I want you to free write
about some subjects you might be interested in researching this
semester. Consider some of the inquiry based questions you have
generated in class on Monday and consider your own personal interests
as well. This is pretty open and the
content is really up to you, but here are a few examples of things you
might write about:
How might you conduct your own study? (consider how the first two
student examples pieces worked) Could a focus group work for your study?
Write
about what you already know about your subject and the stake holders in
the discussion you are entering into. Consider alternate ways to frame
the question to accentuate different aspects of the original idea. You
might also develop a research experiment to test your inquiry based
question.
If you are having a bit of trouble coming up with your research subject, consider the
research articles that are published on Stylus.
http://writingandrhetoric.cah.ucf.edu/stylus/issues.php
It is important to note that not all articles published on Stylus are
inquiry based studies, so be sure to look for articles published from
ENC 1102 classes. Also, you might try watching some of the videos posted
on the blog or reading some of the articles for invention strategies
that might help you.
I was thinking of writing about mainstream media vs social media. How one effects the other and vice versa, and the differences of what is said in social media that is not said in mainstream media. What is the primary way people are getting their news? And can social media be a supplement for watching the news on television or reading the newspaper?
ReplyDeleteHi Taylor,
DeleteSocial media continues to grow and develop with each passing moment, and I think you have a lot of ways to study social media. Of course, as it stands now, you're topic will have to be narrowed considerably, but that's okay. At this point, we are trying to hash out some ideas.
Perhaps you could narrow your research down to look at specific kinds of social media. For example, looking at social media marketing efforts could be interesting. You might also look at ways that celebrities use social media to accomplish goals and hold sway over users.
Let me know if you have any questions or want to run some ideas by me.
There are two subjects that I would really like to conduct my research on. They both fall under the category of sports. The first subject I would like to research upon is the job instability of NFL and collegiate head coaches in the modern era of football. We are seeing now that it is the worst era to become a head coach at those two levels due to the impatience from fans, owners, boosters, and the list goes on and on. The football business has continued growing at a very fast pace and when there is millions of dollars on the line patience is the last thing these people have. Could this be the root cause of why coaches are being fired and recycled so quickly? What I could do to study this is take a look back at the history and gather data on the subject so I could see why things have evolved and changed over time. For this subject a focus group conducted with people very knowledgeable on the subject of football can be very beneficial towards my research. The other subject I would like to research is the sport of lacrosse and see how it has become more popular among the youth population in todays society and see how it has evolved over time. It seems that the sport just gained traction so quickly and became popular in states that it is not common to play that sport. Having played the sport in an area that the sport is still fairly new to, I have a great deal of knowledge beforehand on what might be the causes of its rise. Could it be that it takes aspects from a lot of sports and mixes into one sport be a reason? Or could it be that its violent and physical nature attracts many youths? Getting a focus group could also be very beneficial to this research to see why it rose to popularity.
ReplyDeleteHi Nicholas,
DeleteI think the question of the coaching carousel is interesting to have a look at. You have some solid hunches about the quick turnover rate, but I think running some numbers and doing a bit of quantitative research to actually get the numbers will be a solid first step.
You can then start to build some open ended questions that can get at the dynamics of the trend.
Either of your projects can bear fruit, and you'll have to make a choice as to which one you want to pursue.
Considering I am currently studying business, I find it interesting to question what is it that makes small local businesses so incapable of competing with major corporations. Furthermore, I ask myself what is it that can be altered to allow these small businesses to thrive in a commercialized big business America. Is the good service that small local businesses offer neglected due to the major corporations low rates? Moreover testing my inquiry based question by surveying customers of small business and big-box corporations would surely raise interests.
ReplyDeleteHi Austin,
DeleteI think the question of why small, local businesses have a hard time competing with big corporations is pretty well established. The big businesses have a lot of wealth, power, and are already established brands.
This topic is also a bit general because there are millions of businesses (big corporations and small businesses alike) and there are lots of different market forces acting on these businesses. Lumping small businesses together may be a bit too general.
Perhaps raising questions about factors that make small business marketing strategies successful could be interesting to look at.
I am thinking about writing on marriage, divorce, and the effects of both on the lives of parents and children. This study would be conducted by researching scholarly resources on the subjects and comparing and contrasting the different points made in each. A focus group would be suitable for this study since there are people of all ages who have been affected by marriage or divorce in some way. I chose this subject because I myself have witnessed both a divorce and a healthy marriage from a son’s point of view. I know that sometimes as a child, it is difficult to understand why it happens. I also know that there are external factors contributed to both marriage and divorce. That said, I would like to analyze, both on a biological and psychological level, why both occur as often as they do. Further, how can both marriage and/or divorce affect things like wealth, happiness, and overall well-being for those involved?
