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A Beginner's Guide to Starting the Research Process

When you have to write a thesis or dissertation , it can be hard to know where to begin, but there are some clear steps you can follow.

The research process often begins with a very broad idea for a topic you’d like to know more about. You do some preliminary research to identify a  problem . After refining your research questions , you can lay out the foundations of your research design , leading to a proposal that outlines your ideas and plans.

This article takes you through the first steps of the research process, helping you narrow down your ideas and build up a strong foundation for your research project.

Table of contents

Step 1: choose your topic, step 2: identify a problem, step 3: formulate research questions, step 4: create a research design, step 5: write a research proposal, other interesting articles.

First you have to come up with some ideas. Your thesis or dissertation topic can start out very broad. Think about the general area or field you’re interested in—maybe you already have specific research interests based on classes you’ve taken, or maybe you had to consider your topic when applying to graduate school and writing a statement of purpose .

Even if you already have a good sense of your topic, you’ll need to read widely to build background knowledge and begin narrowing down your ideas. Conduct an initial literature review to begin gathering relevant sources. As you read, take notes and try to identify problems, questions, debates, contradictions and gaps. Your aim is to narrow down from a broad area of interest to a specific niche.

Make sure to consider the practicalities: the requirements of your programme, the amount of time you have to complete the research, and how difficult it will be to access sources and data on the topic. Before moving onto the next stage, it’s a good idea to discuss the topic with your thesis supervisor.

>>Read more about narrowing down a research topic

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So you’ve settled on a topic and found a niche—but what exactly will your research investigate, and why does it matter? To give your project focus and purpose, you have to define a research problem .

The problem might be a practical issue—for example, a process or practice that isn’t working well, an area of concern in an organization’s performance, or a difficulty faced by a specific group of people in society.

Alternatively, you might choose to investigate a theoretical problem—for example, an underexplored phenomenon or relationship, a contradiction between different models or theories, or an unresolved debate among scholars.

To put the problem in context and set your objectives, you can write a problem statement . This describes who the problem affects, why research is needed, and how your research project will contribute to solving it.

>>Read more about defining a research problem

Next, based on the problem statement, you need to write one or more research questions . These target exactly what you want to find out. They might focus on describing, comparing, evaluating, or explaining the research problem.

A strong research question should be specific enough that you can answer it thoroughly using appropriate qualitative or quantitative research methods. It should also be complex enough to require in-depth investigation, analysis, and argument. Questions that can be answered with “yes/no” or with easily available facts are not complex enough for a thesis or dissertation.

In some types of research, at this stage you might also have to develop a conceptual framework and testable hypotheses .

>>See research question examples

The research design is a practical framework for answering your research questions. It involves making decisions about the type of data you need, the methods you’ll use to collect and analyze it, and the location and timescale of your research.

There are often many possible paths you can take to answering your questions. The decisions you make will partly be based on your priorities. For example, do you want to determine causes and effects, draw generalizable conclusions, or understand the details of a specific context?

You need to decide whether you will use primary or secondary data and qualitative or quantitative methods . You also need to determine the specific tools, procedures, and materials you’ll use to collect and analyze your data, as well as your criteria for selecting participants or sources.

>>Read more about creating a research design

Finally, after completing these steps, you are ready to complete a research proposal . The proposal outlines the context, relevance, purpose, and plan of your research.

As well as outlining the background, problem statement, and research questions, the proposal should also include a literature review that shows how your project will fit into existing work on the topic. The research design section describes your approach and explains exactly what you will do.

You might have to get the proposal approved by your supervisor before you get started, and it will guide the process of writing your thesis or dissertation.

>>Read more about writing a research proposal

If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

Methodology

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

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Basic Steps in the Research Process

The following steps outline a simple and effective strategy for writing a research paper. Depending on your familiarity with the topic and the challenges you encounter along the way, you may need to rearrange these steps.

Step 1: Identify and develop your topic

Selecting a topic can be the most challenging part of a research assignment. Since this is the very first step in writing a paper, it is vital that it be done correctly. Here are some tips for selecting a topic:

• Select a topic within the parameters set by the assignment. Many times your instructor will give you clear guidelines as to what you can and cannot write about. Failure to work within these guidelines may result in your proposed paper being deemed unacceptable by your instructor.
• Select a topic of personal interest to you and learn more about it. The research for and writing of a paper will be more enjoyable if you are writing about something that you find interesting.
• Select a topic for which you can find a manageable amount of information. Do a preliminary search of information sources to determine whether existing sources will meet your needs. If you find too much information, you may need to narrow your topic; if you find too little, you may need to broaden your topic.
• Be original. Your instructor reads hundreds of research papers every year, and many of them are on the same topics (topics in the news at the time, controversial issues, subjects for which there is ample and easily accessed information). Stand out from your classmates by selecting an interesting and off-the-beaten-path topic.
• Still can't come up with a topic to write about? See your instructor for advice.

Once you have identified your topic, it may help to state it as a question. For example, if you are interested in finding out about the epidemic of obesity in the American population, you might pose the question "What are the causes of obesity in America ?" By posing your subject as a question you can more easily identify the main concepts or keywords to be used in your research.

Step 2 : Do a preliminary search for information

Before beginning your research in earnest, do a preliminary search to determine whether there is enough information out there for your needs and to set the context of your research. Look up your keywords in the appropriate titles in the library's Reference collection (such as encyclopedias and dictionaries) and in other sources such as our catalog of books, periodical databases, and Internet search engines. Additional background information may be found in your lecture notes, textbooks, and reserve readings. You may find it necessary to adjust the focus of your topic in light of the resources available to you.

Step 3: Locate materials

With the direction of your research now clear to you, you can begin locating material on your topic. There are a number of places you can look for information:

If you are looking for books, do a subject search in One Search . A Keyword search can be performed if the subject search doesn't yield enough information. Print or write down the citation information (author, title,etc.) and the location (call number and collection) of the item(s). Note the circulation status. When you locate the book on the shelf, look at the books located nearby; similar items are always shelved in the same area. The Aleph catalog also indexes the library's audio-visual holdings.

Use the library's  electronic periodical databases  to find magazine and newspaper articles. Choose the databases and formats best suited to your particular topic; ask at the librarian at the Reference Desk if you need help figuring out which database best meets your needs. Many of the articles in the databases are available in full-text format.

Use search engines ( Google ,  Yahoo , etc.) and subject directories to locate materials on the Internet. Check the  Internet Resources  section of the NHCC Library web site for helpful subject links.

Step 4: Evaluate your sources

See the  CARS Checklist for Information Quality   for tips on evaluating the authority and quality of the information you have located. Your instructor expects that you will provide credible, truthful, and reliable information and you have every right to expect that the sources you use are providing the same. This step is especially important when using Internet resources, many of which are regarded as less than reliable.

Step 5: Make notes

Consult the resources you have chosen and note the information that will be useful in your paper. Be sure to document all the sources you consult, even if you there is a chance you may not use that particular source. The author, title, publisher, URL, and other information will be needed later when creating a bibliography.

Step 6: Write your paper

Begin by organizing the information you have collected. The next step is the rough draft, wherein you get your ideas on paper in an unfinished fashion. This step will help you organize your ideas and determine the form your final paper will take. After this, you will revise the draft as many times as you think necessary to create a final product to turn in to your instructor.

Step 7: Cite your sources properly

Give credit where credit is due; cite your sources.

Citing or documenting the sources used in your research serves two purposes: it gives proper credit to the authors of the materials used, and it allows those who are reading your work to duplicate your research and locate the sources that you have listed as references. The  MLA  and the  APA  Styles are two popular citation formats.

Failure to cite your sources properly is plagiarism. Plagiarism is avoidable!

Step 8: Proofread

The final step in the process is to proofread the paper you have created. Read through the text and check for any errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Make sure the sources you used are cited properly. Make sure the message that you want to get across to the reader has been thoroughly stated.

Additional research tips:

• Work from the general to the specific -- find background information first, then use more specific sources.
• Don't forget print sources -- many times print materials are more easily accessed and every bit as helpful as online resources.
• The library has books on the topic of writing research papers at call number area LB 2369.
• If you have questions about the assignment, ask your instructor.
• If you have any questions about finding information in the library, ask the librarian.

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Overview of research process.

The Research Process

Anything you write involves organization and a logical flow of ideas, so understanding the logic of the research process before beginning to write is essential. Simply put, you need to put your writing in the larger context—see the forest before you even attempt to see the trees.

In this brief introductory module, we’ll review the major steps in the research process, conceptualized here as a series of steps within a circle, with each step dependent on the previous one. The circle best depicts the recursive nature of the process; that is, once the process has been completed, the researcher may begin again by refining or expanding on the initial approach, or even pioneering a completely new approach to solving the problem.

Identify a Research Problem

You identify a research problem by first selecting a general topic that’s interesting to you and to the interests and specialties of your research advisor. Once identified, you’ll need to narrow it. For example, if teenage pregnancy is your general topic area, your specific topic could be a comparison of how teenage pregnancy affects young fathers and mothers differently.

Review the Literature

Find out what’s being asked or what’s already been done in the area by doing some exploratory reading. Discuss the topic with your advisor to gain additional insights, explore novel approaches, and begin to develop your research question, purpose statement, and hypothesis(es), if applicable.

Determine Research Question

A good research question is a question worth asking; one that poses a problem worth solving. A good question should:

• Be clear . It must be understandable to you and to others.
• Be researchable . It should be capable of developing into a manageable research design, so data may be collected in relation to it. Extremely abstract terms are unlikely to be suitable.
• Connect with established theory and research . There should be a literature on which you can draw to illuminate how your research question(s) should be approached.
• Be neither too broad nor too narrow. See Appendix A for a brief explanation of the narrowing process and how your research question, purpose statement, and hypothesis(es) are interconnected.

