Mapping

The goal of mapping is the same as for phase C. The idea is to do mapping before you have a coherent overall research design and overall argument.

Step 1 (opening wide)
Start in the center of a large sheet of paper with the issue that concerns you. You may want to know more about it, advocate a change, design a curriculum unit or a workshop, and so on.
Draw connections to related considerations and other issues. (Post-its are useful, so you can move things around.)
To tease out connections, you might want to start with a dump-sheet (or stack of post-its) in which you address the questions below. Alternatively, you may simply allow yourself to brainstorm (i.e., putting down everything that comes to mind without stopping to consider its relevance).

Step 2 (opening wide & beginning to focus in)
Color coding or symbols you invent will allow you to take note of patterns in the connections and their significance to you. You may even rearrange the connections and redraw the map. Then explain the map to someone else, inviting them to

• ask questions with a view to getting clear about your issue, who you want to reach, and what would be involved in influencing that audience (see Phase A), and
• probe with the same set of questions listed below.

The interaction between the mapper and the questioner(s) should expose many additional questions that need research (or sub-projects), force greater clarity in definitions of terms and categories, and help you see how to frame your inquiries so they satisfy your interests yet do not expand out of control.

Step 3 (focus in & formulate)
Out of this interaction you should eventually see an aspect of the map's complexity that engages you most. Or, to introduce another image, you define a path to move through the complexity, but can look to the side from time to time so you do not lose sight of the wider terrain. You should also be able to define or refine the Governing Question that conveys what you need to research (and what you no longer need to research).
E.g., for a map of research on the color of hospital rooms, the question might be: "What research needs to be done to convince hospital designers and administrators that room color is one of the environmental features that can contribute to patient healing?" Use free-writing after mapping to help define such a question for yourself.

Questions for opening wide and for probing

• Where is this an issue—where is the controversy happening?
• Who are the different groups implicated?
• What changes could be promoted?
• What are arguments for change for the change & counter-arguments.
• What categories of things (and sub-categories) are involved in your subject?
• What definitions are involved?
• What related questions have other people investigated?
• Where is there a need for primary vs. secondary research?
• What is the general area & what are specific questions?
• What are the background vs. focal issues?
• What is your provisional proposal?
• What are the research holes that need to be filled?
• What would I be able to do with that additional knowledge?
• What ambiguity emerges in all this—what tensions and oppositions?