Clarifying the Motivation behind Your Research

Clarifying the Motivation behind Your Research
Every scholar knows that an abiding passion for a topic and a deep immersion in a research project are central to progressing in innovative ways, producing excellent results and analysing them in sophisticated and meaningful ways. However, one of the hazards of being so completely involved in your work is that its value is obvious to you – there is and should be absolutely no doubt that the research is valuable and must be done. The problem is that when the motivation behind your work is so obvious and a product of so many different influences and factors encountered over a few or even several years, it becomes difficult to see clearly just how important it is to explain that motivation to your readers and even more difficult to come up with explanations that will be thorough but succinct and irresistibly engaging for all of your anticipated readers.

The reasons why your research is important and worth doing should be introduced at the very beginning of your scholarly document to establish the context of your work, explain the problem or phenomenon you are investigating and hook your reader. From your perspective the fact that every great mind working in your field over the last 100 years has researched the problem and written about it may deserve prioritisation. Specialists in your subject area might agree and may not be put off by opening lines that emphasise this important fact. On the other hand, scholarly readers who do not specialise in your field, along with more general lay readers will very likely not find such sentences nearly as engaging and may even stop reading with the assumption that you are more interested in surveying the literature already published than conducting new research and reporting its groundbreaking results. Beginning with the revelation that the problem you are investigating affects seven million children in your country and many more around the world, endangering their health and development and potentially compromising their happiness and ability to function as contributing members of society, will interest far more readers. You can then point out as a natural progression of that first gripping statement that the enormous impact of the problem has inspired the greatest minds in your field to investigate why it occurs and how it might be prevented or the damage repaired.

The stage will then be set for explaining why your research methodology is innovative in ways that examine the phenomenon from a different perspective and not only reveal a new understanding of the problem, but also suggest new ways to prevent or resolve it or treat and improve the lives of those who suffer from it. This is to say that your readers will care about the matter because you have given them the information they needed to understand the consequences of the problem for those affected and therefore your research motivation. They will be motivated too, perhaps not as profoundly or in the same ways as you are, but certainly motivated enough to continue reading and find out more about the problem, how you explored it and what you discovered to make such an enormous difference in the lives of so many children.

Anticipating the varying needs and interests of your potential readers in this way is tantamount to putting your feet in their shoes, even when the fit may be inaccurate and a little uncomfortable at first. One of the fascinating things about this process is that it can also place the feet of your readers into your shoes – the professional shoes you wear while conducting your research. They will be able to empathise with your perspective and appreciate your hard work on behalf of so many. They will, that is, become more sympathetic readers, and sympathetic readers are the best kind of reward for any scholarly author.