As the article, RESEARCH STARTS WITH A THESIS STATEMENT, by Emily A. Wierszewski, said, our collective belief in the importance of definite answers impacts many areas of our lives. This’s harmful because it’s like we will believe in something unknowingly and unconsciously even it’s wrong if something is widespread. It practically mislead and misunderstand our process and purpose of research. In the article, writer even described this phenomenon as “thesis-first research model.” And in this model, research is only for verifying our ideas and theses, there’re no doubts and questions. Which means research is existing only for justifying the central idea and not include anything against it. Of course it is wrong because nothing is definite and everyone is possible. Something that is strongly proved correctly now may be wrong later. And something correct in a hundred percentage is steep because it’s without improvement and chances to interrogate. Therefore, we shouldn’t start research with a thesis statement but a question or problem statement. I mean, one aspect of research is to prove something right, this is correct but not enough. Because it should contain question and problem. We should feel curious and confused to something like why it’s like this and how to prove.
I tended to start research with keywords, not a certain answer. And then I will keep developing the keywords until I find the central idea. At the end, make a neutral thesis statement, correct but not totally and there will be chances to improve, inquire and revise.
I like the way you do your research, looking for segements (in this case, keywords) of what you’re trying to find instead of an answer. Another good point mentioned was a neutral thesis statement, while I think it’s a good idea to not take any sides of arguments just proving one right and completely disregarding the other, what exactly do you mean by “correct but not totally”? From what I understand, it just seems like a neutral thesis should just provide facts and information relveant to the subject without taking any sides.
I was a bit confused with the answering for the questions since they weren’t so broad but other than that I enjoyed reading the first section of your post. The fact that our beliefs may impact our lives is pretty true. The impact of others beliefs as well plays a role when coming to introducing their side or view.