Having read Badke’s words on picking a research topic, choosing SOPA and copyright laws could be equated to shooting my own foot (sorry. I just finished watching the Season Finale of The Walking Dead), since SOPA is a fairly recent topic, so I can’t really expect to find much information from academic sources on it.
SOPA’s been around for a while now, though, so I might get lucky. And that’s only one of the problems I’ve encountered while working on my proposal. According to Badke, great research involves analyzing data and using it to solve a question about a topic. In addition, research is supposed to advance knowledge.
So what could I possibly add to what people already know about SOPA aside from the fact that it violates the First Amendment (specifically, freedom of speech) and that it’s a nightmare for many people who use and/or share copyrighted material on the Internet?
Badke’s advice on identifying controversies related to the topic of choice , along with thinking laterally – in other words, looking at SOPA from a different perspective, came in quite handy for me. Otherwise, I’d probably be forced to pick another topic or be stuck wondering what to write for my research proposal.