Appendix A Research Questions, Purpose Statement, Hypothesis(es)

Develop Research Methods

Once you’ve finalized your research question, purpose statement, and hypothesis(es), you’ll need to write your research proposal—a detailed management plan for your research project. The proposal is as essential to successful research as an architect’s plans are to the construction of a building.

See Appendix B to view the basic components of a research proposal.

Appendix B Components of a Research Proposal

Collect & Analyze Data

In Practical Research–Planning and Design (2005, 8th Edition), Leedy and Ormrod provide excellent advice for what the researcher does at this stage in the research process. The researcher now

• collects data that potentially relate to the problem,
• arranges the data into a logical organizational structure,
• analyzes and interprets the data to determine their meaning, 
• determines if the data resolve the research problem or not, and
• determines if the data support the hypothesis or not.

Document the Work

Because research reports differ by discipline, the most effective way for you to understand formatting and citations is to examine reports from others in your department or field. The library’s electronic databases provide a wealth of examples illustrating how others in your field document their research.

Communicate Your Research

Talk with your advisor about potential local, regional, or national venues to present your findings. And don’t sell yourself short: Consider publishing your research in related books or journals.

Refine/Expand, Pioneer

Earlier, we emphasized the fact that the research process, rather than being linear, is recursive—the reason we conceptualized the process as a series of steps within a circle. At this stage, you may need to revisit your research problem in the context of your findings. You might also investigate the implications of your work and identify new problems or refine your previous approach.

The process then begins anew . . . and you’ll once again move through the series of steps in the circle.

Continue to Module Two

Appendix C - Key Research Terms

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Research Paper – Structure, Examples and Writing Guide

Table of Contents

Research Paper

Definition:

Research Paper is a written document that presents the author’s original research, analysis, and interpretation of a specific topic or issue.

It is typically based on Empirical Evidence, and may involve qualitative or quantitative research methods, or a combination of both. The purpose of a research paper is to contribute new knowledge or insights to a particular field of study, and to demonstrate the author’s understanding of the existing literature and theories related to the topic.

Structure of Research Paper

The structure of a research paper typically follows a standard format, consisting of several sections that convey specific information about the research study. The following is a detailed explanation of the structure of a research paper:

The title page contains the title of the paper, the name(s) of the author(s), and the affiliation(s) of the author(s). It also includes the date of submission and possibly, the name of the journal or conference where the paper is to be published.

The abstract is a brief summary of the research paper, typically ranging from 100 to 250 words. It should include the research question, the methods used, the key findings, and the implications of the results. The abstract should be written in a concise and clear manner to allow readers to quickly grasp the essence of the research.

Introduction

The introduction section of a research paper provides background information about the research problem, the research question, and the research objectives. It also outlines the significance of the research, the research gap that it aims to fill, and the approach taken to address the research question. Finally, the introduction section ends with a clear statement of the research hypothesis or research question.

Literature Review

The literature review section of a research paper provides an overview of the existing literature on the topic of study. It includes a critical analysis and synthesis of the literature, highlighting the key concepts, themes, and debates. The literature review should also demonstrate the research gap and how the current study seeks to address it.

The methods section of a research paper describes the research design, the sample selection, the data collection and analysis procedures, and the statistical methods used to analyze the data. This section should provide sufficient detail for other researchers to replicate the study.

The results section presents the findings of the research, using tables, graphs, and figures to illustrate the data. The findings should be presented in a clear and concise manner, with reference to the research question and hypothesis.

The discussion section of a research paper interprets the findings and discusses their implications for the research question, the literature review, and the field of study. It should also address the limitations of the study and suggest future research directions.

The conclusion section summarizes the main findings of the study, restates the research question and hypothesis, and provides a final reflection on the significance of the research.

The references section provides a list of all the sources cited in the paper, following a specific citation style such as APA, MLA or Chicago.

How to Write Research Paper

You can write Research Paper by the following guide:

• Choose a Topic: The first step is to select a topic that interests you and is relevant to your field of study. Brainstorm ideas and narrow down to a research question that is specific and researchable.
• Conduct a Literature Review: The literature review helps you identify the gap in the existing research and provides a basis for your research question. It also helps you to develop a theoretical framework and research hypothesis.
• Develop a Thesis Statement : The thesis statement is the main argument of your research paper. It should be clear, concise and specific to your research question.
• Plan your Research: Develop a research plan that outlines the methods, data sources, and data analysis procedures. This will help you to collect and analyze data effectively.
• Collect and Analyze Data: Collect data using various methods such as surveys, interviews, observations, or experiments. Analyze data using statistical tools or other qualitative methods.
• Organize your Paper : Organize your paper into sections such as Introduction, Literature Review, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion. Ensure that each section is coherent and follows a logical flow.
• Write your Paper : Start by writing the introduction, followed by the literature review, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion. Ensure that your writing is clear, concise, and follows the required formatting and citation styles.
• Edit and Proofread your Paper: Review your paper for grammar and spelling errors, and ensure that it is well-structured and easy to read. Ask someone else to review your paper to get feedback and suggestions for improvement.
• Cite your Sources: Ensure that you properly cite all sources used in your research paper. This is essential for giving credit to the original authors and avoiding plagiarism.

Research Paper Example

Note : The below example research paper is for illustrative purposes only and is not an actual research paper. Actual research papers may have different structures, contents, and formats depending on the field of study, research question, data collection and analysis methods, and other factors. Students should always consult with their professors or supervisors for specific guidelines and expectations for their research papers.

Research Paper Example sample for Students:

Title: The Impact of Social Media on Mental Health among Young Adults

Abstract: This study aims to investigate the impact of social media use on the mental health of young adults. A literature review was conducted to examine the existing research on the topic. A survey was then administered to 200 university students to collect data on their social media use, mental health status, and perceived impact of social media on their mental health. The results showed that social media use is positively associated with depression, anxiety, and stress. The study also found that social comparison, cyberbullying, and FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) are significant predictors of mental health problems among young adults.

Introduction: Social media has become an integral part of modern life, particularly among young adults. While social media has many benefits, including increased communication and social connectivity, it has also been associated with negative outcomes, such as addiction, cyberbullying, and mental health problems. This study aims to investigate the impact of social media use on the mental health of young adults.

Literature Review: The literature review highlights the existing research on the impact of social media use on mental health. The review shows that social media use is associated with depression, anxiety, stress, and other mental health problems. The review also identifies the factors that contribute to the negative impact of social media, including social comparison, cyberbullying, and FOMO.

Methods : A survey was administered to 200 university students to collect data on their social media use, mental health status, and perceived impact of social media on their mental health. The survey included questions on social media use, mental health status (measured using the DASS-21), and perceived impact of social media on their mental health. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and regression analysis.

Results : The results showed that social media use is positively associated with depression, anxiety, and stress. The study also found that social comparison, cyberbullying, and FOMO are significant predictors of mental health problems among young adults.

Discussion : The study’s findings suggest that social media use has a negative impact on the mental health of young adults. The study highlights the need for interventions that address the factors contributing to the negative impact of social media, such as social comparison, cyberbullying, and FOMO.

Conclusion : In conclusion, social media use has a significant impact on the mental health of young adults. The study’s findings underscore the need for interventions that promote healthy social media use and address the negative outcomes associated with social media use. Future research can explore the effectiveness of interventions aimed at reducing the negative impact of social media on mental health. Additionally, longitudinal studies can investigate the long-term effects of social media use on mental health.

Limitations : The study has some limitations, including the use of self-report measures and a cross-sectional design. The use of self-report measures may result in biased responses, and a cross-sectional design limits the ability to establish causality.

Implications: The study’s findings have implications for mental health professionals, educators, and policymakers. Mental health professionals can use the findings to develop interventions that address the negative impact of social media use on mental health. Educators can incorporate social media literacy into their curriculum to promote healthy social media use among young adults. Policymakers can use the findings to develop policies that protect young adults from the negative outcomes associated with social media use.

References :

• Twenge, J. M., & Campbell, W. K. (2019). Associations between screen time and lower psychological well-being among children and adolescents: Evidence from a population-based study. Preventive medicine reports, 15, 100918.
• Primack, B. A., Shensa, A., Escobar-Viera, C. G., Barrett, E. L., Sidani, J. E., Colditz, J. B., … & James, A. E. (2017). Use of multiple social media platforms and symptoms of depression and anxiety: A nationally-representative study among US young adults. Computers in Human Behavior, 69, 1-9.
• Van der Meer, T. G., & Verhoeven, J. W. (2017). Social media and its impact on academic performance of students. Journal of Information Technology Education: Research, 16, 383-398.

Appendix : The survey used in this study is provided below.

Social Media and Mental Health Survey

• How often do you use social media per day?
• Less than 30 minutes
• 30 minutes to 1 hour
• 1 to 2 hours
• 2 to 4 hours
• More than 4 hours
• Which social media platforms do you use?
• Others (Please specify)
• How often do you experience the following on social media?
• Social comparison (comparing yourself to others)
• Cyberbullying
• Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)
• Have you ever experienced any of the following mental health problems in the past month?
• Do you think social media use has a positive or negative impact on your mental health?
• Very positive
• Somewhat positive
• Somewhat negative
• Very negative
• In your opinion, which factors contribute to the negative impact of social media on mental health?
• Social comparison
• In your opinion, what interventions could be effective in reducing the negative impact of social media on mental health?
• Education on healthy social media use
• Counseling for mental health problems caused by social media
• Social media detox programs
• Regulation of social media use

Thank you for your participation!

