Deciding What to Study
3.7 Narrow Versus Broad Focus
Some scholars will spend their entire careers within a single narrow area of study. For example, several scholars have spent their entire careers studying the US Congress – many of whom focus exclusively on just the House of Representa- tives. Furthermore, many scholars who focus on a narrow area of study also focus on a particular theoretical perspective. This often results in scholars spending much of their time defending their own theoretical perspective against critiques by others.
Other scholars do research in multiple subfields over the course of their ca- reers. I definitely fall into this second group. Each individual study might look quite different from the others, but hopefully there is something tying them to- gether. In my own case, I have done work on legislative behavior, campaigns and elections, voting behavior, and party polarization. In all of that work, there is a role for political parties. Hopefully, what I say about how political parties struc- ture the allocation of distributive policy benefits in Congress is consistent with what I say about the role of political parties in voting behavior, and so forth.
There are pros and cons to each approach. A person with a narrow focus has the opportunity to become a leading expert on their topic. However, if their par- ticular theoretical take on that topic falls out of favor, their work will get less attention. This probably explains why scholars of this type sometimes get de- fensive in response to criticism of their work. If scholars shift from testing their theory to defending it, they are moving away from the traditional conception of scientific research.
A person with a broad focus has the opportunity to make contributions to mul- tiple topics. However, they risk being seen as a minor contributor to any one area. They also open themselves up to potential contradictions within their own work. For example, a scholar might articulate an elite driven view of representation when studying Congress but a mass driven view when studying voter behavior.
Scholars in either tradition will constantly be pushed to think about the other end of the scholarly spectrum. For example, a person with a narrow focus will regularly be pressed to think about whether their research has any important im- plications for the general study of politics. At the same time, the person with broad interests will be pressed to express how their various research projects re- late to each other to comprise one or two broader research agendas.
The need to summarize your work and articulate your contribution will def- initely appear when you apply for jobs. It will also be necessary when you put together your materials for consideration for promotion and tenure. I do not think you should worry about this when you are generating research ideas, nor should it restrict your thinking. However, thinking in terms of your broader research agenda should help you think about how you can make each article you write more appealing to a wider audience, which is a good thing.
3.8 Conclusion
A PhD is a research degree, and an academic career means making research an important part of your professional life. Various chapters throughout this book provide lots of advice on conducting research, writing about it, and present- ing/publishing it. All of those aspects of research are skills that can be learned, and following the concrete advice offered throughout this book can make developing these skills sound almost formulaic.
Generating ideas for research is also a skill, but it is harder to write down a concrete formula for success for this task. Generating and developing good research ideas requires more creativity, insight, and cleverness than just about any other aspect of research. That makes generating ideas somewhat more challenging for many scholars, but I think it also makes this part of the research process the most interesting, exciting, and rewarding. I know many academics who describe their love for their work in terms of the joy they experience in playing with ideas. I equate this directly with the process of generating ideas for research.
Don’t let the challenge of developing interesting research ideas discourage you from trying. Keep reading, keep talking with colleagues and friends, and most importantly, keep writing about your ideas. You will learn through practice and repetition how to do this. Some students wonder how they will ever come up with one idea for a seminar paper or their dissertation – they can’t imagine coming up with enough ideas for their entire career. When I entered graduate school, I was so intimidated by the prospect of doing a dissertation that I simply chose not to think about it, trusting that I would know what to do when it was time. I learned what nearly every student learns – before long you find yourself with more ideas than you have time to pursue.2
The key is to avoid long stretches when you are not thinking about your re- search. Stay engaged with what you are reading and writing. Keep your mind open to possible ideas for papers. Keep a notebook, a document on your com- puter, or a list on your cell phone so you can easily jot down ideas that occur to you. You can worry about whether they are good ideas later – just get them down before you forget.
2Then the danger becomes enjoying the process of generating ideas and starting new projects
so much that you neglect finishing and publishing your research. Like in so many things, balance is key.
I think sometimes researchers, especially students, let their fear of failure pre- vent them from trying something in the first place. Some projects won’t work. That is just part of the research enterprise. Your job is to generate several ideas with the confidence that some of them will work out. While in graduate school, your advisors will help you sort out potentially good from potentially bad ideas. If you are in a good graduate program, you will have a lot of opportunities to develop this skill by writing many research papers, so by the time you are an assistant professor you will be pretty good at it yourself.