[originaltext]J: May I come in?T: Come in, please.J: Good morning, Mrs. Taylo

J: May I come in?
T: Come in, please.
J: Good morning, Mrs. Taylor. I hope it is not too early to bother you.
T: Never mind, Jason. Take a seat.
J: Thanks. Well, you know, I am writing a paper for Prof. Johnson’s assignment. But I am totally at a loss. I wonder if you could give me some advice.
T: Certainly. Tell me what’s in your mind.
J: Prof. Johnson asked us to do some research on campus life and write a paper. I have a lot of opinions myself. But concerning doing research...
T: First things first, do you have any particular aspects you want to research on?
J: Not very specific. Maybe, er, courses students take here, canteen, library, entertainment, things like that.
T: To do research, the first thing you need to do is narrow down your topic. What you mentioned just now can all be selected. However, if you cover all of them, everything will be just touched upon a little. So you need to find out the topic you are most interested in.
J: In that case, let me see. I got it. I want to talk about extra-curricular activities. This is the part I am most interested in.
T: Good. Now you have chosen your research topic. Then let’s come to the second part. How would you like to carry out your research?
J: How to carry out my research? What do you mean?
T: Well. Writing a research paper is quite different from an argumentative essay you are familiar with. Other people’s opinions must be included. So you need to have a questionnaire survey or an interview at least.
J: I’ve done questionnaire surveys before for Prof. Watson’s assignment. But people gave me totally different ideas. What is the point of collecting ideas just like chaos?
T: Generally, questionnaires are used if you want to get opinions of lots of people. And, it is not easy to design a questionnaire. Most questions should be selective. If you only ask people to write down their own opinions, what you get is chaos, like what you said just now.
J: What do you mean by selective questions?
T: Just like multiple choice questions in your exam papers. You ask a question and give some options to choose. Then you may get information in an organized way.
J: Oh, I see.
1. Why did Jason come to visit Mrs. Taylor?
2. What theme will Jason focus on about his research?
3. Which aspect can be included in the research?
4. According to Mrs. Taylor, what is the first thing of doing research?
5. What did Jason decide to talk about in his research paper?