嘿，这是刘博士。在之前的视频中，我们讨论了如何选择好的研究问题以及设定研究目标的原则。在这段视频中，我们将继续讨论如何缩小我们的研究问题，使其具有适当的关注度。
首先，我们为什么要缩小范围？有两个原因。第一个原因是，对于一个较窄的主题，我们往往更容易做出可靠的贡献。我们更有可能做深入而完整的工作。我们可能需要更少的时间来完成工作并获得发布。第二个原因是，如果我们选择一个更广泛的主题，我们将会有更多来自其他研究人员的竞争，我们更有可能重复其他人的努力，或者与其他人的发现相矛盾。正如Arthur Schawlow所说：“要做成功的研究，你不需要知道所有事情，你只需要知道一件不为人知的事情。”通常，选择一个关注焦点的话题是快速做出的最佳方法，在某一领域独特而坚实的贡献，也是与研究界其他研究人员合作的明智方式。
因此，在我们确定了一个关键的研究需求之后，我们通常需要将其缩小到适当的关注水平。但我们的研究课题应该有多狭窄？不同的人可能有不同的偏好。通常，我们的研究课题越窄，我们在文献中可以找到的相关研究就越少。对于一个重点突出的研究课题，我们应该能够在文献中找到适量的相关工作。该主题不应过于宽泛而无法处理。而且它也不应该太窄而不能产生我们想要的重大影响。
首先，我们希望将我们的主题变成一组问题。制定关注焦点的问题通常是文献检索的第一步。这将有助于我们找到研究的重点。问题应该足够清楚，以指导我们的思考。我们可能希望以几种不同的方式表达问题，或者将问题分解为子问题以澄清其含义。有些问题可能有其背后的假设。我们希望确保我们清楚这些假设。一旦我们得到第一版研究问题，下一步就是概念化这些问题。
我们希望将问题分解为概念。我们希望识别并理解本主题中的关键概念。阅读专业教科书或百科全书中的章节，或阅读文献综述以理解这些关键概念可能是个好主意。在我们这样做之后，我们可能会问自己，我们是否仍然对我们制定的主题和问题感到满意？如果没有，我们可以返回并修改它们。
接下来，我们希望通过这些概念进行文献检索。在我们确定关键概念时，我们希望集思广益同义词和相关概念。在处理术语或术语时我们需要小心。有时不同的作者使用不同的语言来描述相同的概念，我们想要考虑关键概念的每个可能的替代术语，并在我们的搜索中包括所有这些术语。例如，如果我们的主题中有两个关键概念，表示为A和B，则在搜索中，我们可以将相同概念的不同术语与“OR”组合，然后使用“AND”组合这两个概念。
在我们进行搜索时，我们可能会识别我们领域的重要作者和领先的研究小组并跟进他们的工作。我们可以确定适当的研究方法和经过验证的工具。我们还可以识别研究人员使用的术语的变化，并定义我们自己的术语。有时，我们可能会识别我们领域的关键期刊并浏览它们的封面。最重要的是，我们想问自己，我们有太多或太少的结果？扫描结果列表中的前几个项目后，我们应该更好地了解如何修改我们的研究问题或搜索以获得更相关的结果。我们想评估我们制定的研究问题的可用资源。我们想要评估文献中的资源和我们自己的资源，这些资源可以用于本研究，以确定我们是否应该进一步缩小我们的主题范围。
在此阶段，基于搜索结果，我们可能能够识别该主题的若干方面，例如，不同的方法，地理位置，过程类别等。然后我们可能有机会使用这些方面来进一步关注我们的主题。此外，我们可能会在重新发表的论文中考虑对未来研究方向的评论。如果需要，我们可以回过头来改进我们的研究问题并重复这个循环。
感谢收看，我是刘博士，为失败者提供研究建议。在我们确定一个好的研究问题之后，我们要做的第一件事就是缩小范围，使其具有适当的关注度。直到下一次，让我们记住这一点，让我们的生活更轻松。
How to Narrow Down a Research Topic -025
Hey, it’s Dr. Liu here again. In previous videos, we have discussed how to select good research question, and the principles to set research objectives. In this video, we will continue to talk about how to narrow down our research question to have the right level of focus.
First, why do we want to narrow down? There are two reasons. The first reason is that, for a narrower topic, it is often easier for us to make solid contribution. It is more likely we can do deep and complete work. And it may take less time for us to get the work done and get published. The second reason is that, if we choose a broader topic, we will have more competitions from other researchers, and it is more likely we may either repeat other people’s efforts, or contradict with other people’s findings. As Arthur Schawlow said, “To do successful research, you don't need to know everything, you just need to know one thing that isn't known.” Usually, selecting a well-focused topic is the best way to make quick, unique and solid contribution in a certain field, and it is also a wise way to cooperate with other researchers in the research community.
Therefore, after we identify a critical research need, we usually need to narrow it down to have the right level of focus. But how narrow our research topic should be? Different people may have different preference. Usually, the narrower our research topic, the less related studies we can find in literature. For a well focused research topic, we should be able to find right amount of related work in literature that we can handle. The topic should not be too broad to handle. And it should also not be too narrow to have a significant impact that we want.
First, we want to turn our topic into a set of questions. Formulating well-focused questions is often the first step in a literature search. This will help us to find the focus for our research. The questions should be clear enough to guide our thinking. We may want to express the question in several different ways or break the question into sub-questions to clarify its meaning. Some questions may have assumptions behind it. We want to make sure that we are clear about these assumptions. Once we have our first version of research questions, the next step is to conceptualize these questions.
We want to break down the questions into concepts. We want to identify and understand the key concepts in our topic. It may be a good idea to read a chapter in a specialized textbook or encyclopedia, or to read a literature review to understand these key concepts. After we have done that, we may ask ourselves, are we still satisfied with the topic and questions we formulated? If not, we can go back and modify them.
Next, we want to go deep by running literature search by these concepts. As we identify key concepts, we want to brainstorming synonyms and related concepts. We need to be careful when dealing with terminology or nomenclature. Sometimes different authors use different language to describe the same concepts, we want think of every possible alternate terms of the key concepts and include all of them in our search. For example, if there are two key concepts in our topic, represented as A and B, in our search, we may combine different terms for the same concept with “OR”, and then combine the two concepts using “AND”.
As we run the search, we may identify important authors and leading research groups in our field and follow their work. We may identify appropriate research methodologies and validated instruments. And we may also identify variations in terms used by researchers and define our own terminology. Sometimes, we may identify key journals in our field and browse them cover to cover. Most important, we want to ask our selves, do we have too many or too few results? After scanning the first few items in our results list, we should have a better idea on how we might modify our research questions or our search to get more relevant results. We want to evaluate the available resources for our formulated research question. We want to evaluate both the resources in the literature and our own resources that can be dedicated for this research, to determine whether we should further narrow down our topic.
At this stage, based on the search results, we may be able to identify several aspects of the topic, e.g. different method, geographic locations, categories of processes, etc. Then we may have opportunities to use theses aspects to further focus our topic. Also, we may consider the comments on future research directions in resent papers. If needed, we may go back to refine our research question and repeat the cycle.
Thanks for watching, I am Dr. Liu with research tips for the underdogs. After we identify a good research question, the first thing we want to do is to narrow it down to have the right level of focus. Until next time, let’s keep that in mind to make our life easier.
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