AJAN AHMED

260509046
CCOM 206 Research Log 1

September 19: I started working on deciding a topic for my research paper.

There were discussions in the class with peers about possible topics. As I had
a complementary course research paper to submit, I decided to use the
same topic as the one in that course. The topic was: Did Neanderthals bury
their dead?
September 22: I emailed my professor the following:
I have a complementary course ANTH 201. It requires me to submit a research
paper on any anthropological topic of my choice. So I was thinking of doing a
common research paper for both my ANTH 201 and CCOM 206 if that is not a
problem.
Subject: Anthropology
Topic: Neanderthal Behaviours
Narrower Topic: Did Neanderthals bury their dead?
Working Hypothesis: Neanderthals may have engaged in patterned mortuary
behaviour.

September 23: Professor Popova replied to my email the following:

Ajan ,
Your choice of topic does not require a persuasive organization. You need to choose another
topic You can use the suggested list of topics, posted on the course site.

September 26: After a long period of thinking and browsing for interesting
research topic, I finally decided to work with renewable energy sources. I
started narrowing down the topic until I narrowed it down to: Application of
Solar panels against wind turbines for general households. So I emailed the
topic back to my professor and she replied:
Yes, Ajan, now the purpose of the research will be persuasive. If you find that "Bangladesh"
Is limiting the topic too much, and you cannot find enough scientific studies on Bangladesh,
you will broaden the topic
Prof Popova

So, I decided to broaden the topic a bit and decided to go with Application of
solar panels against wind turbines for the production of greener electricity for
households.

September 27-October 2: I surfed the internet for information and relevant

articles about the topic. I started planning on how I will present my research
paper. For example, I already knew that the audience will be scholars,
students and professionals in electrical engineering and the purpose would
be persuasive [The idea would be to try to solve the dilemma over whether
to use solar panels or wind turbines for production of electricity]. So the
research question would be: Are wind turbines more feasible and
sustainable substitutes for fossil fuels than solar grids? and the working
hypothesis would be wind turbines return more energy for a certain amount
of energy invested.
October 3: I attended the library workshop. The librarian was extremely
helpful in teaching us how to use databases from McGill library reserves to
find relevant articles for our research project and how to do citations use
endnote. I used the handouts given out during the work shop and the
databases to find articles that would help my research. Examples would
include:
Dincer, I. (2000). Renewable energy and sustainable development: a crucial review.
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 4(2), 157-175. doi:
10.1016/S1364-0321(99)00011-8
Firth, S., Lomas, K., Wright, A., & Wall, R. (2008). Identifying trends in the use of
domestic appliances from household electricity consumption measurements.
Energy and Buildings, 40(5), 926-936. doi: 10.1016/j.enbuild.2007.07.005