BartonCommentSonyaMemo1and2

Hi Sonya,

You seem pretty committed to looking at how the internet affects Middle Eastern women, which is definitely an interesting topic. Even in your topics which aren't directly about the internet, the internet comes up in your questions. I guess my question is, why the internet? (I suppose I should also ask, why women, and why the Middle East, but that seems more obvious to me.) But, why are you interested especially in the internet as opposed to other forms of communication or social interaction?

I think the questions you have listed here are great places to start, and I am curious to hear the answers, but they are mostly questions that can be answered with "yes or no" or a single word. Many of them are questions that seek to know what the world is like. You might also think about asking why the world is like that, and how it got there. You start to do this with your why questions, so you might develop those further to create questions that would take a dissertation to answer. :)

You also have clear political purposes behind most of your topics, which can be very motivating, but which can also get you into scholarly trouble. If you go in to your research convinced of how you want to change things, you may miss all the voices who say they don't want things changed that way. Just something to be wary of.