Your research efforts will be more focused and more productive if you consciously identify the goals you are working towards. You may be trying to create masterworks for your own personal use and enjoyment, to inspire the broader populace about your topic of interest, or to develop a comprehensive curriculum to be used in scholas, universities, or practices. These are all worthy goals, but your efforts and focus would be different for each one.
High-Level Goals: Why, What, When and Where
Why are you pursuing this research? Is this a topic you have a deep and abiding interest in, that you want to explore in as much depth as possible? Or do you just want something suitable for a themed A&S competition that’s coming up? Any honest answer is fine; we are amateurs, and we do this because we want to, not because we’re paid to. When you know why you’re doing something, you can better scale how much time and effort you want to put into it.
What do you envision your “end” result being? I put “end” in quotes because often there isn’t really an end; there’s just more research. (Yay! More things to learn!) But envision yourself as wildly successful in your research. How do you know you’ve done well? Are you an expert on a given topic, lecturing to an eager class of University students? Can you whip up an entire beginner’s kit for the chatelaine for $10? Have you started a business marketing your wares? Did you win a competition? Preparing for life as a Modern Medieval entrepreneur will be very different from preparing to showcase your A&S work to its best advantage.
When and where are you interested in? Do you want to research broadly or deeply? It’s a common pattern to start out broadly but shallowly, then narrow and deepen as you find your favorite interests. But if you want to leap from interesting shiny topic to shiny topic, that’s perfectly fine. Just be aware of how that is, or is not, going to help you get to your “what.”
Low-Level Goals: Your Research Plan
So you’ve identified your high-level goals, your hopes and dreams for what you’ll have done “one day.” What are you going to do today that will get you there?
A research plan is an outline of activities that you will perform to move you towards your higher goals. It doesn’t have to be a comprehensive five-year plan that moves you from novice to Laurel in one fell swoop; in fact, it’ll almost certainly be better if it’s not. But it should take you from today to some identifiable future point that is a step in the direction you want to go.
Banish the words “better” and “more” from your goal-setting vocabulary. They are vague and unhelpful. “I will learn more songs.” “I will practice my calligraphy more.” “I will get better at embroidery.” How do you know when you’ve learned “more”? How much improvement from your current skill level is “better”?
Goals must be measurable. Instead of the fuzzy goals statements above, consider these: “I will learn six new songs.” “I will write out a calligraphic alphabet once a day, five days a week, for a month.” “I will practice chain-stitching until it looks even and I don’t have those little nubs sticking out anymore.” You know when you’ve achieved those goals.
And they suggest where to go once you’ve achieved them. Once your chain-stitch is even, then what? Is it time to begin embroidering your garb? Or did you want to add beading to it? Your embroidery is getting “better” but you are being specific about how it is getting better, which lets you actually focus on particular issues and improve them.
Goals should be challenging but not impossible. If your goals are too easy, you're not really growing much. If your goals are too hard, you will always fail to achieve them and that's discouraging.
Take practicing as an example. Many arts have techniques that are improved by frequent, repetitive practice. Most of us don't enjoy practicing all that much, but we know we should do it. In an effort to improve our work, we set a goal: To practice every day for thirty minutes.
But for most of us, that's an invitation to failure. Most weeks, something will come up. There will be overtime at work, or you will get sick, or spend all day driving to Thanksgiving dinner at your aunt's in Ohio. Accept this as your reality. Decide to practice N days a week, where N is probably more than 1 but is less than 7, or practice for 3.5 hours a week, so if you miss one thirty-minute session you can add fifteen minutes to two other sessions later.
Goals should have a time limit on them. Deadlines are motivators. The SCA gives a wonderful array of possible deadlines - different events, competitions, classes, exhibitions. Write down your deadlines, or tell someone about them, so you have a feeling of accountability.
Goals should be "right sized". You want to break your research plan down into chunks that you can actually handle in the now timeframe, not the someday timeframe. Keep setting smaller and smaller goals until you find one that you feel comfortable committing to finishing by, say, the end of the week. This week.
The exact selection of your subgoals is going to depend on your field, your resources, and your "why." You may have:
- An Internet search
- A literature search. (This is what most people think of as "research.")
- A trip to a museum to view physical artifacts
- Conversations with other researchers (Scadian and mundane!)
- A period of practice where you perfect a new technique
- A period of synthesis where you bring several kinds of techniques or knowledge together. This is what most people think of as "an A&S project."
- Writing up your results, also known as documentation.
- Sharing your results, in an A&S competition, in a newsletter article, or as a class
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