Methods of Research Midterm Exam: Answers

- The Poetry of John Keats. Too general. A more specific topic is needed. Suggestions: (a) Greek Mythology in the Poetry of John Keats

(b) Recurrent Images in Keats’s Poetry

- Modern English Literature. Too grandiose. It can be made more manageable as follows: (a) The Image of the Arab in English Literature

(b) Jerusalem in English Literature

- Dreams in Romantic Poetry. This is a manageable topic. It can be limited further by concentrating on one poet such as Keats or Shelley

- The Present Tense in English and Arabic. Manageable

- Comparative Literature. Too general. Can be narrowed down to something like:

(a) The Influence of English Poetry on Modern Arabic Poetry

(b) A Comparative Study of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Tayyib Salih’s Season of Migration to the North

The components of a good definition are three: (1) the subject to be defined (definiendum), (2) the class to which it belongs, and (3) the distinctive features that distinguish it from the rest of its class (differentiae).

- An Arab is anyone who speaks Arabic. This is a bad definition; no class is given.

- Home is where the heart is. This is a bad definition. Neither class nor distinctive features are given.

- A periodical is a publication that appears at regular intervals and deal with a special area of research. A good definition. All components are present.

- Linguistics is a modern science. A bad definition. No distinctive features are given.

- Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recollected in tranquility. A bad definition. No class; no distinctive features. Remember: Poetry is not a feeling; it is a verbal art.

A thesis statement is a concisely expressed statement that points out a research problem and a position held by the research regarding this problem (further elaborations may be found in the textbook, pp. 29-31).

- Arabic is much more difficult to learn than English. This is a subjective statement. All Arab children learn it without any difficulty.

- Arabic shares many linguistic features with Hebrew. This is a statement of fact as both Arabic and Hebrew are Semitic languages.

- Arabic dictionaries are no longer helpful as tools of linguistic research. This is a good thesis because the concentration in it is on linguistic research. Linguistic research can touch on a host of issues that can be shown not be covered by existing Arabic dictionaries. Besides, we do not have a historical dictionary to help in tracing the development of meanings and usage.

- Arabic is the language of the Holy Qur’an. This is a statement of fact.

- Translation is enriching Arabic but is also introducing new modes of expression. This is a good thesis statement. The research promises to show how translation is influencing Arabic in terms of lexis and structure.

Arranged in ascending order (from the least to the most reliable), the items mentioned will take the following order:

1. Newspaper article

2. Trade book

3. Sponsored web site

4. Biography

5. Scholarly article

However, because the textbook places biography higher, transposing the last two will also be considered correct.

- A review of literature is a survey of studies that deal with the topic the researcher wants to pursue. The purpose of this review is to show that the researcher is familiar with what has been done by previous studies and also to show where this previous research has gone wrong or has not covered the field. In a sense this review of literature tries to justify the researchers choice of topic and to show that he has something to offer.

- Primary sources are the texts that the researcher wants to study. If he wants to study T. S. Eliot, his primary sources will be the writings of Eliot himself. If he wants to study the Qur’an, the primary text will by the Qur’an itself. These sources are to be understood in contrast with the secondary sources. The secondary sources in the case of Eliot will be the books and articles written by others. In the case of the Qur’an, the secondary sourceswill be all available books and articles written by human beings to study aspects of the Holy Book.

-Abstract: This is a condensed summary of an article, an MA thesis, or Ph.D. dissertation. It is written in concise language (up to 500 words) for the benefit of those who are doing research and who want to have a clear idea of what they can expect to find in the abstracted research. A good abstract includes an exposé of the research problem and a summary of the findings..

- A paradigm is a model or bare-bone structure that can be fleshed out by the researcher according to the requirement of his or her discipline. It can help the researcher to see how the research will be structured.

- A search engine is a research tool like Yahoo.com or Google.com, which can help researchers to locate useful websites to use in their research.

- Identifying the audience determines the position of the researcher and the language and the kind of detail to use. An audience of scholars expects scholarly treatment of a topic. A general audience does not expect too many technicalities. Books for teenagers or children are geared to their mentalities in terms of subject matter and language.

- A working bibliography is a relatively short bibliography with which you can begin your research. You assume that some of the references you have been able to find are relevant to your topic. Later you may find that some of them are you useless, and so you drop them. In the process of research you will find many more sources that you will have to take into account. Thus, a working bibliography is what you start with, but you end by having a list of Works Cited. A bibliography proper is no longer compiled by MA students but by scholars working as bibliographers.

An index may be as simple as a list of names or topics at the end of a book, but more importantly for research, it is a reference book dealing with an area of research like the humanities or dram or music. See for example pp. 40 ff in the textbook.

- Books in Print is the name of a book that lists all books that are still in print (i.e,, they are not out of print; you can still obtain them from their publishers). The importance of this book for research is that it is published in three different arrangements: (1) according to title (if you know the title of a book, you can check whether it is still in print), (2) according to author (if you know the author but not the title, you can find out if the book is available), and (3) according to subject (if you know the subject but not the authors or title, this index will help you to find something relevant to your subject).

- Modes of development are the ways you can deal with your topic. You may use comparison and contrast, process, cause and effect, etc., in accordance with what is most suitable for the topic in hand.

On this see pp. 65-66 in the textbook.