How To Properly Research

How To Properly Research

Edited outline and phrasing by C.Ratliff

The 1^st thing involved in learning to properly research is to understand these points:

• You. It is your responsibility to do the research. Very likely, there’s no-one who will just give you help if you’re not willing to do the work. You’re the one that has got to have the drive and it has got to come from within you. You must know how to answer the question(s) that may arrive from your research.

While your research evolves, you may find yourself receiving technical help, wisdom, and support from many qualified and knowledgeable people — but you need to remember that asking for that help is vital, should you find you need outside resources.

• Do. It is important that you start the research — experimentation, survey, simulation, data analysis, studying, cross-examination of multiple view points — as soon as you can. A general mistake that is made is to think, plan, read, but then never get around to the actually doing the research. As you start, you may find that the difficulties and issues in doing the research are quite different from what you originally planned or thought.

There are several components to learning to research properly; for example: proposing the hypothesis(es), discovering the answers hypothesis(es), and communicating those answers as best as possible. It may be noted that not all of these points are necessary but those that are needed are essential.

While the following mainly focuses more on the basics of project researching, the same points of information can be applied to the aspects historical research, area research, and fundamental theory research.

• Though the hypothesis may be idealistic or vague, you can still collect at least some data, summarize it, and report the any results that have been obtained. Of course, if you’re the first to ever research this hypothesis, that’s all you may need to do. And if the data is ever changing from year to year (e.g., phenomena, weather, reporting, socialization, etc…), than this type of study may always useful to some degree on a greater or lesser extent.
• If there is no answer, the question may be too broad, narrow, or well thought that it requires involving other qualified people. (It could be that there isn’t enough time, it’s an uninteresting conjecture, or that you might not competent in either the necessary techniques or possess the proper equipment to come to a reasonable conclusion.)
• Sometimes you don’t want to communicate your question and answer. The hypothesis may have turned out to be less interesting or unproductive than originally planned; or you might want to wait until you’ve done additional study/research.

Places to Research.

- The Local Library:
Research does not have to be mind-boggling. One of the first steps to researching is the location. Think of who, what, when, where, and why. Your local library is an excellent place to begin. Start with simple and basic historical facts.  Find a book outlining the past events or areas of the project. Search for the styles of social thinking, events which took place at an area, period music, medicine, etc. Check encyclopedias and reference books.

But how do you find those hidden facts? Where are those untold stories? Reference books and biographies can provide a lot of information. But your best source is your librarian. Ask for help, and tell the librarian what you are researching and where you can find additional information that encyclopedias and reference books may not provide. Your librarian should be able to direct you to the best information available.

- Local Historical Societies:
Local historians are usually involved in or run their historical society. Go in and ask questions. Ask to see any documents that might enhance your information. Not only do historical societies have original documents and pictures, they might also have works of art and photographs.

- Historical Sites:
If possible, take a historical tour of the area, site, or field you are researching. Visit the sites as though looking through the eyes of someone during that time period.

- New and Used Bookstores:
Many out-of-print history books may be found at your used bookstore, and local bookstores may have an excellent history section.

- The Internet:
The internet is a well-spring of information. While researching, you can find sites on everything from period social thinking, detailed historical events, to specific details about area locations.

The Strive for Research.

Doing the research is a strong indicator that you have the ability to try and answer the hypothesis; maybe at least, finding enough of an answer to work out a way of furthering the research. Thusly, you might be building a better foundation of additional information. As a general rule, if there is a course, study, reference paper, or guide pertaining to the hypothesis,  it is recommended to review/learn as much as possible as it relates to your project. As to non-technical aspects of answering the question, there is some advice below.

As you get results/information to relay, write a report on it. Don’t wait until the whole project is finished. That may mean writing many entries/notes over a period of time.  The simplest notes to write are basic descriptions/entries of the research, what you discovered, what the results may mean, and any all references you may have reviewed. Imagine you’re talking to a friend and write down what you might say about your findings. Then, revise and edit, revise and edit, revise and edit as needed.

Some research has to be done on a deadline. This can make a difference, as it makes it possible to get things wrong due to a lack of time. One consequence is that appears you may failed at getting all relevant and pertinent information, but that does not mean you are not adequate to research, only that  in a more normal environment there would be time to review more information which may have progressed your research further.  This is something in which you may want to take a note on and come back to reviewing if possible.

Something to watch out for is that it’s normal to spend too much time reviewing and not enough time being critical as to whether the research does or does not help your project. Notes/information needs to be confirmed and accurate (historically, reasonable, and scientifically) as much as possible. Focus on the central information, critique imprecise/questionable information, dissect the essential from what is less relevant, and demonstrate (with accuracy) the best possible information has been reviewed and obtained.

Involve yourself into the research review.

