Building a successful argument: Defining and justifying problems

1
Building a successful argument Defining and
justifying problems
2
Three Goals

• Define your problem
• Justify your problem
• Explain your argument (i.e., what are you going
  to do in this paper?)

3
Defining Research Problems

• What is a research problem?
• A problem is a statement, not a question.
  However, a good problem can be restated in one or
  more ways to produce one or more research
  questions.
• A problem can be something to be explained, to be
  further understood, to be addressed, unpacked,
  etc.
• Characteristics of a good problem
• Should state the concepts to be related clearly
  and unambiguously
• Solution should be feasible

4
Moving a Problem from General to Specific

• Could use of technology X affect society in a
  positive way?
• If we looked at two populations, one using
  technology X and one not using it, would they
  differ?
• How is the use of technology X related to
  productivity and work satisfaction in task groups
  within population Y?

5
Example Problem

• Social networks play an integral role in the
  diffusion of information communication
  technologies (ICTs) in the Western world.This
  is a trend that becomes especial strong in
  impoverished and undereducated regions, given
  recent studies showing that lower economic
  development correlates with a higher sense of
  online community. A key problem for researchers
  and policy makers is how to understand and
  respond to the differences between developed and
  developing regions, especially as it relates to
  different structural characteristics of social
  networks that facilitate the diffusion of new
  information technologies. This is an especially
  important problem because many new information
  technologies are introduced to developing regions
  from more developed regions without any
  acknowledgement of the differences between these
  areas. As I will explain in more detail, such
  disregard for these differences has led to many
  failed (and expensive) efforts to diffuse new
  ICTs into developing regions. In this paper I
  will address this gap by extrapolating several
  specific lessons gleaned from the literature on
  diffusion networks, virtual communities, and
  three case studies of digital initiative in
  underprivileged populations.

6
Justifying Research Problems

• Explain what is not known about the problem.
• Why does the problem matter?
• Provide documentation that this is actually a
  problem.
• Available results, findings, statistics, etc from
  other studies?
• Available literature that shows that this is a
  needed area of inquiry?
• Remember The simple fact that no one may have
  looked at this problem is not sufficient
  justification.

7
Justification as Significance of the Study (from
Creswell 2003)

• What are the ways that the study will add to the
  scholarly research/literature in the field?
• How does the study improve practice?
• How might the study improve policy?
• there are othersthe key is to explain why this
  problem is actually a problem at all.

8
The Justification

• Social networks play an integral role in the
  diffusion of information communication
  technologies (ICTs) in the Western world.This
  is a trend that becomes especial strong in
  impoverished and undereducated regions, given
  recent studies showing that lower economic
  development correlates with a higher sense of
  online community. A key problem for researchers
  and policy makers is how to understand and
  respond to the differences between developed and
  developing regions, especially as it relates to
  different structural characteristics of social
  networks that facilitate the diffusion of new
  information technologies. This is an especially
  important problem because many new information
  technologies are introduced to developing regions
  from more developed regions without any
  acknowledgement of the differences between these
  areas. As I will explain in more detail, such
  disregard for these differences has led to many
  failed (and expensive) efforts to diffuse new
  ICTs into developing regions. In this paper I
  will address this gap by extrapolating several
  specific lessons gleaned from the literature on
  diffusion networks, virtual communities, and
  three case studies of digital initiative in
  underprivileged populations.

9
The Argument

• Social networks play an integral role in the
  diffusion of information communication
  technologies (ICTs) in the Western world.This
  is a trend that becomes especial strong in
  impoverished and undereducated regions, given
  recent studies showing that lower economic
  development correlates with a higher sense of
  online community. A key problem for researchers
  and policy makers is how to understand and
  respond to the differences between developed and
  developing regions, especially as it relates to
  different structural characteristics of social
  networks that facilitate the diffusion of new
  information technologies. This is an especially
  important problem because many new information
  technologies are introduced to developing regions
  from more developed regions without any
  acknowledgement of the differences between these
  areas. As I will explain in more detail, such
  disregard for these differences has led to many
  failed (and expensive) efforts to diffuse new
  ICTs into developing regions. In this paper I
  will address this gap by extrapolating several
  specific lessons gleaned from the literature on
  diffusion networks, virtual communities, and
  three case studies of digital initiative in
  underprivileged populations.

10
Setting up your plan

• After reading in your topic area, try to state
  your problem, its justification and what you
  think you might want to do about it (the
  argument).
• Write this up as a paragraph or two, noting that
  you will most likely re-write this later.
• Develop an outline of all of the major parts of
  the paper that you will need in order to support
  your argument.
• This type of outline should be as detailed as
  possible, and have a logical structure that
  serves to support the argument.

11
Where to find appropriate literature?

• JSTOR.ORG
• GOOGLE SCHOLAR
• THE WEB OF KNOWLEDGE
• THE LIBRARY

12
Study Groups
Group 2
Group 1
Group 3
Shawna Hein Ashwin Matthew Felix Morio Ashkan
Soltani
Michael Lee Nick Rabinowitz Luke Rhee Aylin
Selcukoglu
Anuradha Roy Ruchi Kumar Isaac Salier-Hellendag Ch
ristine Zhong
Group 5
Group 4
Group 6
Deepti Chittamuru Shauna Epstein Josh
Gomez Srikanth Narayan
Amanda Coffee Jon Hicks Jim Miller Hazel
Onsrud Pierre Tchetgen
Jon Breitbart Kathleen Lu Travis Pinnick Anirban
Sen Sami Vihavainen