Two original questions:
1. What role do television sitcoms play in people's lives?
2. Are boy and girl stereotypes inborn or learned characteristics?
Two revised questions:
1. How has the representation of television sitcom characters changed over time?
2. Should parents influence their children's actions, when based on boy/girl stereotypes?
After learning more about the characteristics a good inquiry-based research paper needs, I realized my questions needed to be revised in order to write a good paper. The first question I chose I thought was too broad and would lead to a paper without enough structure, so I changed it so that I have a more specific question to start with. My second question was basically the opposite. It seemed as though it would not provide enough information to write a long research paper and was too much of a straight-forward question. By adding the parent aspect, I think there will be more information to work with and will lead to a more interesting paper.
I am leaning towards writing my paper on my first question about television sitcoms, because I am quite interested in that topic and enjoy watching a variety sitcoms. I think researching the history of them will bring out a lot of interesting information about how sitcoms have changed over the years. It seems as though it will be easier for me to research that topic than my other choice.
Task Two:
Keywords, issues, ideas:
- Comedy
- Entertainment
- Influence on public
- Story lines in place, but laughter is always present
- Radio sitcoms
- Once-a-week programs
- Weight issue on children
An idea that seems very important is the comedic aspect, because almost every article I searched at some point mentioned the comedy that is always within sitcoms. The influence on the public also seems like something I should focus on. A lot of articles were actually more focused on that aspect of sitcoms, compared to the actual content of them. Using the above keywords and phrases will guide me into researching different parts of sitcoms and then allowing me to mesh them all together into a paper.
This initial search allowed me to see what the best way to approach writing a research paper on sitcoms would be. The influence on the public is something I realized should probably stay in my paper. I think the best way to approach this topic would be to consider two sides of sitcoms: the actual content of them and how they have changed through the decades, along with the influence on the public. Incorporating both my original question and my revised question into one would probably be the best option, resulting in something like this:
"How has the representation of television sitcom characters changed over time, and how has this influenced the public over the years?"
Tyler, Don't forget that this question still seems to look a lot like a history report. You seem to be looking for a list of facts/information, and then you're going to tell us what you found.
ReplyDeleteI would focus on specific sitcom characters, and how they are portrayed. For instance, look at the ways that sitcoms portray fathers, relationships, family life, etc. Otherwise, you'll be writing a report.
We can talk about this in more detail.