Knowledge is like a garden; if it is not cultivated, it cannot be harvested.
– Swahili quote?
We’re asked to make a metaphor of researching with a common thing. I found the idea quite amusing. I grow up hearing many stories comparing learning to harvesting. This was the inspiration to tentatively make a metaphor of research with the concept of garden design. I am open to suggestions to improve it and make it easier to understand.
External factors
What makes us to need a garden? Is it for applying gardening techniques? Is it for environmental issues? Or is it just to improve the decoration issues (empty space or gap)? This and other different types of issues set the problem. Just like in a research this is the trigger.
The purpose sets the direction that the researcher will take. For example, the gardener or garden designer would decide that he is going for make a garden appropriate for food production. What features of the garden will we look? Will they be for aesthetic purposes? Or is it to test the strength of specific fertilizers?
Internal factors
Context
A context is made of several elements that narrow a problem research, in the same way that a garden is subject to climate conditions, water availability or soil conditions. The problem statement in this case would consist of the specific characteristics of the garden. For example, we may need to put the garden in a tropical climate, with poor connections to water. This defines the context in a garden in a similar way to a research.
Research Questions
The goal of the research is to achieve conclusions or patterns in the same way as in we garden we want plants or trees in the end. In this case I would say that the research questions are the seeds of our garden. The choice of seeds will determine the plants and fruits that we’ll get in the end. Any good gardener know that that to have good fruits you have to get good seeds.
Methods
While some beautiful plants can grow on our yard by accident, a good gardener knows that what he need to do is proper caring and proper planning yet in the beginning of the garden creation. What method will he use to care the seeds? Soaking (submerge the seeds for sometime) or any other? How will be the mixture of the soil? Will he make use of any fertilizer? Notice how these questions will be dependent on the type and seed (research questions) and of course on the context.
Limitations and constraints
Maybe if the gardener chooses a exotic and beautiful flower specie to grow, this means that the fruits won’t be that tasty. So the limitations and constraints tell what others might expect from the current garden or plants, for example, state the the gardener only look at aesthetic features and not in food possibilities. In the same way as we state the limitations and constraints on a research.
