🧩 Finding Purpose in the Process: A Christian Student’s Guide to Research and Writing By: Daniel Fitzgerald “Aim at Heaven, and you will get Earth ‘thrown in’: aim at Earth, and you will get neither.” — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity We often approach research and writing with one question: What do I have to do to succeed? But what if academic excellence wasn’t the goal? It was the byproduct. Lewis’s reminder—that aiming for eternal purpose brings earthly fruit, but not the other way around—has reshaped the way I think about research. For me, the goal isn’t just a polished paper or a strong grade. It’s about faithfulness . It’s about using writing to seek truth, love my reader, and honor God. This post is a testimony to that process. 📖 How Do I Know What I Need to Research? Research doesn’t always start with a thesis—it starts with a hunch. As Francine Prose reminds us in Reading Like a Writer , sometimes a phrase or pattern keeps tugging at our imagination, invi...