Q: Teacher Jin: After I revised the scheme according to your idea, I sent it to the professors in Hong Kong to have a look. A professor wrote back to me and said, I have read your scheme quickly. The theoretical basis is still missing. ; What differences do you hope to find in Chinese and American media discourse? ; Why? ; This is the hardest but also the most important part. I hope the teacher can give me some suggestions for the next step:) A: That teacher is right: extract your research questions (not to test whether there is any difference) and discuss them in a clear theoretical framework. This is called conceptualization. Based on the existing related research, we often have some assumptions about our research problems. Usually, empirical research tests hypotheses. The key point here is that the expected hypothesis is not a guess in your imagination, but can be "analyzed" or "inferred" according to relevant theories and other people's research, that is, it needs some theoretical basis. What you want to explain is the logic of your analysis or inference. This analysis cannot be based on your assumptions or common sense. You did mention the frame theory, but that's just the name or introduction of a theory, just your general analysis method. You should also be specific according to the frame theory, that is, when a country or a media reports something, it usually has a specific frame. What are the significant factors that affect the formation of this frame? Only through theoretical analysis and literature review, it is found that different countries (such as China and the United States) have different factors affecting the reporting framework of their news media, can you make the assumption that the reporting framework of the two countries' media may be different. Then, you can test this hypothesis by analyzing the content of specific media reports. Many students think that in their own papers or research plans, as long as a single theory is introduced, there will be a theoretical framework, but it is not. The key to the application of any theoretical framework is to apply the reasoning logic behind this theory (the so-called theory is the statement that two or more phenomena have a certain relationship). Therefore, we should put the main aspects involved in the theory into our own research context for specific application, including concept definition and operation definition. As you have seen, because you have not been systematically trained in research methods, you began to write research plans. Although you have been crammed in a hurry for some time before, there are still obvious problems with your research plan. As a judge, he only has relatively unified and objective standards, and will not consider whether you have corresponding training and give you sympathy points.