Applications of Research Paper

Research papers have several applications in various fields, including:

• Advancing knowledge: Research papers contribute to the advancement of knowledge by generating new insights, theories, and findings that can inform future research and practice. They help to answer important questions, clarify existing knowledge, and identify areas that require further investigation.
• Informing policy: Research papers can inform policy decisions by providing evidence-based recommendations for policymakers. They can help to identify gaps in current policies, evaluate the effectiveness of interventions, and inform the development of new policies and regulations.
• Improving practice: Research papers can improve practice by providing evidence-based guidance for professionals in various fields, including medicine, education, business, and psychology. They can inform the development of best practices, guidelines, and standards of care that can improve outcomes for individuals and organizations.
• Educating students : Research papers are often used as teaching tools in universities and colleges to educate students about research methods, data analysis, and academic writing. They help students to develop critical thinking skills, research skills, and communication skills that are essential for success in many careers.
• Fostering collaboration: Research papers can foster collaboration among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers by providing a platform for sharing knowledge and ideas. They can facilitate interdisciplinary collaborations and partnerships that can lead to innovative solutions to complex problems.

When to Write Research Paper

Research papers are typically written when a person has completed a research project or when they have conducted a study and have obtained data or findings that they want to share with the academic or professional community. Research papers are usually written in academic settings, such as universities, but they can also be written in professional settings, such as research organizations, government agencies, or private companies.

Here are some common situations where a person might need to write a research paper:

• For academic purposes: Students in universities and colleges are often required to write research papers as part of their coursework, particularly in the social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities. Writing research papers helps students to develop research skills, critical thinking skills, and academic writing skills.
• For publication: Researchers often write research papers to publish their findings in academic journals or to present their work at academic conferences. Publishing research papers is an important way to disseminate research findings to the academic community and to establish oneself as an expert in a particular field.
• To inform policy or practice : Researchers may write research papers to inform policy decisions or to improve practice in various fields. Research findings can be used to inform the development of policies, guidelines, and best practices that can improve outcomes for individuals and organizations.
• To share new insights or ideas: Researchers may write research papers to share new insights or ideas with the academic or professional community. They may present new theories, propose new research methods, or challenge existing paradigms in their field.

Purpose of Research Paper

The purpose of a research paper is to present the results of a study or investigation in a clear, concise, and structured manner. Research papers are written to communicate new knowledge, ideas, or findings to a specific audience, such as researchers, scholars, practitioners, or policymakers. The primary purposes of a research paper are:

• To contribute to the body of knowledge : Research papers aim to add new knowledge or insights to a particular field or discipline. They do this by reporting the results of empirical studies, reviewing and synthesizing existing literature, proposing new theories, or providing new perspectives on a topic.
• To inform or persuade: Research papers are written to inform or persuade the reader about a particular issue, topic, or phenomenon. They present evidence and arguments to support their claims and seek to persuade the reader of the validity of their findings or recommendations.
• To advance the field: Research papers seek to advance the field or discipline by identifying gaps in knowledge, proposing new research questions or approaches, or challenging existing assumptions or paradigms. They aim to contribute to ongoing debates and discussions within a field and to stimulate further research and inquiry.
• To demonstrate research skills: Research papers demonstrate the author’s research skills, including their ability to design and conduct a study, collect and analyze data, and interpret and communicate findings. They also demonstrate the author’s ability to critically evaluate existing literature, synthesize information from multiple sources, and write in a clear and structured manner.

Characteristics of Research Paper

Research papers have several characteristics that distinguish them from other forms of academic or professional writing. Here are some common characteristics of research papers:

• Evidence-based: Research papers are based on empirical evidence, which is collected through rigorous research methods such as experiments, surveys, observations, or interviews. They rely on objective data and facts to support their claims and conclusions.
• Structured and organized: Research papers have a clear and logical structure, with sections such as introduction, literature review, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion. They are organized in a way that helps the reader to follow the argument and understand the findings.
• Formal and objective: Research papers are written in a formal and objective tone, with an emphasis on clarity, precision, and accuracy. They avoid subjective language or personal opinions and instead rely on objective data and analysis to support their arguments.
• Citations and references: Research papers include citations and references to acknowledge the sources of information and ideas used in the paper. They use a specific citation style, such as APA, MLA, or Chicago, to ensure consistency and accuracy.
• Peer-reviewed: Research papers are often peer-reviewed, which means they are evaluated by other experts in the field before they are published. Peer-review ensures that the research is of high quality, meets ethical standards, and contributes to the advancement of knowledge in the field.
• Objective and unbiased: Research papers strive to be objective and unbiased in their presentation of the findings. They avoid personal biases or preconceptions and instead rely on the data and analysis to draw conclusions.

Advantages of Research Paper

Research papers have many advantages, both for the individual researcher and for the broader academic and professional community. Here are some advantages of research papers:

• Contribution to knowledge: Research papers contribute to the body of knowledge in a particular field or discipline. They add new information, insights, and perspectives to existing literature and help advance the understanding of a particular phenomenon or issue.
• Opportunity for intellectual growth: Research papers provide an opportunity for intellectual growth for the researcher. They require critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity, which can help develop the researcher’s skills and knowledge.
• Career advancement: Research papers can help advance the researcher’s career by demonstrating their expertise and contributions to the field. They can also lead to new research opportunities, collaborations, and funding.
• Academic recognition: Research papers can lead to academic recognition in the form of awards, grants, or invitations to speak at conferences or events. They can also contribute to the researcher’s reputation and standing in the field.
• Impact on policy and practice: Research papers can have a significant impact on policy and practice. They can inform policy decisions, guide practice, and lead to changes in laws, regulations, or procedures.
• Advancement of society: Research papers can contribute to the advancement of society by addressing important issues, identifying solutions to problems, and promoting social justice and equality.

Limitations of Research Paper

Research papers also have some limitations that should be considered when interpreting their findings or implications. Here are some common limitations of research papers:

• Limited generalizability: Research findings may not be generalizable to other populations, settings, or contexts. Studies often use specific samples or conditions that may not reflect the broader population or real-world situations.
• Potential for bias : Research papers may be biased due to factors such as sample selection, measurement errors, or researcher biases. It is important to evaluate the quality of the research design and methods used to ensure that the findings are valid and reliable.
• Ethical concerns: Research papers may raise ethical concerns, such as the use of vulnerable populations or invasive procedures. Researchers must adhere to ethical guidelines and obtain informed consent from participants to ensure that the research is conducted in a responsible and respectful manner.
• Limitations of methodology: Research papers may be limited by the methodology used to collect and analyze data. For example, certain research methods may not capture the complexity or nuance of a particular phenomenon, or may not be appropriate for certain research questions.
• Publication bias: Research papers may be subject to publication bias, where positive or significant findings are more likely to be published than negative or non-significant findings. This can skew the overall findings of a particular area of research.
• Time and resource constraints: Research papers may be limited by time and resource constraints, which can affect the quality and scope of the research. Researchers may not have access to certain data or resources, or may be unable to conduct long-term studies due to practical limitations.

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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Research Design – Types, Methods and Examples

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Focus: Education — Career Advice

How to write your first research paper.

Writing a research manuscript is an intimidating process for many novice writers in the sciences. One of the stumbling blocks is the beginning of the process and creating the first draft. This paper presents guidelines on how to initiate the writing process and draft each section of a research manuscript. The paper discusses seven rules that allow the writer to prepare a well-structured and comprehensive manuscript for a publication submission. In addition, the author lists different strategies for successful revision. Each of those strategies represents a step in the revision process and should help the writer improve the quality of the manuscript. The paper could be considered a brief manual for publication.

It is late at night. You have been struggling with your project for a year. You generated an enormous amount of interesting data. Your pipette feels like an extension of your hand, and running western blots has become part of your daily routine, similar to brushing your teeth. Your colleagues think you are ready to write a paper, and your lab mates tease you about your “slow” writing progress. Yet days pass, and you cannot force yourself to sit down to write. You have not written anything for a while (lab reports do not count), and you feel you have lost your stamina. How does the writing process work? How can you fit your writing into a daily schedule packed with experiments? What section should you start with? What distinguishes a good research paper from a bad one? How should you revise your paper? These and many other questions buzz in your head and keep you stressed. As a result, you procrastinate. In this paper, I will discuss the issues related to the writing process of a scientific paper. Specifically, I will focus on the best approaches to start a scientific paper, tips for writing each section, and the best revision strategies.

1. Schedule your writing time in Outlook

Whether you have written 100 papers or you are struggling with your first, starting the process is the most difficult part unless you have a rigid writing schedule. Writing is hard. It is a very difficult process of intense concentration and brain work. As stated in Hayes’ framework for the study of writing: “It is a generative activity requiring motivation, and it is an intellectual activity requiring cognitive processes and memory” [ 1 ]. In his book How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing , Paul Silvia says that for some, “it’s easier to embalm the dead than to write an article about it” [ 2 ]. Just as with any type of hard work, you will not succeed unless you practice regularly. If you have not done physical exercises for a year, only regular workouts can get you into good shape again. The same kind of regular exercises, or I call them “writing sessions,” are required to be a productive author. Choose from 1- to 2-hour blocks in your daily work schedule and consider them as non-cancellable appointments. When figuring out which blocks of time will be set for writing, you should select the time that works best for this type of work. For many people, mornings are more productive. One Yale University graduate student spent a semester writing from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. when her lab was empty. At the end of the semester, she was amazed at how much she accomplished without even interrupting her regular lab hours. In addition, doing the hardest task first thing in the morning contributes to the sense of accomplishment during the rest of the day. This positive feeling spills over into our work and life and has a very positive effect on our overall attitude.

Rule 1: Create regular time blocks for writing as appointments in your calendar and keep these appointments.

2. start with an outline.

Now that you have scheduled time, you need to decide how to start writing. The best strategy is to start with an outline. This will not be an outline that you are used to, with Roman numerals for each section and neat parallel listing of topic sentences and supporting points. This outline will be similar to a template for your paper. Initially, the outline will form a structure for your paper; it will help generate ideas and formulate hypotheses. Following the advice of George M. Whitesides, “. . . start with a blank piece of paper, and write down, in any order, all important ideas that occur to you concerning the paper” [ 3 ]. Use Table 1 as a starting point for your outline. Include your visuals (figures, tables, formulas, equations, and algorithms), and list your findings. These will constitute the first level of your outline, which will eventually expand as you elaborate.