• Talk to someone about your research. Brainstorming with your colleagues is a good start; you will be able to talk more efficiently using relevant terminology and jargon. It is valuable when those within your circle can help expound upon your ideas and provide other resources for you to possibly review.
• Review with an open mind. (But remember what I said earlier: review by reading is not only what research is about.  There are times where too much reading may pose more problems to finding an answer than usual, skewing the original goal of the research to something that may not be relevant.)Reviewing:
• How to read: read the title, skim the abstract, look at the pictures and maybe the tables.  If anything relevant is found, then consult the text making sure to look for that specific information.
  • What to read: many of the “prestigious” journals may be avoided, if they are too well rounded, encompassing too many aspects instead of the specific topic.  Some of these journals have got a habit to the attending unimportant details that may not be involved within your specific research. Look more into resources that provide more focus and attention to your goals. (that is not to say that these journals may not be useful, but be diligent to briefly review the information contained and do not become overwhelmed by the un-needed details contained within)
    • Comments and letters in specific journals. Look to see that points are made quickly. Sometimes areas of both debate and fact may be highlighted for you.
    • Journals from outside countries that may relate with different views however specific to your project.
    • Lower prestige journals may publish simple data on unusual questions — topics which may attract you, topics which may contains ideas for improving the method, or topics which may generalize the results. This may help in coming to simple conclusion or different ideas in which to research further upon.
  • Your attitude: sympathetic criticism. Approaching/reviewing information with a degree of skepticism is appropriate with most reference material, but temper this with sympathy: there may be materials useless to you, and it may even be clear (by any reasonable standard) that the research was a waste of time, but the method may be useful.  Detail of the results may be just what a researcher is looking for and it may also clarify different points relevant to the project.

If someone says your paper is trash, retort that anyone can write a decent paper, journal, or evidence review, but it takes real talent to get rubbish into print and still get it read by others.

• Think seriously about what information really concerns your goals. Even though you’re trying to keep your mind on the ideal, you will find practicalities obtrude themselves. However, some of these practical problems may be useful to your project.
• Use computerized databases. Try searching them with an unusual combination of words, ideals, and terminology.
• Ask successful researchers within your circle of colleagues whether they have any particular methods for gathering to information.
• Making lists and then organize them. Questions, experiments, surveys, sources of data, concepts, historical references, etc…
• Draw an analogy. (theoretical or methodology of analysis)
• Experimentation and conjecture; i.e. if the results were to be X, then we could conclude that X…. On the other hand, if the results were Y, then the conclusion could be Y….

Suggestions for what information you can provide.

• • Can I improve on the project?
  • Can I improve on the theory/method?  One might replace a discrete variable with a continuous variable, or vice versa.
  • Can I refine the goal or purpose of the information?
  • Can I broaden the circumstances in which the effect occurs?
  • Can I simulate this on the computer?
  • Can I improve the statistical analysis? (“Two of a trade never agree”, it is said, and certainly no two statisticians have agreed with each other this century.)
    -Improvement does not necessarily mean additional complication. Sometimes, simple descriptive results are overlooked in the rush to perform a complicated hypothesis test. If nothing better comes to mind, try confidence intervals in place of hypothesis tests, or nonparametric methods in place of parametric, or Bayesian weight of evidence.
  • Can I provide a different view point in which to arrive at something unoriginal.

General advice.

