Asking a Question

We ask questions all the time. Every waking minute of our days, we have questions swarming our curious minds and sometimes, we have trouble keeping them in our minds. But what we usually don't have trouble with is coming up with a question to ask.

Although I have finally pinpointed on a topic I want to research, genetic modification of animals, it was a bit of endeavor to ask a question that I want my research to answer. There are many directions I can take my research towards. My options range from the ethics of genetic modification, the benefits and hinderance on animals for food or medicine use, to just about genetic modification in general and how it affects our daily lives. All of these ideas interest me and initially, I was leaning towards researching the benefits of genetically modified animals on animals versus humans. But in the end, I decided that since I am in the pre-pharmacy major, I want to use this research opportunity to my advantage and focus on the use of genetic modification of animals for medicine.

How is genetically modifying animals helpful towards the medical field?

I realize that this question can be a tad bit difficult when researching for sources, but I will be focusing on the broad aspect of how genetically modified animals contribute towards medicine. These contributions can be whether it's researching medicine, creating new medicine or testing medicine. Hopefully, I will be able to find abundant sources that will uphold my research. 

Embarking on Research

As part of my freshman college English 201 course at the University at Buffalo, I am required to conduct research on the role of animals in science, technology, and culture. Although it is a requirement and sounds painful, I will use this blog to my advantage to just jot down and share some thoughts.

And so here it is, a blog where you will be able to follow me on my path of research. Like a journal, my blog will be a place where my thoughts will be shared. There will be occasions where I will free write about sources and ideas and there will be other times where I will share my experience about where my research is headed.

Now, as far as this research process goes, all I have so far is animal breeding. I have not yet decided what exactly about animal breeding, but I am leaning towards the ideas of selective breeding or genetic modification of animals. Typically, I am not a very opinionated person with strong feelings about controversial ideas because there are always some great arguments for both sides of the argument. However, both selective breeding, the act of cross mating animals for specific traits, and genetic modification, the act of transferring genes from one organism to another, are topics of interest I want to research more not only to learn and write about, but also to inform others about.

Soon enough, I will be posting sources and material that I will discuss and apply towards my research.