ReplyDeleteHi Matt,
DeleteI think it may be interesting to look for successful approaches that divorcee parents take to mitigate the negative effect on children. This kind of research could be valuable for those parents in the midst of a divorce. Are there certain approaches that can lessen the psychological blow that kids take from the divorce?
On the other side, you could research marriage and study how the institution of marriage has evolved. I know that in the US, people can stand in front of a judge and be married in a few short minutes. A few years back I went to a Hindu wedding that lasted three days.
I wonder if the loss of potency of the marriage ceremony contributes to the divorce rate.
Also, it seems that the divorce rate may have spiked coming out of the last two decades because women are self sufficient and have their own careers. If a woman was stuck in a crappy marriage in the 1950's, for example, she was stuck- she had no income of her own and couldn't leave.
Are people getting married for all the wrong reasons? Is the pressure to conform to the social norm of the marriage institution encouraging people to marry even when they may not be ready?
I was thinking about continuing on researching about body language. I wanted to focus on making eye contact with others. My friend and I were having a discussion about how uncomfortable she felt when people would stare or look at her for a long period of time. I wondered why does it make individuals uncomfortable when people stare or makes eye contact with them. When someone is speaking it makes sense to make eye contact with him or her, this shows that we are paying attention to what they are saying. To what extent does making eye contact makes someone uncomfortable and when is it appropriate or non-appropriate to make eye contact with one another? Does the gender, being a stranger or a friend affects the individual feeling comfortable or uncomfortable? To conduct this study I would conduct a survey asking questions about making eye contact and then have a group of participants doing experiments where they would be put into different are different scenarios of where eye contact could be appropriate or not be appropriate.
ReplyDeleteHi Belineda,
DeleteEye contact may be really interesting to study. Deborah Tannen studies the ways that men and women position themselves physically for communication, and this may be an interesting angle you could look at.
Find some scholarly, academic articles to read that relate to eye contact. Perhaps searching for gender and communication could reveal some interesting articles.
As an English major, I would like to create a question that explores themes and character development. I would like to analyze Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard as a response to William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. To what extent does Tom Stoppard use characters from Hamlet to develop themes in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead? Aside from those plays, another possible research question relative to an Oscar Wilde play would be, to what extent did Oscar Wilde’s personal tragedies influence his representation of societal roles in The Importance of Being Earnest? Most of my analysis for either of these questions would be textual analysis from the plays themselves. Other sources that will help in developing my response are pieces about the personal life (lives) of the playwright(s).
ReplyDeleteHi Arielle,
DeleteSounds like you have a pretty solid tack for your project. Let me know if you need anything as you set up your literary analysis.
The area I am looking at researching is sports. One topic I thought of was whether college athletes should be paid. The NCAA is a billion-dollar industry and all of this money is made from the student athletes and they don’t get a penny of that money. The way I could conduct this study is by researching both sides, why the athletes should get paid, and why they should not get paid. One question that could be raised is to what extent should college athletes get paid? Many of collegiate athletes are already on scholarship so isn’t this a form a payment? Another topic I am thinking about researching is steroids in sports, specifically baseball. The question I could research is to what extent has steroids effected baseball especially in the steroid era. The steroid era of baseball was roughly around 1991-2004, this was when players first started using illegal substances in the sport. The steroid era definitely has changed the game of baseball.
ReplyDeleteI am interested in doing my research on the effects of gender roles and stereotypes found within children's media (i.e programs, literature, movies) and how that influences children to create unrealistic ideas of what their roles should be in society. I'm already aware of Disney's portrayal of how girls and boys should look and behave, but I'm hoping to be able to conduct my own study through surveying children and figuring out how they perceive themselves in regards to what they have been traditionally taught through media such as Disney.
ReplyDeleteComing into ENC 1102, I knew from previous friends that most of the class would be based on an inquiry research paper. With many questions available that I was intrigued to write about, I deciding to write about something that I can very much relate to which is being a first generation student from my family to go to college. Many could say that such topic may be “pointless” or “unimportant” but for many people it’s a huge amount of pressure and pride on their shoulders. A question I would like to do for the inquiry research project is “Why are first-generation students such an important investment for America”? With this question I plan on interviewing close friends of I who are also first generation college students in they family line. I want to get a perspective not just from them but also from their parents. First generation students may in fact be pressured more heavily by parents who never had the chance to go to college then those who did. A current statistics states that “students from high income families are seven times more likely to get a college degree than students from low income families” (The UCF Magazine). Being able to get a birds-eye view from both the students and parents mind on such question will help me correlate each other and be able to write a research paper. Researching articles and journals will drive me more to the center of the question. In fact, The Magazine of the University of Central Florida has a section titled “Ripple Effect” where they go into detail how first generation college students, earning a degree can transform not only they families future but the future of our country, America. With this information and more that I will encounter as time goes is what I will make my essay on.