The next stage is to add context and structure. Here you will group all your ideas into sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion/Conclusion ( Table 2 ). This step will help add coherence to your work and sift your ideas.

Now that you have expanded your outline, you are ready for the next step: discussing the ideas for your paper with your colleagues and mentor. Many universities have a writing center where graduate students can schedule individual consultations and receive assistance with their paper drafts. Getting feedback during early stages of your draft can save a lot of time. Talking through ideas allows people to conceptualize and organize thoughts to find their direction without wasting time on unnecessary writing. Outlining is the most effective way of communicating your ideas and exchanging thoughts. Moreover, it is also the best stage to decide to which publication you will submit the paper. Many people come up with three choices and discuss them with their mentors and colleagues. Having a list of journal priorities can help you quickly resubmit your paper if your paper is rejected.

Rule 2: Create a detailed outline and discuss it with your mentor and peers.

3. continue with drafts.

After you get enough feedback and decide on the journal you will submit to, the process of real writing begins. Copy your outline into a separate file and expand on each of the points, adding data and elaborating on the details. When you create the first draft, do not succumb to the temptation of editing. Do not slow down to choose a better word or better phrase; do not halt to improve your sentence structure. Pour your ideas into the paper and leave revision and editing for later. As Paul Silvia explains, “Revising while you generate text is like drinking decaffeinated coffee in the early morning: noble idea, wrong time” [ 2 ].

Many students complain that they are not productive writers because they experience writer’s block. Staring at an empty screen is frustrating, but your screen is not really empty: You have a template of your article, and all you need to do is fill in the blanks. Indeed, writer’s block is a logical fallacy for a scientist ― it is just an excuse to procrastinate. When scientists start writing a research paper, they already have their files with data, lab notes with materials and experimental designs, some visuals, and tables with results. All they need to do is scrutinize these pieces and put them together into a comprehensive paper.

3.1. Starting with Materials and Methods

If you still struggle with starting a paper, then write the Materials and Methods section first. Since you have all your notes, it should not be problematic for you to describe the experimental design and procedures. Your most important goal in this section is to be as explicit as possible by providing enough detail and references. In the end, the purpose of this section is to allow other researchers to evaluate and repeat your work. So do not run into the same problems as the writers of the sentences in (1):

1a. Bacteria were pelleted by centrifugation. 1b. To isolate T cells, lymph nodes were collected.

As you can see, crucial pieces of information are missing: the speed of centrifuging your bacteria, the time, and the temperature in (1a); the source of lymph nodes for collection in (b). The sentences can be improved when information is added, as in (2a) and (2b), respectfully:

2a. Bacteria were pelleted by centrifugation at 3000g for 15 min at 25°C. 2b. To isolate T cells, mediastinal and mesenteric lymph nodes from Balb/c mice were collected at day 7 after immunization with ovabumin.

If your method has previously been published and is well-known, then you should provide only the literature reference, as in (3a). If your method is unpublished, then you need to make sure you provide all essential details, as in (3b).

3a. Stem cells were isolated, according to Johnson [23]. 3b. Stem cells were isolated using biotinylated carbon nanotubes coated with anti-CD34 antibodies.

Furthermore, cohesion and fluency are crucial in this section. One of the malpractices resulting in disrupted fluency is switching from passive voice to active and vice versa within the same paragraph, as shown in (4). This switching misleads and distracts the reader.

4. Behavioral computer-based experiments of Study 1 were programmed by using E-Prime. We took ratings of enjoyment, mood, and arousal as the patients listened to preferred pleasant music and unpreferred music by using Visual Analogue Scales (SI Methods). The preferred and unpreferred status of the music was operationalized along a continuum of pleasantness [ 4 ].

The problem with (4) is that the reader has to switch from the point of view of the experiment (passive voice) to the point of view of the experimenter (active voice). This switch causes confusion about the performer of the actions in the first and the third sentences. To improve the coherence and fluency of the paragraph above, you should be consistent in choosing the point of view: first person “we” or passive voice [ 5 ]. Let’s consider two revised examples in (5).

5a. We programmed behavioral computer-based experiments of Study 1 by using E-Prime. We took ratings of enjoyment, mood, and arousal by using Visual Analogue Scales (SI Methods) as the patients listened to preferred pleasant music and unpreferred music. We operationalized the preferred and unpreferred status of the music along a continuum of pleasantness. 5b. Behavioral computer-based experiments of Study 1 were programmed by using E-Prime. Ratings of enjoyment, mood, and arousal were taken as the patients listened to preferred pleasant music and unpreferred music by using Visual Analogue Scales (SI Methods). The preferred and unpreferred status of the music was operationalized along a continuum of pleasantness.

If you choose the point of view of the experimenter, then you may end up with repetitive “we did this” sentences. For many readers, paragraphs with sentences all beginning with “we” may also sound disruptive. So if you choose active sentences, you need to keep the number of “we” subjects to a minimum and vary the beginnings of the sentences [ 6 ].

Interestingly, recent studies have reported that the Materials and Methods section is the only section in research papers in which passive voice predominantly overrides the use of the active voice [ 5 , 7 , 8 , 9 ]. For example, Martínez shows a significant drop in active voice use in the Methods sections based on the corpus of 1 million words of experimental full text research articles in the biological sciences [ 7 ]. According to the author, the active voice patterned with “we” is used only as a tool to reveal personal responsibility for the procedural decisions in designing and performing experimental work. This means that while all other sections of the research paper use active voice, passive voice is still the most predominant in Materials and Methods sections.

Writing Materials and Methods sections is a meticulous and time consuming task requiring extreme accuracy and clarity. This is why when you complete your draft, you should ask for as much feedback from your colleagues as possible. Numerous readers of this section will help you identify the missing links and improve the technical style of this section.

Rule 3: Be meticulous and accurate in describing the Materials and Methods. Do not change the point of view within one paragraph.

3.2. writing results section.

For many authors, writing the Results section is more intimidating than writing the Materials and Methods section . If people are interested in your paper, they are interested in your results. That is why it is vital to use all your writing skills to objectively present your key findings in an orderly and logical sequence using illustrative materials and text.

Your Results should be organized into different segments or subsections where each one presents the purpose of the experiment, your experimental approach, data including text and visuals (tables, figures, schematics, algorithms, and formulas), and data commentary. For most journals, your data commentary will include a meaningful summary of the data presented in the visuals and an explanation of the most significant findings. This data presentation should not repeat the data in the visuals, but rather highlight the most important points. In the “standard” research paper approach, your Results section should exclude data interpretation, leaving it for the Discussion section. However, interpretations gradually and secretly creep into research papers: “Reducing the data, generalizing from the data, and highlighting scientific cases are all highly interpretive processes. It should be clear by now that we do not let the data speak for themselves in research reports; in summarizing our results, we interpret them for the reader” [ 10 ]. As a result, many journals including the Journal of Experimental Medicine and the Journal of Clinical Investigation use joint Results/Discussion sections, where results are immediately followed by interpretations.

Another important aspect of this section is to create a comprehensive and supported argument or a well-researched case. This means that you should be selective in presenting data and choose only those experimental details that are essential for your reader to understand your findings. You might have conducted an experiment 20 times and collected numerous records, but this does not mean that you should present all those records in your paper. You need to distinguish your results from your data and be able to discard excessive experimental details that could distract and confuse the reader. However, creating a picture or an argument should not be confused with data manipulation or falsification, which is a willful distortion of data and results. If some of your findings contradict your ideas, you have to mention this and find a plausible explanation for the contradiction.

In addition, your text should not include irrelevant and peripheral information, including overview sentences, as in (6).

6. To show our results, we first introduce all components of experimental system and then describe the outcome of infections.

Indeed, wordiness convolutes your sentences and conceals your ideas from readers. One common source of wordiness is unnecessary intensifiers. Adverbial intensifiers such as “clearly,” “essential,” “quite,” “basically,” “rather,” “fairly,” “really,” and “virtually” not only add verbosity to your sentences, but also lower your results’ credibility. They appeal to the reader’s emotions but lower objectivity, as in the common examples in (7):

7a. Table 3 clearly shows that … 7b. It is obvious from figure 4 that …

Another source of wordiness is nominalizations, i.e., nouns derived from verbs and adjectives paired with weak verbs including “be,” “have,” “do,” “make,” “cause,” “provide,” and “get” and constructions such as “there is/are.”

8a. We tested the hypothesis that there is a disruption of membrane asymmetry. 8b. In this paper we provide an argument that stem cells repopulate injured organs.

In the sentences above, the abstract nominalizations “disruption” and “argument” do not contribute to the clarity of the sentences, but rather clutter them with useless vocabulary that distracts from the meaning. To improve your sentences, avoid unnecessary nominalizations and change passive verbs and constructions into active and direct sentences.

9a. We tested the hypothesis that the membrane asymmetry is disrupted. 9b. In this paper we argue that stem cells repopulate injured organs.

Your Results section is the heart of your paper, representing a year or more of your daily research. So lead your reader through your story by writing direct, concise, and clear sentences.

Rule 4: Be clear, concise, and objective in describing your Results.

3.3. now it is time for your introduction.

Now that you are almost half through drafting your research paper, it is time to update your outline. While describing your Methods and Results, many of you diverged from the original outline and re-focused your ideas. So before you move on to create your Introduction, re-read your Methods and Results sections and change your outline to match your research focus. The updated outline will help you review the general picture of your paper, the topic, the main idea, and the purpose, which are all important for writing your introduction.

The best way to structure your introduction is to follow the three-move approach shown in Table 3 .

