Chapter 6: Designing a Research and Evidence Strategy

Research the Claim, Not Just the Topic

Begin with the claims your manuscript proposes to make. For each, identify the evidence required, where it could be obtained, how it would be checked, and what finding would weaken your position. This keeps research from becoming a collection of material that happens to agree with the pitch.

Fictional teaching case: The campus-transit records and outlet briefs in Chapter 1 are invented practice material. They are not publishable evidence or real submission policies.

Match Each Question to a Method

To establish a change in recorded trips, inspect the counting method and comparable periods behind Record A. To describe scheduled late-class access, compare timetable departures with relevant class ending times. To understand lived experience, a real project might require interviews or a suitably designed study; the twenty voluntary responses cannot represent the whole campus by assertion.

To claim that the service change caused increased use, the simple before-and-after count is insufficient on its own. The plan must address alternative explanations and the design needed to distinguish them. If that work is outside the project’s scope, narrow the claim instead of labelling the existing count “proof.”

Plan Verification and Access

A public reporting plan can list records to authenticate, people to approach, questions to ask, and assertions to put to relevant parties. Do not describe an interview as completed until it has happened. A scholarly plan also needs the appropriate method, data handling, and any institutional or research-ethics requirements that apply to the actual work. Resolve those with the relevant institution before collecting material that depends on them.

Keep a stopping rule tied to the question. “I have ten sources” says little about adequacy. “Each central claim has suitable evidence, relevant alternatives have been examined, and remaining limits are explicit” is a more useful draft-readiness test. It does not replace independent review.

Try It Yourself

Make three evidence-plan entries: the boarding increase, the scheduling mismatch, and the scale of unmet demand. For each, name the current evidence, missing information, verification task, and decision if that information cannot be obtained. The last claim should remain unresolved with this dossier.

Check Your Work

Are your methods capable of answering your questions? Have you planned to seek contrary evidence? Does your schedule include verification and revision? Mark unavailable evidence as missing rather than substituting a confident sentence.