PREP Notebook

Possible PREP Reflections:

• What is your current topic? Why should the public or your audience care about this particular topic? What is at stake?
• What are the foundational texts/works in the field? And, who are the foundational or significant researchers, thinkers, or innovators in this field? How do you know?
• Why did you choose this particular topic? Are you still happy with this topic at this stage in the process?
• What was the first draft of your research question? How has it evolved thus far? How did it change from the first version to the final version on which you settled? What was the most important factor contributing to this shift?
• What challenges, puzzles, questions, or concerns do you have right now about your research project
• How might your personal position or bias impact your research and your analysis of your research? How do you intend to address this potential issue?
• Describe your process for evaluating the relevance AND credibility of the sources you are consulting. Essentially, take us through your thinking process so we better understand how you decide to use or lose a source within the scope of your research/inquiry process.
• Research the specific type of methodology/research method that you plan to employ with your topic/question. What does existing research say about this specific methodology/research method? What type of research does it work well for? What type of research does it not work well for? What disciplines is it “best suited” for? Summarize your findings, including a list of sources where this information was taken from.
• Defend your methodology/research method as “best” for your particular topic/question. Prove that your paper demonstrates a purposeful AND cohesive inquiry approach, method, or process that is well aligned with the research question/project goal.
• What data did you collect? How did you approach collecting the data? How did you approach analyzing the data? What was your strategy for each?
• Discuss the implications of your methodology/research method, limitations of the approach taken, and possibilities for future exploration and inquiry based on your results/findings/product.
• How does what you have found within your own research compare to what already exists in the field? What connections can be made between what you found and what exists?
• Based on what you have found and what you will or plan to argue, does a solution exists? If so, what is it, and how do we achieve it? If not, why not, and what should we do then?
• Research the citation style of the discipline in which your research question/inquiry process falls within. What citation style is used in this discipline? What are the basic rules for in-text citations and bibliographic entries?
• What ways does the discipline gather data or information to “know” or “understand” something?
• What are some ways a researcher should share or present information so it is valued by the discipline?