Adapted from Swales and Feak [ 11 ].

The moves and information from your outline can help to create your Introduction efficiently and without missing steps. These moves are traffic signs that lead the reader through the road of your ideas. Each move plays an important role in your paper and should be presented with deep thought and care. When you establish the territory, you place your research in context and highlight the importance of your research topic. By finding the niche, you outline the scope of your research problem and enter the scientific dialogue. The final move, “occupying the niche,” is where you explain your research in a nutshell and highlight your paper’s significance. The three moves allow your readers to evaluate their interest in your paper and play a significant role in the paper review process, determining your paper reviewers.

Some academic writers assume that the reader “should follow the paper” to find the answers about your methodology and your findings. As a result, many novice writers do not present their experimental approach and the major findings, wrongly believing that the reader will locate the necessary information later while reading the subsequent sections [ 5 ]. However, this “suspense” approach is not appropriate for scientific writing. To interest the reader, scientific authors should be direct and straightforward and present informative one-sentence summaries of the results and the approach.

Another problem is that writers understate the significance of the Introduction. Many new researchers mistakenly think that all their readers understand the importance of the research question and omit this part. However, this assumption is faulty because the purpose of the section is not to evaluate the importance of the research question in general. The goal is to present the importance of your research contribution and your findings. Therefore, you should be explicit and clear in describing the benefit of the paper.

The Introduction should not be long. Indeed, for most journals, this is a very brief section of about 250 to 600 words, but it might be the most difficult section due to its importance.

Rule 5: Interest your reader in the Introduction section by signalling all its elements and stating the novelty of the work.

3.4. discussion of the results.

For many scientists, writing a Discussion section is as scary as starting a paper. Most of the fear comes from the variation in the section. Since every paper has its unique results and findings, the Discussion section differs in its length, shape, and structure. However, some general principles of writing this section still exist. Knowing these rules, or “moves,” can change your attitude about this section and help you create a comprehensive interpretation of your results.

The purpose of the Discussion section is to place your findings in the research context and “to explain the meaning of the findings and why they are important, without appearing arrogant, condescending, or patronizing” [ 11 ]. The structure of the first two moves is almost a mirror reflection of the one in the Introduction. In the Introduction, you zoom in from general to specific and from the background to your research question; in the Discussion section, you zoom out from the summary of your findings to the research context, as shown in Table 4 .

Adapted from Swales and Feak and Hess [ 11 , 12 ].

The biggest challenge for many writers is the opening paragraph of the Discussion section. Following the moves in Table 1 , the best choice is to start with the study’s major findings that provide the answer to the research question in your Introduction. The most common starting phrases are “Our findings demonstrate . . .,” or “In this study, we have shown that . . .,” or “Our results suggest . . .” In some cases, however, reminding the reader about the research question or even providing a brief context and then stating the answer would make more sense. This is important in those cases where the researcher presents a number of findings or where more than one research question was presented. Your summary of the study’s major findings should be followed by your presentation of the importance of these findings. One of the most frequent mistakes of the novice writer is to assume the importance of his findings. Even if the importance is clear to you, it may not be obvious to your reader. Digesting the findings and their importance to your reader is as crucial as stating your research question.

Another useful strategy is to be proactive in the first move by predicting and commenting on the alternative explanations of the results. Addressing potential doubts will save you from painful comments about the wrong interpretation of your results and will present you as a thoughtful and considerate researcher. Moreover, the evaluation of the alternative explanations might help you create a logical step to the next move of the discussion section: the research context.

The goal of the research context move is to show how your findings fit into the general picture of the current research and how you contribute to the existing knowledge on the topic. This is also the place to discuss any discrepancies and unexpected findings that may otherwise distort the general picture of your paper. Moreover, outlining the scope of your research by showing the limitations, weaknesses, and assumptions is essential and adds modesty to your image as a scientist. However, make sure that you do not end your paper with the problems that override your findings. Try to suggest feasible explanations and solutions.

If your submission does not require a separate Conclusion section, then adding another paragraph about the “take-home message” is a must. This should be a general statement reiterating your answer to the research question and adding its scientific implications, practical application, or advice.

Just as in all other sections of your paper, the clear and precise language and concise comprehensive sentences are vital. However, in addition to that, your writing should convey confidence and authority. The easiest way to illustrate your tone is to use the active voice and the first person pronouns. Accompanied by clarity and succinctness, these tools are the best to convince your readers of your point and your ideas.

Rule 6: Present the principles, relationships, and generalizations in a concise and convincing tone.

4. choosing the best working revision strategies.

Now that you have created the first draft, your attitude toward your writing should have improved. Moreover, you should feel more confident that you are able to accomplish your project and submit your paper within a reasonable timeframe. You also have worked out your writing schedule and followed it precisely. Do not stop ― you are only at the midpoint from your destination. Just as the best and most precious diamond is no more than an unattractive stone recognized only by trained professionals, your ideas and your results may go unnoticed if they are not polished and brushed. Despite your attempts to present your ideas in a logical and comprehensive way, first drafts are frequently a mess. Use the advice of Paul Silvia: “Your first drafts should sound like they were hastily translated from Icelandic by a non-native speaker” [ 2 ]. The degree of your success will depend on how you are able to revise and edit your paper.

The revision can be done at the macrostructure and the microstructure levels [ 13 ]. The macrostructure revision includes the revision of the organization, content, and flow. The microstructure level includes individual words, sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

The best way to approach the macrostructure revision is through the outline of the ideas in your paper. The last time you updated your outline was before writing the Introduction and the Discussion. Now that you have the beginning and the conclusion, you can take a bird’s-eye view of the whole paper. The outline will allow you to see if the ideas of your paper are coherently structured, if your results are logically built, and if the discussion is linked to the research question in the Introduction. You will be able to see if something is missing in any of the sections or if you need to rearrange your information to make your point.

The next step is to revise each of the sections starting from the beginning. Ideally, you should limit yourself to working on small sections of about five pages at a time [ 14 ]. After these short sections, your eyes get used to your writing and your efficiency in spotting problems decreases. When reading for content and organization, you should control your urge to edit your paper for sentence structure and grammar and focus only on the flow of your ideas and logic of your presentation. Experienced researchers tend to make almost three times the number of changes to meaning than novice writers [ 15 , 16 ]. Revising is a difficult but useful skill, which academic writers obtain with years of practice.

In contrast to the macrostructure revision, which is a linear process and is done usually through a detailed outline and by sections, microstructure revision is a non-linear process. While the goal of the macrostructure revision is to analyze your ideas and their logic, the goal of the microstructure editing is to scrutinize the form of your ideas: your paragraphs, sentences, and words. You do not need and are not recommended to follow the order of the paper to perform this type of revision. You can start from the end or from different sections. You can even revise by reading sentences backward, sentence by sentence and word by word.

One of the microstructure revision strategies frequently used during writing center consultations is to read the paper aloud [ 17 ]. You may read aloud to yourself, to a tape recorder, or to a colleague or friend. When reading and listening to your paper, you are more likely to notice the places where the fluency is disrupted and where you stumble because of a very long and unclear sentence or a wrong connector.

Another revision strategy is to learn your common errors and to do a targeted search for them [ 13 ]. All writers have a set of problems that are specific to them, i.e., their writing idiosyncrasies. Remembering these problems is as important for an academic writer as remembering your friends’ birthdays. Create a list of these idiosyncrasies and run a search for these problems using your word processor. If your problem is demonstrative pronouns without summary words, then search for “this/these/those” in your text and check if you used the word appropriately. If you have a problem with intensifiers, then search for “really” or “very” and delete them from the text. The same targeted search can be done to eliminate wordiness. Searching for “there is/are” or “and” can help you avoid the bulky sentences.

The final strategy is working with a hard copy and a pencil. Print a double space copy with font size 14 and re-read your paper in several steps. Try reading your paper line by line with the rest of the text covered with a piece of paper. When you are forced to see only a small portion of your writing, you are less likely to get distracted and are more likely to notice problems. You will end up spotting more unnecessary words, wrongly worded phrases, or unparallel constructions.

After you apply all these strategies, you are ready to share your writing with your friends, colleagues, and a writing advisor in the writing center. Get as much feedback as you can, especially from non-specialists in your field. Patiently listen to what others say to you ― you are not expected to defend your writing or explain what you wanted to say. You may decide what you want to change and how after you receive the feedback and sort it in your head. Even though some researchers make the revision an endless process and can hardly stop after a 14th draft; having from five to seven drafts of your paper is a norm in the sciences. If you can’t stop revising, then set a deadline for yourself and stick to it. Deadlines always help.

Rule 7: Revise your paper at the macrostructure and the microstructure level using different strategies and techniques. Receive feedback and revise again.

5. it is time to submit.

It is late at night again. You are still in your lab finishing revisions and getting ready to submit your paper. You feel happy ― you have finally finished a year’s worth of work. You will submit your paper tomorrow, and regardless of the outcome, you know that you can do it. If one journal does not take your paper, you will take advantage of the feedback and resubmit again. You will have a publication, and this is the most important achievement.

What is even more important is that you have your scheduled writing time that you are going to keep for your future publications, for reading and taking notes, for writing grants, and for reviewing papers. You are not going to lose stamina this time, and you will become a productive scientist. But for now, let’s celebrate the end of the paper.

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How to Write a Research Paper

Use the links below to jump directly to any section of this guide:

Research Paper Fundamentals

How to choose a topic or question, how to create a working hypothesis or thesis, common research paper methodologies, how to gather and organize evidence , how to write an outline for your research paper, how to write a rough draft, how to revise your draft, how to produce a final draft, resources for teachers .

It is not fair to say that no one writes anymore. Just about everyone writes text messages, brief emails, or social media posts every single day. Yet, most people don't have a lot of practice with the formal, organized writing required for a good academic research paper. This guide contains links to a variety of resources that can help demystify the process. Some of these resources are intended for teachers; they contain exercises, activities, and teaching strategies. Other resources are intended for direct use by students who are struggling to write papers, or are looking for tips to make the process go more smoothly.