ReplyDeleteI have two subjects that I have been thinking about writing about. One is about the Deaf Community and how it is not known, and not considered to be that of a language. And my second topic that I was thinking is about the medical field, what types of technology are being used and how will they affect future generations. Both of these topics really interest me, especially the Deaf Community and it's culture. But also the medical field because it's what I plan on studying. These are just two ideas that I plan to work around for the research that will happen throughout the papers.
ReplyDeleteI am interested in doing my research on the sudden increase in concussions and the severity of them in the game of football over the last 10 years, despite the use of better protective equipment. This year especially in the NFL has seen its fare share of bad injuries most of those being concussions. So i would like to figure out why concussions are so common and how we could improve the equipment to help protect or athletes.
ReplyDeleteI am interested in doing a research paper about sports because of how big of a part it has been in my life. Having been a victim of a major sports injury myself, I think I might be interested in researching about sports injuries. I could cite famous athletes who had major injuries and discuss how certain injuries are specific to certain sports. I might even want to get more specific and talk about baseball injuries, especially with rise in the amount of injuries pitchers have experienced with their arms. Another research topic I am interested in is the effects of performance enhancing drugs on sports. I can obviously discuss the major PEDs, like steroids and human growth hormones, and their effect on certain sports. I can also talk about other performance enhancing substances, like creatine, and discuss whether they should be allowed in professional or maybe even collegiate sports.
ReplyDeleteI am very interested in researching the increase of women who are pursuing careers in the Criminal Justice Field because I am currently getting my degree in this field. More importantly, I want to see if there is a parallel between the increase of women in these more male dominate fields and social justice movements such as, the gender equality movement. I would like to do my own research by interviewing both men and women, who are already (or have been) in the field, studying to be in the field, and those who decided to take a different career path just so that I can understand all aspects of this situation and best answer my question.
ReplyDeleteI am most likely going to write about an issue that I found very interesting when I studied psychology back in high school. It is referred to by psychologists and sociologists as “Nature vs. Nurture.” I often find myself thinking about this concept, and I would enjoy to do more research on the matter. This would be a good topic to study because there is an abundance of research available on it. Also, I feel that I have some experience with people who were raised similar to myself as well as a few people who were not raised like I was. As a way of conducting my own study, I would probably interview people about how they feel they were shaped by their parents’ strategies for raising them, along with some other questions. As for my main inquiry, I would go with something about how understanding of the impact of nature and nurture has developed and how it will continue to develop as we study it more. I would also like to consider how a more widespread knowledge of this topic would affect how people choose to raise their children.
ReplyDeleteFirst topic that has been running around my mind for couple of days is "free education". We have been hearing the term a lot right now and specially during new election year. Candidates talk about making college education free for students. Even though i believe it is not possible at all considering the fact of where the money will come from. We cant literally increase our taxes to 90% for tax payers in order for us to perceive an education for free. Aside from all of the mathematics i just want to focus on the idea of if there were free education, will it any how influence the life of students? Will the dropout out of college rate go down and the graduation rate increase drastically. Would it any how influence our economy? I personally believe there should be standardized measurement of who needs money to go to college and who really wants to college and needs the money to be there. I was to do my research by doing a survey or interview around the campus asking students to share their personal ideas and get a poll of students who are getting financial aid and are in college versus who are playing and are in college. This will give us the idea of the number of students who are actually going to college with their tuition being payed of by the University and ones who's are not. Also the polls and interviews will ask about their current graduating status to draw the effect of being payed for college and paying for college on graduation rate.
ReplyDeleteThe research topic I want to cover is the cause and effect of marketing tobacco products to teenagers. I would conduct my study by collecting other studies conducted for effective marketing of tobacco products as well as conducting my own study by showing focus groups different pro and anti tobacco advertisements to see which is more persuasive. I have already done some research and found out that each day, that more than 3,200 people under the age of 18 smoke their first cigarette and that nine out of 10 smokers start before the age of 18 according to betobaccofree.com. I thought this would be an interesting topic due to controversy tobacco and the large shadow of negativity it’s casting. Also, I thought I would look into this area because I am majoring in Marketing and researching how corporations who sell products that have an influence with more than 480,000 deaths each year still manage to attract new customers. I thought about maybe framing the question from those who smoke and how they were attracted to a life of health complications and hurt loved ones.
