“Those acts of noticing are intrinsically introspective.” ~ Tom Mullaney

Where does research begin?

Tom Mullaney and Christoper Rae say it starts way before we think it does.

Their book, Where Research Begins: Choosing a Research Project That Matters to You (and the World) is a remarkable book — a workbook, really.

It provides a curiosity-informed, generative process for finding and really understanding the questions underlying anything you might want to learn more about.

A read both rigorous and delightful – I recommend it!

Tom Mullaney is a Professor of Chinese History at Stanford University, a Guggenheim Fellow, and co-author of Where Research Begins. We had a great time digging into their curiosity practices…

If you can stay in that place…the questions you come out with at the end are orders of magnitude better than if you just skip the introspective part and start writing a paper.

Listen to Choose to be Curious #195: Where Research Begins, with Tom Mullaney

I’m going to be playing with replacing variables for some time to come — and thinking about how to build my problem collective. 

Where do you think you might find your problem collective?

Learn more about Tom Mullaney here – and check out Where Research Begins.

Theme music by Sean Balick. “Distill” by Darby, via Blue Dot Sessions.

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