Imagining the research process as a sort of "scavenger hunt," guided by research questions. The death of Muammar Gaddafi is used as an example topic.

1. A Photo “Scavenger Hunt”:
Starting a Research Project
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6. What do I do next?
• I’ve got a topic: images of the death of Gaddafi. Now I need to figure out an
argument. I’ll then need to do a lot of research.
• It helps to ask some questions to guide research. For example:
• Where were the images of Gaddafi’s death first shown?
• How did this compare to, say, the death of Saddam Hussein or Osama Bin
Laden?
• How does the death of Gaddafi compare to the arguments than Sontag
made?
• Who took these pictures?
• Then, I can start doing some research.
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7. Beginning the research:
• Wikipedia is a fine place to start, but it doesn’t count toward your sources.
Check the sources cited at the bottom of the Wikipedia entry, and track those
down.
• Remember--you can’t Google your way to a paper. You’ll have to use the
library resources to find the kinds of detailed, comprehensive, and
authoritative evidence you’ll need.
• Incorporate Sontag/Berger/Barthes early on. Consider doing more research
on their ideas as well.
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