The resources in this section are designed to help students understand the different types of research papers, the general research process, and how to manage their time. Below, you'll find links from university writing centers, the trusted Purdue Online Writing Lab, and more.

What is an Academic Research Paper?

"Genre and the Research Paper" (Purdue OWL)

There are different types of research papers. Different types of scholarly questions will lend themselves to one format or another. This is a brief introduction to the two main genres of research paper: analytic and argumentative. 

"7 Most Popular Types of Research Papers" (Personal-writer.com)

This resource discusses formats that high school students commonly encounter, such as the compare and contrast essay and the definitional essay. Please note that the inclusion of this link is not an endorsement of this company's paid service.

How to Prepare and Plan Out Writing a Research Paper

Teachers can give their students a step-by-step guide like these to help them understand the different steps of the research paper process. These guides can be combined with the time management tools in the next subsection to help students come up with customized calendars for completing their papers.

"Ten Steps for Writing Research Papers" (American University)  

This resource from American University is a comprehensive guide to the research paper writing process, and includes examples of proper research questions and thesis topics.

"Steps in Writing a Research Paper" (SUNY Empire State College)

This guide breaks the research paper process into 11 steps. Each "step" links to a separate page, which describes the work entailed in completing it.

How to Manage Time Effectively

The links below will help students determine how much time is necessary to complete a paper. If your sources are not available online or at your local library, you'll need to leave extra time for the Interlibrary Loan process. Remember that, even if you do not need to consult secondary sources, you'll still need to leave yourself ample time to organize your thoughts.

"Research Paper Planner: Timeline" (Baylor University)

This interactive resource from Baylor University creates a suggested writing schedule based on how much time a student has to work on the assignment.

"Research Paper Planner" (UCLA)

UCLA's library offers this step-by-step guide to the research paper writing process, which also includes a suggested planning calendar.

There's a reason teachers spend a long time talking about choosing a good topic. Without a good topic and a well-formulated research question, it is almost impossible to write a clear and organized paper. The resources below will help you generate ideas and formulate precise questions.

"How to Select a Research Topic" (Univ. of Michigan-Flint)

This resource is designed for college students who are struggling to come up with an appropriate topic. A student who uses this resource and still feels unsure about his or her topic should consult the course instructor for further personalized assistance.

"25 Interesting Research Paper Topics to Get You Started" (Kibin)

This resource, which is probably most appropriate for high school students, provides a list of specific topics to help get students started. It is broken into subsections, such as "paper topics on local issues."

"Writing a Good Research Question" (Grand Canyon University)

This introduction to research questions includes some embedded videos, as well as links to scholarly articles on research questions. This resource would be most appropriate for teachers who are planning lessons on research paper fundamentals.

"How to Write a Research Question the Right Way" (Kibin)

This student-focused resource provides more detail on writing research questions. The language is accessible, and there are embedded videos and examples of good and bad questions.

It is important to have a rough hypothesis or thesis in mind at the beginning of the research process. People who have a sense of what they want to say will have an easier time sorting through scholarly sources and other information. The key, of course, is not to become too wedded to the draft hypothesis or thesis. Just about every working thesis gets changed during the research process.

CrashCourse Video: "Sociology Research Methods" (YouTube)

Although this video is tailored to sociology students, it is applicable to students in a variety of social science disciplines. This video does a good job demonstrating the connection between the brainstorming that goes into selecting a research question and the formulation of a working hypothesis.

"How to Write a Thesis Statement for an Analytical Essay" (YouTube)

Students writing analytical essays will not develop the same type of working hypothesis as students who are writing research papers in other disciplines. For these students, developing the working thesis may happen as a part of the rough draft (see the relevant section below). 

"Research Hypothesis" (Oakland Univ.)

This resource provides some examples of hypotheses in social science disciplines like Political Science and Criminal Justice. These sample hypotheses may also be useful for students in other soft social sciences and humanities disciplines like History.

When grading a research paper, instructors look for a consistent methodology. This section will help you understand different methodological approaches used in research papers. Students will get the most out of these resources if they use them to help prepare for conversations with teachers or discussions in class.

"Types of Research Designs" (USC)

A "research design," used for complex papers, is related to the paper's method. This resource contains introductions to a variety of popular research designs in the social sciences. Although it is not the most intuitive site to read, the information here is very valuable. 

"Major Research Methods" (YouTube)

Although this video is a bit on the dry side, it provides a comprehensive overview of the major research methodologies in a format that might be more accessible to students who have struggled with textbooks or other written resources.

"Humanities Research Strategies" (USC)

This is a portal where students can learn about four methodological approaches for humanities papers: Historical Methodologies, Textual Criticism, Conceptual Analysis, and the Synoptic method.

"Selected Major Social Science Research Methods: Overview" (National Academies Press)

This appendix from the book  Using Science as Evidence in Public Policy , printed by National Academies Press, introduces some methods used in social science papers.

"Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper: 6. The Methodology" (USC)

This resource from the University of Southern California's library contains tips for writing a methodology section in a research paper.

How to Determine the Best Methodology for You

Anyone who is new to writing research papers should be sure to select a method in consultation with their instructor. These resources can be used to help prepare for that discussion. They may also be used on their own by more advanced students.

"Choosing Appropriate Research Methodologies" (Palgrave Study Skills)

This friendly and approachable resource from Palgrave Macmillan can be used by students who are just starting to think about appropriate methodologies.

"How to Choose Your Research Methods" (NFER (UK))

This is another approachable resource students can use to help narrow down the most appropriate methods for their research projects.

The resources in this section introduce the process of gathering scholarly sources and collecting evidence. You'll find a range of material here, from introductory guides to advanced explications best suited to college students. Please consult the LitCharts  How to Do Academic Research guide for a more comprehensive list of resources devoted to finding scholarly literature.

Google Scholar

Students who have access to library websites with detailed research guides should start there, but people who do not have access to those resources can begin their search for secondary literature here.

"Gathering Appropriate Information" (Texas Gateway)

This resource from the Texas Gateway for online resources introduces students to the research process, and contains interactive exercises. The level of complexity is suitable for middle school, high school, and introductory college classrooms.

"An Overview of Quantitative and Qualitative Data Collection Methods" (NSF)

This PDF from the National Science Foundation goes into detail about best practices and pitfalls in data collection across multiple types of methodologies.

"Social Science Methods for Data Collection and Analysis" (Swiss FIT)

This resource is appropriate for advanced undergraduates or teachers looking to create lessons on research design and data collection. It covers techniques for gathering data via interviews, observations, and other methods.

"Collecting Data by In-depth Interviewing" (Leeds Univ.)

This resource contains enough information about conducting interviews to make it useful for teachers who want to create a lesson plan, but is also accessible enough for college juniors or seniors to make use of it on their own.

There is no "one size fits all" outlining technique. Some students might devote all their energy and attention to the outline in order to avoid the paper. Other students may benefit from being made to sit down and organize their thoughts into a lengthy sentence outline. The resources in this section include strategies and templates for multiple types of outlines. 

"Topic vs. Sentence Outlines" (UC Berkeley)

This resource introduces two basic approaches to outlining: the shorter topic-based approach, and the longer, more detailed sentence-based approach. This resource also contains videos on how to develop paper paragraphs from the sentence-based outline.

"Types of Outlines and Samples" (Purdue OWL)

The Purdue Online Writing Lab's guide is a slightly less detailed discussion of different types of outlines. It contains several sample outlines.

"Writing An Outline" (Austin C.C.)

This resource from a community college contains sample outlines from an American history class that students can use as models.

"How to Structure an Outline for a College Paper" (YouTube)

This brief (sub-2 minute) video from the ExpertVillage YouTube channel provides a model of outline writing for students who are struggling with the idea.

"Outlining" (Harvard)

This is a good resource to consult after completing a draft outline. It offers suggestions for making sure your outline avoids things like unnecessary repetition.

As with outlines, rough drafts can take on many different forms. These resources introduce teachers and students to the various approaches to writing a rough draft. This section also includes resources that will help you cite your sources appropriately according to the MLA, Chicago, and APA style manuals.

"Creating a Rough Draft for a Research Paper" (Univ. of Minnesota)

This resource is useful for teachers in particular, as it provides some suggested exercises to help students with writing a basic rough draft. 

Rough Draft Assignment (Duke of Definition)

This sample assignment, with a brief list of tips, was developed by a high school teacher who runs a very successful and well-reviewed page of educational resources.

"Creating the First Draft of Your Research Paper" (Concordia Univ.)

This resource will be helpful for perfectionists or procrastinators, as it opens by discussing the problem of avoiding writing. It also provides a short list of suggestions meant to get students writing.

Using Proper Citations

There is no such thing as a rough draft of a scholarly citation. These links to the three major citation guides will ensure that your citations follow the correct format. Please consult the LitCharts How to Cite Your Sources guide for more resources.

Chicago Manual of Style Citation Guide

Some call  The Chicago Manual of Style , which was first published in 1906, "the editors' Bible." The manual is now in its 17th edition, and is popular in the social sciences, historical journals, and some other fields in the humanities.

APA Citation Guide

According to the American Psychological Association, this guide was developed to aid reading comprehension, clarity of communication, and to reduce bias in language in the social and behavioral sciences. Its first full edition was published in 1952, and it is now in its sixth edition.

MLA Citation Guide

The Modern Language Association style is used most commonly within the liberal arts and humanities. The  MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing  was first published in 1985 and (as of 2008) is in its third edition.

Any professional scholar will tell you that the best research papers are made in the revision stage. No matter how strong your research question or working thesis, it is not possible to write a truly outstanding paper without devoting energy to revision. These resources provide examples of revision exercises for the classroom, as well as tips for students working independently.