ReplyDeleteThe most annoying thing that occurs when I am driving is someone on their cell phone not paying attention and end up drifting into another lane, cutting someone off, or braking erratically. I want to research on the effects of how much cell phone usage can effect someone's concentration while driving or in even walking around in public. It seems like now a days it’s a common thing for people to do, when in reality by not paying attention for a few seconds could end in a fatal car accident.
ReplyDeleteI'm an event management major, and a lot of that has to do with a childhood dream of becoming a wedding planner- an extension from the fact that I am a hopeless romantic. When you think about love and how real it can be, everyone has a different opinion. It varies from “love doesn’t last” to “one true soulmate”, and like everyone else I have an opinion of my own. I land somewhere in the middle, I think you can truly be involve with someone, but that falling out of love is possible too, but even though you may not have one true soulmate, you will find someone whose love is greater than others. I want to research something relating to just that, true love. i have considered questions but don’t know which direction to go in. Like, “Is there such a thing as everlasting love?” or “Does each person really have one true love?” In my past relationships, I’ve dealt with pressure of being really in love, and promising futures, but quickly realize what I felt related more to “Young Love” than “True Love’, so another question I have considered is, “Can young love still be true love?” I feel as though there are many ways to conduct research, whether that be from finding past research done on it, speaking with couples who have been together 50+ years, and debating whether it’s the truth to the love, or willing to do what it takes to make it work.
ReplyDeleteSomething that I have always been interested in is animals. I love taking care of them and I can't stand to see them treated poorly. A question I am interested in is to what extent does someone's culture affect their views towards animals and how they should be treated? Many cultures have certain views towards animals and I would love to see how much of an affect someones culture has on their feelings towards animals on this planet. There are instances where someone can be greatly affected by their cultures and instances where someone isn't affected by this at all and I want to find out how connected it really is.
ReplyDeleteMichael Moore
ReplyDeleteA topic I know a lot about or am intrigued by that I am considered conducting my research on is music. Research questions I'm considering include what effects do listening to different types of music have on people (Does it have effect on personality, mood, actions)? Also does the type of person effect the type of music they listen to, or does the type of music one listens to effect the type of person they are (again relating to personality, mood, habits)?
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ReplyDeleteA topic that I would be interested in would be to research the benefits of weight training for younger people, specifically young teenagers and children. I have seen news articles concerning that bodybuilding can be detrimental if taken too far, and while I agree that can be harmful, it is also another way to be motivated and have a goal-oriented mind for younger individuals and for them to also be able to combat childhood obesity. However, can a goal such as this be taken too far? While motivation can be very useful, can there be too much success in terms of motivation?
ReplyDeleteI've always been majorly interested in the beauty industry while also having such a strong love for animals. Therefore, I've developed the idea that I might possibly base my research on this question: "To what extent has animal testing in the beauty industry effected the consumption rate of the products?" Another question I've considered is: "What factors go into a company deciding to test on animals and how does it effect sales?"
ReplyDeleteI am a Character Animation major, so I am naturally interested in virtual simulations. I’ve noticed that there has been a lot of buzz recently about virtual reality (VR), and I wanted to delve deeper into it and explore how it can start/affect social change. My question will be: “In what ways has Virtual Reality and Real Time Simulation affected its users sense of identity and adjusted their social behavior according to their experiences within the virtual world”? I feel that this will be an important question to ask because VR in the near future will be as integrated in our lives as a cell phone is. It will be nice to find some correlations between behavior and Virtual reality so we can understand and be prepared for what we see in the near future.
ReplyDeleteMy passion is sports, fitness, and nutrition; anything in the health field interests me. I know that I want my question to be derived from one of these topics, but I’m not quite sure which one yet. Football is undoubtedly my favorite sport. I plan on walking on to UCF’s football team this spring. I have been trying to sculpt an inquiry-based question revolving around football, but injuries in particular. A few of my thoughts have evolved around concussions sustained during football, and the long-term affects they have on players. What long-term affects do concussions have on people, and football players in particular? Do college and professional sports organizations handle injuries properly? Do sports organizations care about the player’s well being, or just the revenue they bring in? These are just a couple of many ideas I had about sports, and I think with a little help a well developed inquiry based question could be derived from one of these topics. I am having a little trouble rewriting my question in a way that is unique, and leaves the topic open for research. I do feel, however, I have a good idea of what I want my question to be about.
ReplyDelete