‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’

‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.’

(Carroll, 1865)

When I started my research on June 1^st, 2026, my project seemed like a boundless landscape filled with countless discoveries to make. Now, as I edit the first draft of my report, I fondly look onto my research as if it’s a city I designed.

First day of research, Monday of Week 1 at 9am. I met with my supervisor to refine the research terms and talk through a conceptual study design. I then started my first research session by rereading my project proposal, finding A3 papers in the Main Library and creating a huge interconnected mind map of all ideas about my topic. My research question investigates the motivational drivers behind China’s Environmentalism – a topic that led me to CCP policies, presidential speeches, scholarship on environmentalism. But my research also featured less obvious paths like ancient Chinese philosophy, which I found to be paramount in understanding modern China’s intentions. Every idea and every article led me to another interesting area, which I put down on my mind map. Hours went by like this. I felt like Alice in Wonderland, strolling around an unknown landscape, seeing exciting new things and feeling slightly lost. My mind was like a boundless territory able to expand in any and every direction. Racing through new and newer ideas, I saw my topic grow and my mind map expand. At the end of the day, I felt happy, but still slightly lost. All this jumping down different ideas had left me with no better overview of the landscape I was in.

I asked myself if I had wasted my time. If I should have kept track of one idea at a time, constraining my curious instinct of exploring different options. Looking back from the editing phase, I realise that my approach was exactly the right one for me. It laid the foundations for my city.

As my research continued, ideas began to solidify. I got a better understanding of which topics were more important, and others which, albeit interesting, would not make it into the final paper. The excitement from the first day transformed into a sustained interest in a select few of the discovered topics. I was slowly but surely getting an overview of the landscape of my research – strategic environmentalism, political philosophy on climate change, China's Green Transition.

As my own arguments began to form, I started shaping my personal contribution to the field of study; I began building something on top of the landscape. My ideas turned into streets, connections between topics grew into town squares and my argument developed into a city. I had settled down from the landscape of vast opportunities of discovery. As further selected scholarship and environmental data featured into my research, streets grew larger, pathways connected and squares were added.

I felt like I was slowly becoming the master of my city, built on the landscape I had once entered as a stranger. At the end of week six, I could see my research from above out of bird’s eye perspective.

Then I start writing. I dive down and enter my city on foot. I pass crossings that seem familiar, walk through roads of arguments leading towards the city centre, where the main streets meet, coming together to a bigger union. I feel at home in this city, as it’s the making of my own mind. But it also feels different. Instead of planning out my map bit by bit, I am right in the middle of it, surrounded by the whole argumentative structure.

I suddenly see my city through a different lens. As I write I also take new turns, explore unfamiliar paths, stumble upon barren land. These are the points I hadn’t thought of while planning my map but realise now are important for my city. I also find that some connections on the map do not fit together or need another alleyway in between. My writing process feels exactly like a walk through the city I created in my research. The arguments are structured by my outline – the map - which guides me in my writing – the walk. In turn, the walk guides my map, which I continue to adapt. Adapting my city map is necessary, in the same way that adapting my outline to account for the new insights attained while writing is. Some necessary intellectual connections only become apparent in the writing process. Once I set foot into the city.

At first, the discrepancy between map and city seemed daunting. I thought I had planned my map so that all streets fit together. But my walk showed me that some streets were misplaced, others missing. It seemed to me like I took a wrong path in my research period.

But then I asked myself why discovering opportunities to change my writing should be a bad thing? I found that I hadn’t taken a wrong path at all. That this dynamic interplay between research and writing is exactly what academic research is about. Coming to preliminary answers, finding new evidence and adapting the initial takes. I now see it as an opportunity for me to refine my argument, polish my city and create an even better research output.

Change is possible, because this is my own argument. This is my own city. Taking out the map and changing it is part of the process.

So, one thing I learned in the Laidlaw research summer is to embrace this process. To not be afraid of differences between outline and output. That the willingness to change is what makes my research dynamic. And that curiosity for discovery is the foundation of every academic city.

References:

Carroll, L. (1865) Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. London: Macmillan.