Often we find students can't pin down what they really are going to do because they always think about the area of research as the content they want to research. They think about a topic, that is the subject matter of their enquiry. For example, a student would say he or she wants to do a PhD on adoption of new agricultural techniques. To pin down this topic, we have to start to think about what problems are associated with adoption of new agricultural techniques - how can they be solved? what outcomes do we want? From whose perspective are we dealing with this topic? We have to search for what problems lie within the topic. So, a good idea would be to write down the broad topic of what it is you want to investigate. Use this as a stimulus to begin a recursive process of questioning, expanding, exploring, excluding then back to questioning to get at the problems, investigate all possible angles and their probable feasibility. You have to start seeing relationships between sub-areas of the topic. It is by investigating relationships between things that you find solutions. This gets you away from describing content which can keep the thinking either at a very global or a very detailed, specific level without ever formulating problems for investigation, or thinking how the known information can be used to solve new problems, or indeed to see what new information or methods are needed to solve the problem. Certainly, at the level of being interested in a broad area, the literature will pull you in many directions. In a sense, the need is to read in order to discard. But the decision to discard rests with the answers to the questions generated. It is necessary to ask questions continually around the general area and then again at each stage as what you are pursuing becomes more specific. Questions, for example, include the basic types, plus more specific probing. For example: why is it interesting or important? what are the elements/factors/issues involved? what do you think are the contributory causes? what do you think it would solve? what is its purpose? can it be formalised? what has been done in the past? what does the history of this show? how is it known? what other examples are there of this kind of thing happening? is it something new, or has it evolved from something else? It is very important at this stage to discuss your ideas with as many people as possible, and certainly with your supervisor. Discussion with others provides a mechanism for pinning down what it is you want as others will question you, add their ideas, and so on. The supervisor will know the field so he or she could help to sift ideas, know if there is anything new in your topic, and have some preliminary ideas about the feasibility of the more specific options your exploration will get you to.

	Finding, formulating and exploring your topic.
	Making sense of the literature.
	Making sense of the literature - first pass.
	Making sense of the literature - second pass.
	Making sense of the literature - final pass.
	Wrestling with the idea of making an original contribution.
	Now I see how I should have done it all along. Is it too late to change.