The 'Backwards' Research Guide for Writers - Using your Life for Reflection, Connection, and Inspiration - Sonya Huber

The 'Backwards' Research Guide for Writers - Using your Life for Reflection, Connection, and Inspiration - Sonya Huber

12. Twists and Turns in the Research Story

The 'Backwards' Research Guide for Writers - Using your Life for Reflection, Connection, and Inspiration - Sonya Huber

Sonya Huber [+-]
Fairfield University
Sonya Huber is an Assistant Professor teaching creative writing and composition at Fairfield University, Connecticut (USA). Her background includes sociology/anthropology at Carleton University, an M.A. in journalism, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from The Ohio State University. Among her many publications in a wide variety of genres are the books Opa Nobody and Cover Me, A Health Insurance Memoir, both with the University of Nebraska Press; articles in Psychology Today, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Sojourner; and creative writing in Literary Mama and Fourth Genre.

Description

A research project might begin and end within a few weeks, and when you are done it might be out of your life forever. Some topics, however, might have such a personal resonance or evoke such deep interest that you find yourself haunted, touched, or changed by the act of research. Maybe you begin researching a topic – tornadoes, for example. As soon as you become immersed, the topic also seems to crop up in your non-research life. You meet someone at the Laundromat whose house was destroyed by a tornado. Then the following week three tornadoes sweep across the areas where you live. You flip through a magazine in a doctor’s office and find the perfect tornado article. What is going on? In the search for a true research obsession, you are opening yourself up to change. It’s like opening a window – there’s no telling what will fly in and make itself at home. In a way, the openness of curiosity creates vulnerability, and this vulnerability begins a story with an unpredictable ending.

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Citation

Huber, Sonya. 12. Twists and Turns in the Research Story. The 'Backwards' Research Guide for Writers - Using your Life for Reflection, Connection, and Inspiration. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 245 - 266 Nov 2011. ISBN 9781845534424. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=19623. Date accessed: 28 Mar 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.19623. Nov 2011

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