Another thing I learned about research in general through this project was the process of ensuring that a research questions is able to be surveyed, and moreover, within a demographic that is available for me to survey. In my peer feedback, some of my comments pointed out that it would be difficult to survey such a broad question. However, thinking about how my question had to be able to be surveyed got me thinking about what in my question was too broad and ambiguous, which in turn helped me narrow down my research question to both be better articulated but still broad enough to utilize secondary sources to contribute to my research.

One of the first things that challenged me most when writing this research paper was narrowing down and better articulating my research question. I knew what problem I wanted to talk about, and it started from too narrow a point of view, like noticing default male pronouns when discussing governmental systems in my political science readings, and later broadened to the point where my question couldn't be easily surveyed. Because it was initially such a specific issue, I couldn't determine whether or not it was an issue I would be able to write about. However, after utilizing Google Scholar, putting in more general search terms like "gender in political science" I found reliable sources that explored broader topics I knew would be valuable for my paper, and helped me better pin point the issues I wanted to discuss in my research. Through peer review, as well as discussing with peers and friends around Davis, I was able to better identify that I wanted to discuss more broadly the gender inequality that exists in political science, and then the implications, or broader worldwide impact of the lack of female representation in the political science curriculum that students going into similar fields consume.