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Course 23 · Lesson 1.1

What research is and what a scholarly paper is for

12 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 23 outline

Module 1: How Research Works

  1. What research is and what a scholarly paper is for
  2. From topic to question: writing a research question that can be answered
  3. The working thesis and how it changes as research develops
  4. Taking notes, recording sources and organizing a project
  5. Academic integrity: quotation, paraphrase and plagiarism

Module 2: Primary and Secondary Sources

  1. Primary and secondary sources in theology and church history
  2. Source criticism: author, date, audience, purpose and transmission
  3. Translations, editions and the problem of reading ancient texts in English
  4. Judging the reliability of a source, including websites and popular books

Module 3: Finding and Reading Scholarship

  1. How peer review works and what it does not guarantee
  2. Finding articles, books and reference works with free and library tools
  3. Reading a scholarly work efficiently and critically
  4. Writing a literature review: summarizing a debate

Module 4: Citation

  1. Chicago notes and bibliography: books, articles and chapters
  2. Citing the Fathers, councils, creeds and online sources
  3. Biblical citation conventions: books, abbreviations, versions and numbering
  4. Managing a bibliography and checking citations

Module 5: Evaluating Arguments and Bias

  1. The anatomy of an argument: claim, evidence, assumption and conclusion
  2. Common fallacies and weak arguments in theological writing
  3. Identifying bias in sources: confessional, ideological and commercial
  4. Confirmation bias in your own work, and ways to reduce it

Module 6: Constructing Arguments and Writing

  1. Building a theological argument from Scripture, tradition and reason
  2. Outlining and drafting a research paper
  3. Clear analytical prose: paragraphs, transitions and plain language
  4. Revising, editing and checking quotations and facts

All courses

Program / Course 23: Research Methodology / Lesson 1.1

What you will learn

  • Define research as the disciplined search for an answer to a question, and tell it apart from collecting facts or confirming what you already believe.
  • Describe the main stages of a research project from question to finished paper.
  • Explain what a scholarly paper contributes to a conversation that began before the writer arrived.
  • Recognize why research in theology and church history calls for both care with evidence and respect for the subject.

The big idea

Research is the disciplined search for an answer to a question, using evidence that other people can check. It differs from collecting facts, which has no question, and from defending a position, which has already decided the answer. A scholarly paper reports the search: what was asked, what sources were found, how they were weighed, and what follows. Its value is that a careful reader can follow each step, test it, and reach a fair judgment about whether the conclusion stands.

Key terms

Research
A planned search for an answer to a question, using evidence that others can examine and test.
Source
Anything from which you learn evidence: a book, an article, a letter, a council’s decrees, a creed, a manuscript or a reference work.
Evidence
Information that gives a reason to accept or doubt a claim. A claim without evidence is only an opinion.
Claim
A statement that something is true. A research paper is built from claims, each supported by evidence.
Scholarly conversation
The ongoing discussion among researchers of a subject, carried on in books, articles and reviews over many years.
Citation
A note that tells the reader exactly where a fact, idea or quotation came from, so that it can be found and checked.
Argument
A conclusion together with the reasons and evidence offered for it. In scholarship the word does not mean a quarrel.
Bibliography
A list of the works used in a project, with full publication details.

Background

People have always asked questions about the past and about God, and have always had to decide whom to believe. Luke begins his Gospel by saying that he has “had perfect understanding of all things from the very first” and wishes to write “in order” so that his reader may know the certainty of what he has been taught (Luke 1:3-4). Whatever one believes about that Gospel, the passage shows a writer who investigates, arranges and reports. The modern research paper belongs to the same family of habits, though it has more formal rules.

Today the habits of research are taught in universities, seminaries and schools of every kind. Their core is simple. Ask a question. Gather evidence from sources. Weigh the evidence. State a conclusion and show how you reached it. Then let others check you. A paper is the written form of this process. It is not a pile of quotations and not an opinion essay. It is a report of an investigation, shaped so that the reader can follow the steps and judge them.