"The Art of Revision" (Univ. of Arizona)

This resource provides a wealth of information and suggestions for both students and teachers. There is a list of suggested exercises that teachers might use in class, along with a revision checklist that is useful for teachers and students alike.

"Script for Workshop on Revision" (Vanderbilt University)

Vanderbilt's guide for leading a 50-minute revision workshop can serve as a model for teachers who wish to guide students through the revision process during classtime. 

"Revising Your Paper" (Univ. of Washington)

This detailed handout was designed for students who are beginning the revision process. It discusses different approaches and methods for revision, and also includes a detailed list of things students should look for while they revise.

"Revising Drafts" (UNC Writing Center)

This resource is designed for students and suggests things to look for during the revision process. It provides steps for the process and has a FAQ for students who have questions about why it is important to revise.

Conferencing with Writing Tutors and Instructors

No writer is so good that he or she can't benefit from meeting with instructors or peer tutors. These resources from university writing, learning, and communication centers provide suggestions for how to get the most out of these one-on-one meetings.

"Getting Feedback" (UNC Writing Center)

This very helpful resource talks about how to ask for feedback during the entire writing process. It contains possible questions that students might ask when developing an outline, during the revision process, and after the final draft has been graded.

"Prepare for Your Tutoring Session" (Otis College of Art and Design)

This guide from a university's student learning center contains a lot of helpful tips for getting the most out of working with a writing tutor.

"The Importance of Asking Your Professor" (Univ. of Waterloo)

This article from the university's Writing and Communication Centre's blog contains some suggestions for how and when to get help from professors and Teaching Assistants.

Once you've revised your first draft, you're well on your way to handing in a polished paper. These resources—each of them produced by writing professionals at colleges and universities—outline the steps required in order to produce a final draft. You'll find proofreading tips and checklists in text and video form.

"Developing a Final Draft of a Research Paper" (Univ. of Minnesota)

While this resource contains suggestions for revision, it also features a couple of helpful checklists for the last stages of completing a final draft.

Basic Final Draft Tips and Checklist (Univ. of Maryland-University College)

This short and accessible resource, part of UMUC's very thorough online guide to writing and research, contains a very basic checklist for students who are getting ready to turn in their final drafts.

Final Draft Checklist (Everett C.C.)

This is another accessible final draft checklist, appropriate for both high school and college students. It suggests reading your essay aloud at least once.

"How to Proofread Your Final Draft" (YouTube)

This video (approximately 5 minutes), produced by Eastern Washington University, gives students tips on proofreading final drafts.

"Proofreading Tips" (Georgia Southern-Armstrong)

This guide will help students learn how to spot common errors in their papers. It suggests focusing on content and editing for grammar and mechanics.

This final set of resources is intended specifically for high school and college instructors. It provides links to unit plans and classroom exercises that can help improve students' research and writing skills. You'll find resources that give an overview of the process, along with activities that focus on how to begin and how to carry out research. 

"Research Paper Complete Resources Pack" (Teachers Pay Teachers)

This packet of assignments, rubrics, and other resources is designed for high school students. The resources in this packet are aligned to Common Core standards.

"Research Paper—Complete Unit" (Teachers Pay Teachers)

This packet of assignments, notes, PowerPoints, and other resources has a 4/4 rating with over 700 ratings. It is designed for high school teachers, but might also be useful to college instructors who work with freshmen.

"Teaching Students to Write Good Papers" (Yale)

This resource from Yale's Center for Teaching and Learning is designed for college instructors, and it includes links to appropriate activities and exercises.

"Research Paper Writing: An Overview" (CUNY Brooklyn)

CUNY Brooklyn offers this complete lesson plan for introducing students to research papers. It includes an accompanying set of PowerPoint slides.

"Lesson Plan: How to Begin Writing a Research Paper" (San Jose State Univ.)

This lesson plan is designed for students in the health sciences, so teachers will have to modify it for their own needs. It includes a breakdown of the brainstorming, topic selection, and research question process. 

"Quantitative Techniques for Social Science Research" (Univ. of Pittsburgh)

This is a set of PowerPoint slides that can be used to introduce students to a variety of quantitative methods used in the social sciences.

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The Process of Writing a Research Paper

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Planning the Research Paper

The goal of a research paper is to bring together different views, evidence, and facts about a topic from books, articles, and interviews, then interpret the information into your writing. It’s about a relationship between you, other writers, and your teacher/audience.

A research paper will show two things: what you know or learned about a certain topic, and what other people know about the same topic. Often you make a judgment, or just explain complex ideas to the reader. The length of the research paper depends on your teacher’s guidelines. It’s always a good idea to keep your teacher in mind while writing your paper because the teacher is your audience.

The Process There are three stages for doing a research paper. These stages are:

While most people start with prewriting, the three stages of the writing process overlap. Writing is not the kind of process where you have to finish step one before moving on to step two, and so on. Your job is to make your ideas as clear as possible for the reader, and that means you might have to go back and forth between the prewriting, writing and revising stages several times before submitting the paper.

» Prewriting Thinking about a topic

The first thing you should do when starting your research paper is to think of a topic. Try to pick a topic that interests you and your teacher — interesting topics are easier to write about than boring topics! Make sure that your topic is not too hard to research, and that there is enough material on the topic. Talk to as many people as possible about your topic, especially your teacher. You’ll be surprised at the ideas you’ll get from talking about your topic. Be sure to always discuss potential topics with your teacher.

Places you can find a topic: newspapers, magazines, television news, the World Wide Web, and even in the index of a textbook!

Narrowing down your topic

As you think about your topic and start reading, you should begin thinking about a possible thesis statement (a sentence or two explaining your opinion about the topic). One technique is to ask yourself one important question about your topic, and as you find your answer, the thesis can develop from that. Some other techniques you may use to narrow your topic are: jot lists; preliminary outlines; listing possible thesis statements; listing questions; and/or making a concept map. It also may be helpful to have a friend ask you questions about your topic.

For help on developing your thesis statement, see the English Center Guide to Developing a Thesis Statement .

Discovery/Reading about your topic

You need to find information that helps you support your thesis. There are different places you can find this information: books, articles, people (interviews), and the internet.

As you gather the information or ideas you need, you need to make sure that you take notes and write down where and who you got the information from. This is called “citing your sources.” If you write your paper using information from other writers and do not cite the sources, you are committing plagiarism . If you plagiarize, you can get an “F” on your paper, fail the course, or even get kicked out of school.

CITING SOURCES

There are three major different formats for citing sources. They are: the Modern Language Association (MLA) , the American Psychology Association (APA) , and the Chicago Turabian style . Always ask your teacher which format to use. For more information on these styles, see our other handouts!

ORGANIZING INFORMATION

After you’ve thought, read, and taken notes on your topic, you may want to revise your thesis because a good thesis will help you develop a plan for writing your paper. One way you can do this is to brainstorm — think about everything you know about your topic, and put it down on paper. Once you have it all written down, you can look it over and decide if you should change your thesis statement or not.

If you already developed a preliminary map or outline, now is the time to go back and revise it. If you haven’t developed a map or outline yet, now is the time to do it. The outline or concept map should help you organize how you want to present information to your readers. The clearer your outline or map, the easier it will be for you to write the paper. Be sure that each part of your outline supports your thesis. If it does not, you may want to change/revise your thesis statement again.

» Writing a research paper follows a standard compositional (essay) format. It has a title, introduction, body and conclusion. Some people like to start their research papers with a title and introduction, while others wait until they’ve already started the body of the paper before developing a title and introduction. See this link for more information about writing introductions and conclusions .

Some techniques that may help you with writing your paper are:

• start by writing your thesis statement
• use a free writing technique (What I mean is…)
• follow your outline or map
• pretend you are writing a letter to a friend, and tell them what you know about your topic
• follow your topic notecards

If you’re having difficulties thinking of what to write about next, you can look back at your notes that you have from when you were brainstorming for your topic.

» Revising The last (but not least) step is revising. When you are revising, look over your paper and make changes in weak areas. The different areas to look for mistakes include: content– too much detail, or too little detail; organization/structure (which is the order in which you write information about your topic); grammar; punctuation; capitalization; word choice; and citations.

It probably is best if you focus on the “big picture” first. The “big picture” means the organization (paragraph order), and content (ideas and points) of the paper. It also might help to go through your paper paragraph by paragraph and see if the main idea of each paragraph relates to the thesis. Be sure to keep an eye out for any repeated information (one of the most common mistakes made by students is having two or more paragraphs with the same information). Often good writers combine several paragraphs into one so they do not repeat information.

Revision Guidelines

• The audience understands your paper.
• The sentences are clear and complete.
• All paragraphs relate to the thesis.
• Each paragraph explains its purpose clearly.
• You do not repeat large blocks of information in two or more different paragraphs.
• The information in your paper is accurate.
• A friend or classmate has read through your paper and offered suggestions.

After you are satisfied with the content and structure of the paper, you then can focus on common errors like grammar, spelling, sentence structure, punctuation, capitalization, typos, and word choice.

Proofreading Guidelines

• Subjects and verbs agree.
• Verb tenses are consistent.
• Pronouns agree with the subjects they substitute.
• Word choices are clear.
• Capitalization is correct.
• Spelling is correct.
• Punctuation is correct.
• References are cited properly.

For more information on proofreading, see the English Center Punctuation and Grammar Review .

After writing the paper, it might help if you put it aside and do not look at it for a day or two. When you look at your paper again, you will see it with new eyes and notice mistakes you didn’t before. It’s a really good idea to ask someone else to read your paper before you submit it to your teacher. Good writers often get feedback and revise their paper several times before submitting it to the teacher.

