We all know that when it comes to writing, writing about something original counts. It even comes before our writing skill because it is about what we contribute to the world. If we are saying something already said, at best we would be considered as parrots that are just capable of copy pasting. But how do we do that?
To figure out the research gap is simple, but time demanding task. The first thing you need to do is to figure out what your area of interest is. If you don't narrow down your subject of interest, you will end up wanting to research on everything, and you will find a lot of confusing research gaps because there are millions of unanswered questions out there.
After you figured out your area of study, next step is simple. Though simple does not mean that you will finish it in one hour, it is going to be a time demanding task. You need to read, read and read about the subject you chose. You need to know what others had done about it. You write down the questions that occur to you while reading other's materials and go after your questions to see if there are people out there who faced the same question and found an answer to it. If you find no answers, you have probably hit the research gap you need to fill.
Hopefully other people in the field want to make it simple for you, because we live in a fast paced world. Other already written materials usually have a section in their introduction in which they give you a clue about what they have written about, and what they could not cover in their job. So you have a good reference going through introductions, the research gap can be found there. It is something the other person was not able to cover.
Once you found your area of interest, you narrow it down to a research gap; the most difficult part of the job is done. Now all you need to do is to find the question, read more about it and try to write an answer to the question. When your topic is original, no matter how unimportant you think it is, you ARE contributing to the world. You ARE adding to the world. And that is your task as a scholar.
By: Mina Sheikhha