Research in theology and church history has special features. Many of the sources are old and written in other languages, so most students read them in translation. The subjects matter deeply to believers, which makes fairness hard and important. Different churches also read the same evidence differently. A Catholic, an Orthodox and a Protestant scholar may agree on what a second century letter says and still disagree on what it means for later doctrine. Good research shows its evidence openly so that readers of any tradition can see where the agreement ends and the interpretation begins.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Start with a question, not a conclusion

Research begins with something you do not yet know. The question might be historical (What did the Council of Nicaea decide about the date of Easter?), textual (How do the manuscripts differ at this verse?) or interpretive (How did Augustine understand the phrase ‘original sin’?). A question has an answer you can look for. A statement of belief does not.

A student who starts with a conclusion usually collects only the evidence that fits. That is advocacy, which has its place, but it is not research. The discipline of research is that the answer is allowed to surprise you.

Step 2: Find and read sources

Sources are of two broad kinds. Primary sources come from the time and people you study, such as the letters of Ignatius or the decrees of a council. Secondary sources are later works that explain or interpret them, such as a scholar’s book on Ignatius. Later lessons treat both in detail.

Reading is not the same as collecting. For each source you ask who wrote it, why, and how much it can show. A confident website and a careful scholarly article are not equally reliable, and research includes learning to tell them apart.

Step 3: Weigh the evidence and form an answer

Evidence has to be weighed. Some sources are early and close to the events, others late. Some agree with each other and some conflict. You compare, you note what is certain, what is probable and what is only possible, and you work out which answer the evidence best supports.

Honest researchers say how strong the evidence is. ‘The sources show’ is a stronger claim than ‘the sources suggest’, and ‘it is possible that’ is weaker still. Using these phrases accurately is part of the craft.

Step 4: Write it up so others can check it

The paper puts the question, the evidence and the reasoning on the page in an order the reader can follow. Every borrowed fact, idea or quotation gets a citation. The aim is that a stranger could take your footnotes, find your sources and judge whether you read them fairly.

This is why scholarly writing can feel plain and heavily documented. It is not trying to dazzle. It is trying to be checkable.

Step 5: Join the conversation, and accept correction

No researcher starts from nothing. Others have asked related questions, and a good paper says how its answer relates to theirs: it agrees, adds to, corrects or disputes. After publication, other scholars respond. Over years the conversation corrects mistakes and refines conclusions.

A beginner’s paper will not change the field, and does not need to. Its purpose is to show that you can ask a clear question, use sources responsibly and reason in the open. That is the skill the rest of the course builds.

  1. What exactly am I trying to find out, and could I be wrong?
  2. Would I still be asking this question if I knew the answer would disagree with my tradition?
  3. What sources would count as good evidence for this question?
  4. Who has already written about this, and what did they conclude?
  5. How will a reader be able to check what I say?
  6. What would I do if the evidence pointed away from what I hoped to find?

Examples

Collecting facts

A student gathers thirty quotations about baptism from the first three centuries and lists them in order. There is no question and no conclusion. The list may be useful to someone else, but it is not yet research. (A constructed example.)

Defending a position

A student sets out to prove that her own church has always taught a doctrine exactly as it is taught today, and discards sources that complicate the picture. The paper is full of citations, but the answer was fixed before the search began. (A constructed example.)

Research

A student asks, ‘How did Christians in the second century describe the Lord’s Supper, and how much did they differ?’ She reads the Didache, Justin Martyr and Ignatius, notes where they agree and differ, reads two modern scholars, and reports what she found, including what is unclear. (A constructed example.)

Different perspectives

Catholic

The Catholic Church holds that faith and reason are not enemies. In 1943 Pope Pius XII, in the encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu, encouraged Catholic scholars to study the original languages and the literary and historical setting of Scripture. Catholic scholars use the same methods of historical research as others, while accepting that the Church’s teaching authority has a role in interpreting Scripture and tradition.

Orthodox

Orthodox theologians generally treat the Fathers and the liturgy as a living witness, not only as historical documents. In the twentieth century Georges Florovsky called for a return to the Fathers, and Orthodox scholars have produced serious historical and textual work. For many of them the research and the life of the Church belong together, and scholarship serves understanding of the Church’s faith.

