a bathroom sink

In the chapter, I like how Badke use the analogy about “a bathtub with a gallon of water in it as opposed to a bathroom sink with a gallon of water in it (Badke pg19)”to illustrate that we need a narrow aspect to get some depth into our research. I always have trouble figuring out how broad or how specific my topic should be. There are so many things I want to talk about but then everything seems so superficial. Badke did really answer my question here. To focus.
One of the worst thing that could happen when we write our research is when we don’t have a clue about where to start and what to do. For me, I often start a paper panicking (and for most of the time without even fully understand what the topic really is about). All I would do is waste my time gather all the information I think are related to the topic and eventually get myself nowhere but frustration.
Here Badke provide a good way to start a research by getting a working knowledge of the topic (Badke pg21). I have never thought of something like a “working knowledge” to start my research, which I think would be a very helpful tactic. How it works is like what our elementary teacher always told us to write down Who, What, When, Where, Why about stories we just read. It gives the basic understanding of the story (our topic) and also give us a clear direction to develop research questions (which Badke mention in the book as the next step in writing a research paper) After all, a research is not just gather data and information, but use information as a tool to solve a problem or deal with an issue.