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[Private] HUMA 2400 - Approaches to Humanities in China Studies: Intro

This guide will help students prepare their research proposal for HUMA 2400: Research Methods & the Humanities of Love, Hatred, Life & Death by doing reserach in the areas of anthropolofy, linguistics, or literature.

Introduction

This guide is created to be a resource to you as you work on your Research proposal assignment for HUMA 2400, in particular the third task, the Literature review.

It will also introduce you to skills and habits on how to become familiar with new scholarly areas

Your professors have divided the task into 5 parts:

  1. Statement of Purpose – Main research question under a broader topic
  2. Research Questions – The building blocks for a research framework to address the main question
  3. Literature Review – Review of the previous scholarship on the subject
  4. Research Methodology – Methodologies applied to answer each research questions
  5. Statement of Significance – What is potential contribution of the proposed study

 

Literature Review - Definition

You select documents on the topic that contain information, ideas, data, & evidence

You write it from specific standpoints - express views on the nature of the topic & how you will investigate the topic or question(s)

You effectively evaluate  (appraise critically, not just summarize) the documents you selected in relation to the research you propose.

(Hart 1998, p.13)

Scholarship

Scholarship as an activity = thinking systematically

  • Systematic questioning
  • Searching
  • Looking  deep and long =  Scrutinizing -   詳細地檢查

Integration (making intellectual connections) between  ideas, theories, & experience = key to good scholarship

  • Applying a method from one area to another
  • Place a situation or phenomenon into larger theoretical framework
    • Drawing elements from different theories into a synthesis
    • Make new insight
  • Re-examine existing knowledge based on new or more recent development

(Hart 1998, p 8-9)

Literature Review - Purpose

  • Demonstrate your skills in library (research literature) searching
  • Show your command of the subject area ("I know my stuff!")
  • Show you understand the research problem
  • Justify your
    • research topic
    • research design
    • research methodology

(Hart 1998, p. 13)

Questions your Literature Review can answer about your topic

  • Key concepts and theories & ideas?
  • Main questions & problems answered up to now?
  • Major issues & debates?
  • Origins of the topic?
  • In what ways has the topic been defined or limited?
  • Key sources (authors, books, articles, data, etc.?)

(Hart 1998, p. 14)

Research Apprentice - 學徒,徒弟,見習生

Scholarship  has many sub-disciplines and methods - but has some core skills,  attitudes & abilities . As an apprentice scholar you are learning to...

  • Integrate theory & method:
    • Understand the relationship between   theory, method, & research design and practical skills & particular methods
    • Understand the knowledge base of your discipline
    • Understand your disciplines methodological foundations

(Hart, 1998, p. 5)

References

Hart, Chris. Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Social Science Research Imagination. London: Sage, 1998.  (HKUST Library H62 .H2566 1998)

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