Protestant

The Reformation drew on the humanist call to return to the original sources. Erasmus published a printed Greek New Testament in 1516, and the Reformers prized close study of the biblical text in its languages. Many Protestants therefore value research as a way of hearing Scripture more accurately. They differ over how far historical criticism should shape belief, with some welcoming it and others using it cautiously.

Secular and academic scholarship

In the modern university, historians study religion by the same methods as any other subject. They ask what the evidence shows, and they set aside the question of whether a religion’s claims are true unless their field requires it. Many believing scholars work in this setting, and see no conflict between honest historical method and personal faith. Others find the method too limited for theology, and say so.

Jewish scholarship

Jewish scholars have a long tradition of careful study of texts, including commentary and debate over variant readings. In the nineteenth century the movement known as the Science of Judaism applied historical research to Jewish texts and history. Jewish and Christian scholars today often work on the same ancient sources and correct one another’s readings.

Why it matters

Everyone who reads about religion on the internet, in a book or from a pulpit is receiving the results of someone’s research, good or bad. Learning how research works lets you judge those claims instead of taking them on trust or rejecting them out of hand. It also lets you make your own claims honestly. For a believer, accurate work is a matter of truthfulness, which Scripture treats as a duty (Ephesians 4:25). For anyone, it is the difference between knowing something and merely repeating it.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Research means finding sources that prove my point.

Correction: Research means testing a question against evidence. If you collect only what supports your view, you learn nothing new and a careful reader will notice. The strongest papers deal openly with evidence that cuts against the author.

Misunderstanding: A scholarly paper is just a long summary of other people’s books.

Correction: A summary reports what others said. A paper asks a question and reaches an answer of its own, using others as evidence and as conversation partners. Summary may be part of the paper but is not the whole of it.

Misunderstanding: Citations are only a formality for teachers.

Correction: Citations let the reader check your work and give credit where it is owed. A paper without them cannot be tested. They are also a matter of honesty about where your ideas came from.

Misunderstanding: Doing real research means you must reject your faith, or must defend it.

Correction: Neither follows. Scholars of every conviction and none use the same methods. The method asks you to deal fairly with evidence, whatever your starting point.

Knowledge check

What is the difference between research and collecting facts?

Research begins with a question and moves toward an answer that the writer defends with evidence. Collecting facts only gathers information, with no question to organize it and no conclusion drawn. A list of quotations on baptism is a collection. A study that asks how second century writers described baptism, compares them and reports differences is research.

Name the main stages of a research project.

Ask a question, find and read sources, weigh the evidence, form an answer, write it up with citations so others can check it, and place it in conversation with other scholars. Real projects loop back, since new evidence may change the question or answer.

Why does a scholarly paper include citations?

Citations show where each fact, idea or quotation came from so the reader can find the source and check that it was used fairly. They also give credit to those whose work you used. Without them, the reader cannot test the paper and the writer risks presenting borrowed work as original.

Why can researchers from different traditions use the same methods?

The methods concern how to treat evidence: ask clear questions, read sources in context, weigh them, and report openly. These steps do not require a particular belief. Researchers may differ about what the evidence means for faith, but they can agree on what the text says and on how to check it.

Think it through

  1. Think of a claim about religion that you have read recently. Who researched it, and how could you check?
  2. Have you ever begun a project already sure of the answer? What happened to the evidence that did not fit?
  3. Luke says he investigated before writing. What does that suggest about the relation between faith and careful inquiry?
  4. What topic from your studies in this program would you like to research, and what question about it can you actually answer?

Independent assignment

Mapping a project

In your own notebook, write 300 to 500 words. Choose a topic from any course in this program. Write down one question about it that you do not yet know the answer to. List the kinds of sources that could answer it, and name the first three you would look at. Then describe, in your own words, how you would tell whether you had found an answer or only a collection of facts. Do not send this to anyone or post it anywhere.

Further study