• If you have a rigid deadline to work to, it is vital that you are not reliant on someone else for anything important. Among the possible areas of difficulty are: administrative approval from an outside body, construction of equipment, computing. You must have a workable plan that can be implemented if approval is refused/the equipment isn’t delivered/the computing expertise is unavailable, etc…
• Do not underestimate the importance of the physical aspects: i.e.: going through 500 files a second time because you didn’t extract a particular item of information the first time, coming in to the lab on Sunday afternoon to try out an idea you’ve just had, driving at 4am to another city because the evening news told you of a “natural experiment” there that day, taking 60 journal volumes off the shelf to skim through for the key paragraph you wish you had made a note of, and so on.
• Write down an idea when you have it, because you may easily have forgotten it by the time you are able to do the research. Some people even keep an ideas book for this purpose; but the trouble with this is that it really need to be physically very small, so that it can be always with you.
• Work around the research, if you can’t find it. Use suitable other phrases, definitions, or similar events pertaining to the project. (area, event, reports, etc…)
• Sometimes a problem is best handled by defining it in a different way or researching the negative of the project. i.e. cant find information regarding X, try looking for information regarding why X cannot be –X.
• Remain of flexible. It is important to not only remain flexible to time and resources, but also the information toward the project.  There may be times where the information being researched cannot be found because it does not exist or does not have a reasonable answer.
• Diversification - don’t have too many resources open at once, but only maintain to looking into a few resources at one time and coming back to others as needed.
• Don’t be afraid to admit ignorance. The nature of research is that one is continually venturing into areas/fields previously unknown to the researcher. While it may be unpleasant to admit this, the earlier you do, the sooner you may get an explanation/resource you can get a bit of extra information from.
• Attention to detail is a virtue – Taken to excess, it is a vice.
• Some researchers seem to suffer from a “fear of success”, different from obsessive perfectionism. What happens is that they perceive the successful completion of their research as the end of one review and the beginning of another, to which they are reluctant to move on to the next review.
• Don’t miss any deadlines. If you do, then (depending on the nature of your excuse) you might not be asked to participate further within the project.
• Remember these 3 points: (i) specific intelligence-gathering may be considered as research, (ii) exploratory research may be both useful and appropriate to the project, and (iii) the project may be too complicated to research properly, formed mainly by subjective experience and experimentation.
• Avoid cliché’s most of the time, but not every use of them should be condemned. (In some allegedly scholarly fields of study, they seem to be compulsory.)
• Don’t worry about the possibility of someone else duplicating your research. It is rare for this to happen, and, when it does, it is stimulating to examine the similarities and the differences.
• Don’t despair if it becomes necessary to destroy your research and work. This is quite common, and can sometimes mean that you have reviewed so much that you finish the whole project too early or presumably with not enough reference.
• If you do happen to discover something important, be sure to review/relay it at the right time and place. Perhaps you remember the inventor of the Infinite Improbability Drive: “just after he was awarded the Galactic Institute’s Prize for Extreme Cleverness he got lynched by a rampaging mob of respectable physicists who had finally realized that the one thing they really couldn’t stand was a smartass” (The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Ch. 10)
• You should appreciate that there are a number of resources in specialized fields available to you. You need only to ask around or get help to find the appropriate places to review the information.
• Make personal contacts.  People interested in the same information are enthusiasts and will usually be delighted to find someone who shares that enthusiasm. Be Aware: Alleged enthusiasm without an appropriate level of specialist knowledge and native intelligence will get you nowhere.

• Get friends to read your research. One of them may not even be in the field of your research (perhaps your spouse/partner); however, the other should ideally be someone involved within your project research.
• Find out what format your group or others in the field use to record citations/notes/events. Begin to create an annotated list of citations in this format from the very start of your research. Keep full and consistent bibliographical records of what you read. This can save an enormous amount of frantic last-minute effort.

Advice regarding research.

• There is often tension between the respective advantages of standardizing on one particular method of answering a question, and of using a variety of different methods. Think of scientific reporting vs. experience reporting, for instance. On the one hand, there is a standard, reproducible, method — comparisons from month to month, reasoning which defects are present, and which remaining variables are constant over time, producing information that is reliable and referable. On the other hand, any practicable method is bound to have peculiarities and biases, and may be synthesized from several different methods, leading to information which is subjective and reliable through the reports of experience though not reproducible or proven factual.

The following is very much a broad-brush statement, to which there must be numerous exceptions: too often, information is adopted too early in through the research. In research, one usually wants the “real, true” answer, whereas for public review or pertaining to a deadline, one may prefer reported/experienced information without genuine fact (usually referring to experience of events or a sensual phenomena).

• Meta-analysis: this term refers to quantitatively combining the results of previous studies of a subject, in order to arrive at the right answer. There are some difficult principles and practicalities involved, and inadequate handling of these led critics to refer to meta-analysis as being “meta-silliness”. There have been substantial improvements within the methodology but usually there is a bias so serious as to vitiate all conclusions from the project that reviews of such research has serious a impact against meta-analysis than on a review of traditional format.
• Moderate-sized research implies larger studies.  Project sizes with lots of research tend to imply collaboration between many investigators.  Simpler studies in many areas of project research might result with information of greater value than results from larger collaborative projects and would itself valuable for the quality information. Be sure to specify and credit all references.
• Don’t get carried away with the information. Tell the story of your project using the tools from your research beginning to end.  Do not just leave out pieces because their relevance may be questionable though compelling.  Let the reader/listener their own conclusions from your research but provide the information which accurately depicts the research for everything it encompasses.
• Be careful paying attention to notation.
• Imagine all possible knowledge is a flat surface. That which we know is symbolized by a big blue blob in the middle. The edge of the blue blob, where it joins the rest of the plane, is the limit of what is known. Doing a research is like taking a single step out from the blue bob into the unknown. To achieve this you need to find the boundary and then take a carefully considered step beyond it (discover new knowledge). Build upon your first step to take a second further step.

Many thanks to multiple references as provided by:
– T P Hutchinson, 21.July.97: phutchin@bunyip.bhs.mq.edu.au
- svr-www.eng.cam.ac.uk/~rwp/tut/research.pdf
– Rita Gerlach: http://users.starpower.net/rpkg/index.htm