Invention Exercise
Look back at your list, pick one of the questions from the first category and write down some ways you might answer this question. Where would you start? What materials would you need to investigate? Are there artifacts related to the topic
that you can access?
Write a brief statement about your research question and how you plan to answer it.
Articulating a research question and writing a research statement narrows down your topic and gives you a road map for conducting primary research. This statement can also help you stay focused as you begin to look at primary materials and artifacts pertaining to your topic. This exercise, along with invention strategies, can take you from curiosity about a topic to potential directions for researching specific aspects of the topic.
Sample Brief Research Statement
Congress think about visitors to the city? In order to answer these questions, I would like to find letters or travel writing from the 19th century that might discuss these experiences.
