. I will interview her and ask her about her habits and principles when dealing with what she is writing. I will analyze the documents I view versus what she tells me she has done and see what matches up and what doesn't.
3) Results/findings/product
I'm beginning to wonder if I will find what I was assuming I would from all this research. I began with the idea that it would take a little something extra for someone to write in a 'government' type setting (ie: security clearance and how a person could get to that level) and while that is probably the case, I will never know because I was unable to talk to the people I wanted to talk to! It leaves me wondering if I've completely botched this thing up from the beginning. HOWEVER, I do hope to learn at least the cognitive way that one other person actually goes from an assignment to a completed document, ready for whatever purpose it serves.
However, this leads me back to number 1 and what my problem statement is: I'm having a hard time with this assignment (abstract) in particular because it is making me see my project differently and making me think I am "wrong". I am interested in entering the undergraduate competition but do not feel that my subject matter is good enough to go.
4) Conclusion/implications
The larger implications of my findings may have something to do with the way students should prepare in an undergraduate setting, or even before then, for a particular type of job. Should you have more of a background in government policy/criminal ...whatever? (I can't think of the right word.) Maybe the larger implications could have something to do with the fact that the whole system that I will be studying will be "messed up", maybe I will find that things like drafts and edits are not looked at as closely as they should be, and will find a better way to process these documents before they get to their final stage so that there are fewer errors and therefore more money is saved. Who knows.
I think my problem starts with my 'question'.
I think I'm having a lot of problems.
FINAL Creative Gallery
16 years ago
1 comment:
First, I certainly don't think you're "wrong" in how about setting up your research project. Also, I want to explain how I'm defining "problem" here. You don't need to think about your research problem in terms of examining something that is wrong; instead, think of the research problem in terms of a research question that you want to ask yourself. (For example, when I create a plan for each ENGL 301 class meeting, I am trying to solve a problem: what are our goals for today, and how can we best achieve them? It's not a problem in the "something's wrong" sense of the word but rather than just a situation that needs to be resolved. In this sense, then, your "research problem" is something that you (and, hopefully, others) would be interested in knowing more about.
You're right to notice, though, that you'll likely want to reframe your problem statement and conclusions/implications in order to speak more to the non-profit organization setting (rather than the original governmental setting that you were hoping to study). The "motivation/problem statement" will likely become clearer for you as you make contact with the United Way representative; once you've identified the topic that you can research (say, writing in the UW fundraising campaign), you can then simply try to reformulate that topic as your research problem (how do non-profit organizations use writing in support of their fundraising campaigns? or how do non-profit organizations use writing as a fundraising tool?)
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