Agriculture in semi-arid environments

I don't have any specialised knowledge about agriculture, and especially agriculture in semi-arid environments, but I do have everyday knowledge. I know agriculture needs water, and very often lots of it. Knowing that leads me to ask the following questions:

• How can agriculture survive in such dry places?
• Is it possible to develop agricultural practices that use less water, or is it possible to recycle water, or do farmers in such enviroments have to pipe in large amounts of water?

This leads to a further question:

• If farmers have to pipe in water, and perhaps have to use lots of fertilisers to make the semi-arid soils nutritious and agriculturally productive, how can such agriculture be economically viable?

That makes me wonder:

• Are there other ways of naturally enriching soils through changing farming practices?

NB. It is possible that none of these questions helps to focus the reader's attention and increase his/her ability to make sense of the text. As the reader looks for answers, more precise ideas will come to his/her attention, and as a result more specific questions can then be asked.

Soil plasticity

I know nothing about soil plasticity, and therefore my questions are very basic. I need to know:

• In what ways are soils 'plastic'? What does plasticity mean here?
• What is the significance of soil plasticity?
• How does soil plasticity affect engineering design or practices?

If I was knowledgable about the subject, I could ask more specific questions based on that knowledge.

Madness and sexual politics in the feminist novel

I have some background knowledge on this topic. I know for instance that sexual politics is about power relations between the two sexes. But I also know there are different theories about these power relations. So my first question might be:

• Which theorists and theoretical approaches does this text draw on?

I also know that there is no clear definition of what we mean by a feminist novel. So I might ask:

• How does this writer define feminist novel? What novels does s/he discuss?

I know madness is usually the concern of medicine, but I also know that madness is of interest in humanities subjects. Some people argue that those who are mad do not necessarily have anything wrong with them, but that they are categorised as mad by society because they do not conform in certain ways. I suspect the writer of this article takes up this view of madness. I predict therefore that s/he will look at how women in novels become mad, and that s/he will link this to their resistance or nonconformity to struggle with male-dominated practices. Therefore I might ask:

• What is meant by madness in this text?
• Is female madness the result of male-oriented social relations?

Gender issues in physics education

I know there has been a lot of concern about girls taking an interest in physics at school. I also know that while some people think this is because girls are naturally not interested, others argue it is because physics is seen as a masculine subject, and so girls do not become interested, even though they could actually do as well as boys. I suspect this article adopts this last view, and therefore sees the way we create masculinity and femininity in our society (gender issues) as a central problem in physics education. Therefore I might ask:

• Is the gender issue discussed here the one I have predicted - that girls do not take up physics because it is not feminine? Or is it another issue?
• What exactly are the isses to be discussed? (Is there a list of them?)
• Does the author only describe the issues, or does s/he also suggest ways of overcoming the gender problems?
• If s/he offers solutions, do these lie in changing teaching methodologies, or changing the physics curriculum, or something else?

Is it good to make people happy?

This looks like a strange topic. Everybody knows it is good to make people happy! But I know that philosophy wants to understand precisely why it might be good, and ethics wants to distinguish between good and bad actions. So a definition of good seems essential. Therefore, my first questions might be:

• What is meant by good in this context? Can I quickly find a definition?
• Why is it good to make people happy, and not merely nice?

I might also want to know about the link between goodness and happiness. If happiness is good, then presumably it should always be an aim of ours. But what happens if happiness is in conflict with justice? Pursuing justice can make some people very unhappy. So I might also ask:

• What happens if the principle of happiness conflicts with another principle, such as justice? If happiness gives way to justice, does this mean it is not good, but merely desirable?

The more we think about this topic, the more questions will come to mind, and so we can get deeper and deeper into the text.

A theory of cultural values and some implications for work

• What is a theory of cultural values?
• How can a theory have implications for work?

These questions immediately come to my mind. A further question follows:

• What kind of theory does this article present?

It seems to me that cultural values include many things. Another question comes to mind:

• What cultural values exactly will this text discuss?

This leads to further questions:

• Is this text talking about cultural values that have a direct bearing on work?
• If so, what aspects of work? Does it discuss the ways cultural values affect attitudes to work, or work efficiency, or the kinds of works that people will want to do?

I find very quickly that I have a lot of questions. This title seems so general it is hard to predict what it is likely to be about. Therefore my questions are more to do with trying to define the scope of this text. Once I have some sense of its scope, then I might be able to make predictions and ask questions about the content.