Research Process

So far, the research process has been very challenging, which I had expected. However, the direction my research paper has taken me is drastically different from what I had originally thought I might be writing about. In the beginning, I had wanted to stay away from a topic revolving around neuroscience, instead wanting to branch out into a different field. While I eventually did end up choosing to discuss the brain, the angle at which I am viewing my discussion is still an angle I had not anticipated--I had not expected to be discussing social conditions such as urban crime rates, a topic I have never been very familiar with. Other aspects of the research paper seemed rather daunting. The amount of resources available to me and the amount of resources I need to culminate to support my argument seem kind of intimidating, but the library website and its references have made finding the information I need much easier to accomplish. However, I am worried about finding either too much nor not enough information for my paper, as I want my argument to be clear and well-supported but not stretched too thin across too many different fields. My main concern is regarding the research topic itself: I still have some doubts that I can pull off the task that I have assigned myself to complete, and I’m not quite sure to where I may be going with my argument. While rewriting the proposal has definitely let me see what I need to focus on, I’m still worried that the argument I’m currently leaning towards (Fredrickson’s ideologies explain human behavior better than Gladwell’s ideologies) will prove to be false with my research, and I will have a difficult time finding a point to make with my paper. I need to keep myself on track and clearly define what I want to write about before I can move forward with this paper.