For example, I gave the example earlier of the student who has the following research question: Why has extremist religion become such a problem?
And she has stated that she plans to use the ideas of philosopher Immanuel Kant, from one of his famous essays on religion, in order to analyze “extremist” Christianity or Islam. That is how she plans to generate answers to her research question.
This will lead her, when she is ready, to her statement of controlling purpose which will appear in the introduction of her Research Essay:
“In this essay I will analyze the rise of extremist Islam in the modern world using the Kant’s ideas about religion in order to understand what social, economic, and cultural factors fuel religious extremism.”
" Here is me quoting the instructor from an email, I believe everyone should have received.
It is apparent that her topic is extremist religion.
Here's where my part comes in....
I am writing on video game addiction, specifically MMORPGs, games like World of Warcraft for those of you who have no idea what MMORPG means.
I am not going to spend time talking about this, I know a lot of you really don't give two craps about what I have to say about my topic.
Anyways, I am still on the phase of just having my topic, video game addiction. In what I quoted above, this writer is using the "philosopher Immanuel Kant" to explain her topic.
Pretty much what I am getting at is that I just have my topic, I do not have my Immanuel Kant yet. Yes I have sources, but none of them can be used in a bigger picture like Kant is.
Damn, that sounded a lot better in my head, hope it makes sense to some of you.
Does anyone have their controlling purpose yet? Is it a good idea to get a source with a sociological or psychological background to assist us in inquiry? ...Inquiry, like all of us know exactly what that means now.
Anyone around the same level of progress as I am?
I kind of feel the same way, however I feel that a few of my sources, even though they are not some great philosopher or Immanuel Kant, are still relevant and just as important/useful. I don't necessarily think that you need to have that one great source to keep going back to, as long as you have enough information from other sources that accomplish the same thing, you can still construct a well written paper.
ReplyDeleteOh and I don't have a controlling purpose yet either, I'm still struggling. I think that finding good sources helps though and will put you on the right track. To answer your question, I think it would be good to find sources from sociological and psychological backgrounds to analyze them and see what you can get out of them. You don't necessarily have to use the information in your paper, but it might help you develop and more definite research question and lead you to your controlling purpose.
ReplyDeleteI am def. in the "same boat" as you. I have my topic but can't find a philosopher to write my paper around. I am hoping that I will come across something that fits and will fit my topic.
ReplyDeleteYES, I am in the exact same boat. I am not sure if we need to have one philosopher or "Immanuel Kant" to write our final paper of if we will be able to use a wider array of different, meaningful sources with important ideas to answer our research question and form a controlling purpose. This was what I was trying to ask earlier when I asked how we should form our controlling purpose as it seems most of the class examples revolve around going back to the same sources ideas and using them to build the paper. ANY assistance would be appreciated.
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