When you’re told to go and research a topic or a question, you don’t typically start with an answer, however, you go through your own process that will lead you to a definite answer. You are also given the opportunity to build on prior knowledge and form new conclusions, which is always beneficial. That is why the idea that “Research Starts with Answers” is such a bad idea about writing, because research wouldn’t be necessary if you already possess the knowledge to the answers that you are seeking. This shows that research is a process, a mystery that we solve, and answers we seek based from curiosity. 
To begin with, Alison C. Witte supports the idea that research is a process, meaning you don’t need an answer to begin, because you will go through the following steps to find your answer. “Research is a three-stage process: (1) seeking information that is new to the researcher, (2) interpreting, evaluating, and organizing that information, and (3) reporting that information to others to affect some action” which illustrates the lengthy, thoughtful process research is (pg. 226). She says you must first look for any new information to you, because research is a task that consists of seeking any, new and vital, information and adding it to your schema. You must then take the found information and figure out what it means to you, then put it into your own way that is understanding to you. You will lastly report that information which is usually in the form of a research paper, formal or informal. Furthermore, they state “…then research ought to begin with a question not an answer.” this gives us the answer that research will not start with an answer, simply because you must go find all the answers to the questions that you may have about your topic (pg. 228). These steps and a direct answer encompass the seeking journey you take in order to find your final answer to any question or topic that you questioned.
Adding on to that, Robert Davis and Mark Shadle goes into further detail by considering research as a mystery that you must solve. They explicitly state “Such alternatives represent a shift in academic values toward a more exploratory inquiry that honors mystery” this shows that research is moving away from the standard research paper, following a set of rules and templates given in a textbook, towards a research paper that honors mystery and individuality (pg. 417). In addition to that, moving away from those traditional research papers gives students a sense of freedom to express their own thoughts and facts that they have find on their journey in many ways differing from those boring templates they may find in the back of an old textbook. This transition also means that you will not know the answer right away, instead you are going to have to go through different articles, libraries, documentaries, etc. in order to find what it is you’ve been seeking.
In addition to that, research is based from curiosity; therefore, you will never start with a clear idea of what it is you want to write about without going through the needed steps. Bruce Ballenger’s “The Curious Researcher” gives a great guide on how to write an excellent research paper. He states in chapter one “…your curiosity must be the driving force behind your research paper.” which explains how you should have a topic that ignites your curiosity enough that you will want to go and find all the information that you possibly can (pg. 27). This curiosity is the complete opposite of the bad idea about writing, research starts with answers. Instead you should want to go looking for an answer, a new answer, and an answer that will give you the satisfaction of knowing that you found what you were looking for. Ballenger also says that “Work from more general information to more specialized information.” he wants us to allow our curiosity to drive us to general information first so that we can gather background information that will be a foundation to the specialized information (pg. 40). We should then transition towards more specialized information which will gives us more specific details for our given research. This is how research starts with our curious minds wanting to learn more information, instead of answers.
Bringing everything together, research is a lengthy, seeking, and mystical process that we must take in order to discover the truths to questions we have. We will never be able to just start with an answer, because that won’t show any growth to our knowledge. Instead, we must start with a question that we want to know deeply and build questions from that question. This will lead to a process of learning and grasping new information, which is the ultimate goal when researching any topic.
Work Cited
Witte, Allison C. “Research Starts With Answers.” Bad Ideas About Writing, edited by Cheryl E Ball and Drew M Loewe, Digital Publishing Institute, 2017.
Davis, Robert, and Mark Shadle. Building a Mystery. Vol. 51, National Council of Teachers English, 2010.
Ballenger, Bruce. The Curious Researcher. Longman , 2009.
