When I hear the terms “hunter and gather”, I’m brought back to my Biological Anthropology course from last quarter.
Klein mentions in his article, “What Is It We Do When We Write Articles Like This?” about his newly created research method, the hunter and gatherer method. I was surprised that he would use these examples, typically “dumb-as-a-rock” examples, to represent an academic article. But I could also see where he was coming from because I do the same thing. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the good luck to be the one to publish the idea…
When I first am assigned an essay, I usually have no clue what I’m going to research. After a lot of deep, strenuous though, I’ll have some flicker of an idea. Most times, I’m not interested in the idea but since it’s the only one I have, I suck it up and keep swimming.
This is the strategic portion of my research process. If I’m lucky, it doesn’t last long and I’ll finally find a topic that I at least have a vague interest in. Sometimes, it’s very faint. Nearly invisible but at least it’s something, right? If I still haven’t found anything, then I pull on my big-girl pants and I keep at it again.
But after I find a topic that I somewhat care about, I get to the heuristic portion of my research. Not surprisingly, this is the portion that I like best. I won’t go into the details of my whole research process, but if you’re interested you can check it out right here.
The one thing that really stuck out to me in Klein’s article was his observation that the professors who were willing to talk about their writing and who were successful in writing all loved their topics. I’m sure anyone can tell you that time goes a lot faster when you’re doing something fun say, watching the Giants game, versus doing something boring, like going to Home Depot (although I happen to like Home Depot…)
So, the key message here really is to find the topic that at least doesn’t make you drool. Writing a research paper about something boring is no fun, pardon the “no duh” statement. But writing a research paper about something that you could spend hours studying is a way to make an argument that not only stands up to scrutiny but possibly will reach someone else and motivate them. And that, my friends, is one way to write the essay of your dreams. If you were dreaming about it, of course.
