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Originally Posted by Ian
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Clarity and simplicity of this definition will make your research much more straight forward, and ultimately more understandable for you and your audience. It is inevitable that somebody will have a problem with whatever definition you use. I don't think that matters very much, as long as you can communicate exactly how you defined and used the term for your study.
Ian.
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And I think that this is exactly Ruel's first point: the need to have a clear definition of the subject of study, before starting it. This allows for a focus, which means one may then have a tool to categorize information as more or less relevant to the research at hand (mind it, this doesn't mean "good" or "bad" information, which would be another categorization that in fact needs of Ruel's second point to be sorted trough, it's "relevance" the key word here). With this, one knows when is dealing with fundamental or superfluous information. The “definition” is just a working tool, albeit an important one. But it's dynamic, it can be changed along the way, to include or exclude additional information, depending on how it develops. But one must know at all times where one is standing and where one is heading to. A good definition of the research's subject allows for that.
A good planning is relatively easy and not only saves a lot of effort later on, but it's one of the critical factors for, at the end, turning up actually good (i.e solid, relevant, contrastable, reliable, perdurable...) results instead of a more or less picturesque collection of facts.
I don't want to come across as negative, far from that, it's just that I've seen this happening again and again, and I would hate to see it happening here, also, specially when it's fairly easy to avoid. I think Ruel's advice is good and pertinent, not only for this one, but for ANY research effort...
My apologies for the rant, I just thought I should chime in...
Marc