This post is a pointer. I am pointing you to an interesting space on the web that points to several more interesting points on the web. Is this opaque enough for you? I am always interested in research and research questions. I have been promoting Dan Russell’s book on research, The Joy of Search.  Since it is Wednesday I can also direct you to Russell’s SearchResearch Wednesday Challenge.  (Must join to participate.)

His book and his research group both show how much of research is all about  plain old curiosity which is indeed ‘old’ but which is not ‘plain’. In my university freshman composition courses I have a semester-long research assignment where I ask students to answer an essential question in their lives, something they feel compelled to know the answer.  Too often, my students have no clue as to what I mean by that so I show them a question I am answering.

This helps but now I think I have another resource to help–an interview with ceramicist, Osa Ato, where she discusses at the top about what research means.  Hers is a simpler, yet more nuanced, approach than mine. (I insist you read the whole interview if you have any time today.)

INTERVIEWER:  You’ve talked about how when you first got interested in ceramics, you completed a one year Post-Bac program at Louisiana State University. But you were also seeking out mentors and creating your own independent research. Could you talk a little bit about how you began that journey?

OSA ATO: I don’t really frame it as research. I frame it as being curious and wanting to learn more about what it is that I do. I mean, this is my profession. So, I don’t know, it seemed like second nature to look deeper. I don’t see it as anything more sophisticated or complicated than wanting to look a little bit deeper into this thing that I’m in love with, and that is the way that I make a living.

When I found that I was attracted to working with red clay, I started Google searching the word “terra cotta” because I wanted to know more about the material and the associations of it. And then that led me to a lot of ancient pottery from the Bronze Age and West African pottery. My family’s from Nigeria, and a lot of the traditional ceramics are made with red clay. It was a Pandora’s box. One thing led to the next.

I think this approach boils down to finding out what you love and then looking deeper.  The British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead called this  “the rhythm of learning”:  romance, precision and generalization. I prefer Osa Ato’s down to earth, pun intended, stance.

I explore this further in the margins of my post using the social annotation tool, Hypothes.is.  I am happy for you to join as well.  It is mighty tool that helps you to be curious and to learn more about what it is that I do.  Maybe, like Ato, one thing will lead to the next.

Or perhaps you can see better what this feeling is like as my wife and granddaughter bake cookies together.