Invention Exercise 1

Curiosity and Inquiry
Pick a topic that interests you or one that you want to know more about.
For example, at the initial stages of research, you might choose a general topic like music, snowboarding, or tourism—or something more specific, like pharmaceutical advertising/marketing or life in 19th-century Washington DC. Without searching for any information on your subject, first brainstorm and write down what you know about your subject.
Some people like to make lists of the things they know about a topic, while others draw mindmaps or use clustering to help them think about the topic in relationship to other terms. You can also ask questions about a specific event or action. You might know, for example, that direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising is a relatively recent phenomenon or that tourism is really important to certain cities, towns, and communities. You might be able to list examples of pharmaceutical advertisements and the specific language used, or you may be able to make a list of communities or places that attract tourists. If you don’t have very much to say, that’s okay.
You’re just getting started. The idea is to start general and begin narrowing your topic down to a more specific one.

Generate a list of questions related to your topic.
See how many questions you can write. One way to elicit questions is to combine Burke’s pentad questions
with your own interests. Here’s an example of questions generated about tourism, specifically pertaining to Washington, DC. Can you come up with at least this many questions about your topic?

Questions about Washington, DC:

  • Why is Washington, DC such a popular tourist destination?
  • Are people really that interested in the history of our government?
  • What types of experiences did people have when they traveled to Washington, DC?
  • Are there things to do besides going to museums and seeing old buildings?
  • Who traveled to Washington, DC at different time periods?
  • Do people flock there because so many things have free admission?
  • What if the museums did charge an admissions fee; what affect would this have?
  • When did people start planning trips to the nation’s capital?
  • How did people get there in past centuries?
  • What were the external factors that contributed to such a movement?
  • What influence do tourists have on the economy of the community?
  • When did Washington, DC become the nation’s capital? Why was it chosen?
  • Who chose the monuments that would be displayed, for example, the Lincoln Memorial, Roosevelt Memorial?

Divide your list of questions into two categories:
Questions that can be answered through a series of activities like observation; artifact description, analysis, and interpretation; or interviews. (primary research)
Questions that can be answered by reading and reflecting on what answers others have said about your questions. (secondary research)

The first category of questions will involve primary investigation, and the second category is traditionally referred to as secondary research. Many of the questions in point 3 above fall within the second category and could probably be answered by consulting a reference book or personal accounts of the city. Some of the answers could be found fairly quickly online, but there are a couple of questions that could lead you to an archive, such as pictures of people visiting Washington, DC. You might also be able to find letters from a traveler who wrote back home about visiting the nation’s capitol or a president’s diary about the city. Taking a look at these artifacts (letters, diaries, commonplace books, etc.) constitutes primary research. However, remember that these two types of inquiry often come together at some point in learning about a topic or investigating an answer, especially when you cast and contextualize your findings for a specific audience.

Look back at your list, pick one of the questions from the first category and write down some ways you might answer this question. Where would you start? What materials would you need to investigate? Are there artifacts related to the topic that you can access?
Write a brief statement about your research question and how you plan to answer it.