1
00:00:00,420 --> 00:00:03,650
OK so now you know the qualities of an effective research paper.

2
00:00:03,750 --> 00:00:06,260
But how do you make your paper compelling?

3
00:00:06,360 --> 00:00:10,040
And the first thing that I would recommend you look at is your research question.

4
00:00:10,110 --> 00:00:15,180
You can make your research a lot stronger simply by fine tuning your research question before you even

5
00:00:15,180 --> 00:00:16,350
started writing.

6
00:00:16,350 --> 00:00:22,170
So suppose that your findings are not exactly what you want them to be.... which is very often right? And

7
00:00:22,170 --> 00:00:25,480
that you just can't give a compelling answer to your question.

8
00:00:25,560 --> 00:00:30,180
In that case, I recommend that you ask yourself: which question CAN you answer?

9
00:00:30,180 --> 00:00:36,240
Or put differently, what conclusion CAN you draw from your findings? And the conclusion that you CAN draw

10
00:00:36,330 --> 00:00:38,620
should determine your research question.

11
00:00:38,640 --> 00:00:44,520
So let me give you an example for that. I once conducted a research project in social psychology and

12
00:00:44,520 --> 00:00:49,650
I was interested in the question whether when we look at another person's face we automatically judge

13
00:00:49,650 --> 00:00:52,440
how trustworthy that person looks based on the face.

14
00:00:53,010 --> 00:00:58,970
So for example, most people when they look at Elia Wood have the feeling that he looks relatively trustworthy.

15
00:00:59,550 --> 00:01:04,950
But most people if they look at Jack Nicholson get the feeling that he doesn't look trustworthy at all.

16
00:01:05,190 --> 00:01:09,960
And my research question was: do people make these judgments automatically when they look at another

17
00:01:09,960 --> 00:01:11,250
person's face?

18
00:01:11,310 --> 00:01:13,680
So I conducted some research to answer that question.

19
00:01:13,710 --> 00:01:19,650
And when I presented my research to my colleagues they said: "You cannot conclude from your findings

20
00:01:20,040 --> 00:01:24,150
that people automatically form trustworthiness impressions from faces."

21
00:01:24,210 --> 00:01:26,110
And I realized that they were right.

22
00:01:26,130 --> 00:01:28,620
And so there was no point in arguing for me.

23
00:01:28,650 --> 00:01:33,990
And so what we did instead is: we changed the research question. Because we realized that even though

24
00:01:33,990 --> 00:01:39,660
we cannot conclude that people form these impressions AUTOMATICALLY, we can conclude that people form

25
00:01:39,660 --> 00:01:41,470
them SPONTANEOUSLY.

26
00:01:41,520 --> 00:01:46,590
And the difference is that when I say "automatic", I mean that people do it kind of without thinking about

27
00:01:46,590 --> 00:01:51,630
it; without making the conscious decision to form these impressions while what my research really showed

28
00:01:51,630 --> 00:01:53,350
is that people do it

29
00:01:53,610 --> 00:01:57,810
but we don't really know HOW they do it: whether it's something automatic or whether it's their conscious

30
00:01:57,810 --> 00:01:59,300
decision to do it.

31
00:01:59,400 --> 00:02:04,560
And so by changing the word "automatic" to "spontaneous" we accounted for that limitation.

32
00:02:05,000 --> 00:02:09,750
And once we changed the research question to whether people SPONTANEOUSLY form trustworthiness impressions

33
00:02:09,750 --> 00:02:13,640
from faces, I never heard the same criticism again.

34
00:02:13,680 --> 00:02:18,240
So one of the most powerful things you can do before you even start writing is to fine tune your research

35
00:02:18,240 --> 00:02:20,820
question so that you can give a compelling answer.

36
00:02:21,500 --> 00:02:26,490
And when you do that you will typically have to balance between two things. On the one hand, you want

37
00:02:26,490 --> 00:02:32,200
to keep your question interesting but on the other hand you want to be able to give a compelling answer.

38
00:02:32,460 --> 00:02:37,470
And as a rule of thumb, the more interesting the question is the harder it is to give a compelling answer.

39
00:02:37,560 --> 00:02:42,510
And the goal should be to find the sweet spot where your question is still interesting but you're also

40
00:02:42,510 --> 00:02:44,840
able to give a compelling answer.

41
00:02:44,850 --> 00:02:45,110
All right.

42
00:02:45,120 --> 00:02:49,410
So the key lessons of this lecture are: 1. To make your research compelling

43
00:02:49,410 --> 00:02:52,620
choose a research question that fits to your findings.

44
00:02:52,620 --> 00:02:58,560
2. Try to find a balance between making your question interesting and you answer compelling.

45
00:02:58,560 --> 00:02:58,890
All right.

46
00:02:58,900 --> 00:02:59,970
I see you in the next lecture.