R & D
The next step, according to The Craft of Research, is to look at my questions, throw out ones that can be easily looked up and answered, those that have no greater significance, and those that are purely speculative. They then suggest creating a three part statement that 1) names the topic, 2) includes an indirect question, and 3) answers the question, "so what?"
Here is my statement:
- I am researching the emergence and adoption of vegan diets* (historic and contemporary)…
- …because I want to find out how diet choices affect people, animals, and the planet…
- …in order to help my reader understand why people adopt vegan diets and lifestyles (which may help readers think about what influences their diet choices).
*It is worth noting that in talking about the history and relevance of vegan diets, I must also talk about vegetarian diets in general. It should be assumed hence forth that my use of the word vegan does not mean diets and lifestyles completely absent from animal products, but instead means diets (and sometimes lifestyles) that do not include animal flesh, and sometimes animal byproducts such as milk, eggs, cheese, butter, and honey. Because this is also sort of an essay about why I personally am vegan, I think I am going to focus on diets, but I can't promise non-diet animal products won't work their way in there.
In the essay, I want to address the following things: The emergence of a diet as a social construct rather than just something we happen to do, how diets have been incorporated as important agents in various capital industries (making the choice of what we eat much more complicated than it should be), the health and environmental impacts of vegan diets, the arguments for and against veganism (and maybe any other particular diet or lifestyle choice), and a general idea of how people change lifestyles (and why not many people seem to do it).
<!--Other questions this inspires: There are so many books about food and diet and health; why has very little changed over the past 30 years? Does the food industry and agribusiness really control what we eat? Can one really argue about lifestyle choices? Why are people offended by said arguments (what are the different reasons)? How and why do people adopt or change lifestyles in general? Can, or should, the choice of what we eat be based only on hunger and personal taste preference? I didn't actually want these questions to be hidden…You understand-->
I am still debating how broad I want this essay to be. I would like this to be the longest essay I have written to date. In fact, I almost require it to be long enough to constitute a table of contents, end notes, and indices just so I can practice using them with TeX.
Reference
Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams. The Craft of Research. 3rd ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008.
Links
The Craft of Research (Google Books)
Posts
While not at all about veganism, you might by interested in this essay in the NYTimes by Gary Taubes:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-big-fat-lie.html?sec=health
It addresses how Americans became sold on the whole "carbs are good, fat is bad" mantra and how our diet as a nation for the past thirty years was constructed and how it is impacting our health (obesity, diabetes, &c.).