The following outline is intended to help you work from a topic of interest to achieve a valid research question with a clear focus, set boundaries, and well-defined terms, supported by an understanding of common views of current scholarship. John Roxborogh 1. This may be a person, an issue, a period of time, a place, a source of information.
Personal motivation is vital to successfully complete any research.
On the other hand if the story is very close to you emotionally it may not be easy to think critically about the issues. Trying to prove something is not impossible. However there is a difference between trying to prove something by testing it for validity, and trying to convince others what you believe to be true without being willing to test your hypothesis. A curiosity to find out the truth about something is one thing, a determination to use a research process as a means of adding authority to what you believe without question already is likely to invalidate the arguments used more than actually prove the point. Prophets who already know the answers often have difficulty really testing the things they are very certain about.