Workshop: Starting From Scratch

I just attended the R695 workshop "Starting from scratch" this afternoon. I think this workshop was extremely helpful for students who are at the beginning stage of a research study or a literature review. The most valuable thing I got was the feedback for my research questions from Dr. Leftwich although I feel more confused about what I'm doing and what I should be doing next. This was a good experience though. Cause during the discussion, when some questions were asked by the instructor or other students, I was trying to answer those questions and clarify "what" I really want to know and "why" it's important. Although I have had some thoughts and information from literature about the topic I would like to investigate, usually the problems were still not being specific and clear enough about the research questions.

The process of being questioned from different aspects was important because I would be able to find out what those muddiest points are, and then clarify my thoughts to modify my research questions again. I also have gained some more different thoughts about my own research study/research questions by listing to what questions people asked and what concerns and perspectives they brought up for research studies in various areas. Overall, I would like to attend more of this type of workshop to talk about different people's research ideas. Hope we can have more time for discussion.