POLI 2P80 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Literature Review, Falsifiability, Dependent And Independent Variables

• School: Brock University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLI 2P80
• Professor: Brad Walchuk

Document Summary

Often, topics are assigned to us, or we have a choice from a limited number or options. In the real world, our employer may assign a topic to us, or we may have the luxury of selecting our own topic. Topics should appear as a collection (ex/ multiple cases) and be observable and somehow measureable. A single case study of an important case may also be worthy. We need to be able to turn a broad topic into a more narrow, manageable research question . Our topic should be narrowed to a specific question that, ideally, we can provide some insight/answers. We should also select something new why waste our time answering a question that already has a clear and accepted answer. This is not possible without conducting a literature review. After we have selected a topic and have a question in mind, we need to be familiar with the existing literature on the topic.