ABSTRACT
In this and the following chapters I intend to consider the problems of the research paper in the order in which they present themselves to the student. The first-and, to my mind, by far the greatest-problem is the choice of subject and, more particularly, of title. The general area of study is hardly a problem. A field of study, such as the 1914-18 poets, or trade unions, or the psychology of aesthetics, is selected or assigned. Three thousand words, say, have to be written on a topic in which the student is presumably interested. But at this stage the student is nowhere near fixing a title for the paper. It is clear that Trade Unions’, for example, is unacceptable as a title. It is far too broad. The topic will have to be defined and limited after some preliminary reading, preferably in consultation with the student’s supervisor. Even then the title may well have to remain provisional. Suppose one originally started with the vague idea of ‘Trade Unions’, and, after some preliminary reading, reduced it by stages to ‘Trade Union Attitudes in the 1990s’. Even this might, on further reading, prove to be too broad a topic to handle adequately within the limits of the paper. One might well finish up with ‘Trade Union Attitudes to the Euro’. The subject is becoming more focused and does promise to deliver some specific goods.