Source: “Process of Writing a Research Paper,” by Ellen Beck and Rachel Mingo with contributions from Jules Nelson Hill and Vivion Smith, is based on the previous version by Dawn Taylor, Sharon Quintero, Robert Rich, Robert McDonald, and Katherine Eckhart.

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Key Steps in the Research Process - A Comprehensive Guide

Embarking on a research journey can be both thrilling and challenging. Whether you're a student, journalist, or simply inquisitive about a subject, grasping the research process steps is vital for conducting thorough and efficient research. In this all-encompassing guide, we'll navigate you through the pivotal stages of what is the research process, from pinpointing your topic to showcasing your discoveries.

We'll delve into how to formulate a robust research question, undertake preliminary research, and devise a structured research plan. You'll acquire strategies for gathering and scrutinizing data, along with advice for effectively disseminating your findings. By adhering to these steps in the research process, you'll be fully prepared to confront any research endeavor that presents itself.

Step 1: Identify and Develop Your Topic

Identifying and cultivating a research topic is the foundational first step in the research process. Kick off by brainstorming potential subjects that captivate your interest, as this will fuel your enthusiasm throughout the endeavor. 

Employ the following tactics to spark ideas and understand what is the first step in the research process:

• Review course materials, lecture notes, and assigned readings for inspiration
• Engage in discussions with peers, professors, or experts in the field
• Investigate current events, news pieces, or social media trends pertinent to your field of study to uncover valuable market research insights.
• Reflect on personal experiences or observations that have sparked your curiosity

Once you've compiled a roster of possible topics, engage in preliminary research to evaluate the viability and breadth of each concept. This initial probe may encompass various research steps and procedures to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the topics at hand.

• Scanning Wikipedia articles or other general reference sources for an overview
• Searching for scholarly articles, books, or media related to your topic
• Identifying key concepts, theories, or debates within the field
• Considering the availability of primary sources or data for analysis

While amassing background knowledge, begin to concentrate your focus and hone your topic. Target a subject that is specific enough to be feasible within your project's limits, yet expansive enough to permit substantial analysis. Mull over the following inquiries to steer your topic refinement and address the research problem effectively:

• What aspect of the topic am I most interested in exploring?
• What questions or problems related to this topic remain unanswered or unresolved?
• How can I contribute new insights or perspectives to the existing body of knowledge?
• What resources and methods will I need to investigate this topic effectively?

Step 2: Conduct Preliminary Research

Having pinpointed a promising research topic, it's time to plunge into preliminary research. This essential phase enables you to deepen your grasp of the subject and evaluate the practicality of your project. Here are some pivotal tactics for executing effective preliminary research using various library resources:

• Literature Review

To effectively embark on your scholarly journey, it's essential to consult a broad spectrum of sources, thereby enriching your understanding with the breadth of academic research available on your topic. This exploration may encompass a variety of materials.

• Online catalogs of libraries (local, regional, national, and special)
• Meta-catalogs and subject-specific online article databases
• Digital institutional repositories and open access resources
• Works cited in scholarly books and articles
• Print bibliographies and internet sources
• Websites of major nonprofit organizations, research institutes, museums, universities, and government agencies
• Trade and scholarly publishers
• Discussions with fellow scholars and peers
• Identify Key Debates

Engaging with the wealth of recently published materials and seminal works in your field is a pivotal part of the research process definition. Focus on discerning the core ideas, debates, and arguments that define your topic, which will in turn sharpen your research focus and guide you toward formulating pertinent research questions.

• Narrow Your Focus

Hone your topic by leveraging your initial findings to tackle a specific issue or facet within the larger subject, a fundamental step in the research process steps. Consider various factors that could influence the direction and scope of your inquiry.

• Subtopics and specific issues
• Key debates and controversies
• Timeframes and geographical locations
• Organizations or groups of people involved

A thorough evaluation of existing literature and a comprehensive assessment of the information at hand will pinpoint the exact dimensions of the issue you aim to explore. This methodology ensures alignment with prior research, optimizes resources, and can bolster your case when seeking research funding by demonstrating a well-founded approach.

Step 3: Establish Your Research Question

Having completed your preliminary research and topic refinement, the next vital phase involves formulating a precise and focused research question. This question, a cornerstone among research process steps, will steer your investigation, keeping it aligned with relevant data and insights. When devising your research question, take into account these critical factors:

Initiate your inquiry by defining the requirements and goals of your study, a key step in the research process steps. Whether you're testing a hypothesis, analyzing data, or constructing and supporting an argument, grasping the intent of your research is crucial for framing your question effectively.

Ensure that your research question is feasible, given your constraints in time and word count, an important consideration in the research process steps. Steer clear of questions that are either too expansive or too constricted, as they may impede your capacity to conduct a comprehensive analysis.

Your research question should transcend a mere 'yes' or 'no' response, prompting a thorough engagement with the research process steps. It should foster a comprehensive exploration of the topic, facilitating the analysis of issues or problems beyond just a basic description.

• Researchability

Ensure that your research question opens the door to quality research materials, including academic books and refereed journal articles. It's essential to weigh the accessibility of primary data and secondary data that will bolster your investigative efforts.

When establishing your research question, take the following steps:

• Identify the specific aspect of your general topic that you want to explore
• Hypothesize the path your answer might take, developing a hypothesis after formulating the question
• Steer clear of certain types of questions in your research process steps, such as those that are deceptively simple, fictional, stacked, semantic, impossible-to-answer, opinion or ethical, and anachronistic, to maintain the integrity of your inquiry.
• Conduct a self-test on your research question to confirm it adheres to the research process steps, ensuring it is flexible, testable, clear, precise, and underscores a distinct reason for its importance.

By meticulously formulating your research question, you're establishing a solid groundwork for the subsequent research process steps, guaranteeing that your efforts are directed, efficient, and yield productive outcomes.

Step 4: Develop a Research Plan

Having formulated a precise research question, the ensuing phase involves developing a detailed research plan. This plan, integral to the research process steps, acts as a navigational guide for your project, keeping you organized, concentrated, and on a clear path to accomplishing your research objectives. When devising your research plan, consider these pivotal components:

• Project Goals and Objectives

Articulate the specific aims and objectives of your research project with clarity. These should be in harmony with your research question and provide a structured framework for your investigation, ultimately aligning with your overarching business goals.

• Research Methods

Select the most appropriate research tools and statistical methods to address your question effectively. This may include a variety of qualitative and quantitative approaches to ensure comprehensive analysis.

• Quantitative methods (e.g., surveys, experiments)
• Qualitative methods (e.g., interviews, focus groups)
• Mixed methods (combining quantitative and qualitative approaches)
• Access to databases, archives, or special collections
• Specialized equipment or software
• Funding for travel, materials, or participant compensation
• Assistance from research assistants, librarians, or subject matter experts
• Participant Recruitment

If your research involves human subjects, develop a strategic plan for recruiting participants. Consider factors such as the inclusion of diverse ethnic groups and the use of user interviews to gather rich, qualitative data.

• Target population and sample size
• Inclusion and exclusion criteria
• Recruitment strategies (e.g., flyers, social media, snowball sampling)
• Informed consent procedures
• Instruments or tools for gathering data (e.g., questionnaires, interview guides)
• Data storage and management protocols
• Statistical or qualitative analysis techniques
• Software or tools for data analysis (e.g., SPSS, NVivo)

Create a realistic project strategy for your research project, breaking it down into manageable stages or milestones. Consider factors such as resource availability and potential bottlenecks.

• Literature review and background research
• IRB approval (if applicable)
• Participant recruitment and data collection
• Data analysis and interpretation
• Writing and revising your findings
• Dissemination of results (e.g., presentations, publications)

By developing a comprehensive research plan, incorporating key research process steps, you'll be better equipped to anticipate challenges, allocate resources effectively, and ensure the integrity and rigor of your research process. Remember to remain flexible and adaptable to navigate unexpected obstacles or opportunities that may arise.

Step 5: Conduct the Research

With your research plan in place, it's time to dive into the data collection phase. As you conduct your research, adhere to the established research process steps to ensure the integrity and quality of your findings.

Conduct your research in accordance with federal regulations, state laws, institutional SOPs, and policies. Familiarize yourself with the IRB-approved protocol and follow it diligently, as part of the essential research process steps.

• Roles and Responsibilities

Understand and adhere to the roles and responsibilities of the principal investigator and other research team members. Maintain open communication lines with all stakeholders, including the sponsor and IRB, to foster cross-functional collaboration.

• Data Management

Develop and maintain an effective system for data collection and storage, utilizing advanced research tools. Ensure that each member of the research team has seamless access to the most up-to-date documents, including the informed consent document, protocol, and case report forms.

• Quality Assurance

Implement comprehensive quality assurance measures to verify that the study adheres strictly to the IRB-approved protocol, institutional policy, and all required regulations. Confirm that all study activities are executed as planned and that any deviations are addressed with precision and appropriateness.

• Participant Eligibility

As part of the essential research process steps, verify that potential study subjects meet all eligibility criteria and none of the ineligibility criteria before advancing with the research.

To maintain the highest standards of academic integrity and ethical conduct:

• Conduct research with unwavering honesty in all facets, including experimental design, data generation, and analysis, as well as the publication of results, as these are critical research process steps.
• Maintain a climate conducive to conducting research in strict accordance with good research practices, ensuring each step of the research process is meticulously observed.
• Provide appropriate supervision and training for researchers.
• Encourage open discussion of ideas and the widest dissemination of results possible.
• Keep clear and accurate records of research methods and results.
• Exercise a duty of care to all those involved in the research.

When collecting and assimilating data:

• Use professional online data analysis tools to streamline the process.
• Use metadata for context
• Assign codes or labels to facilitate grouping or comparison
• Convert data into different formats or scales for compatibility
• Organize documents in both the study participant and investigator's study regulatory files, creating a central repository for easy access and reference, as this organization is a pivotal step in the research process.

By adhering to these guidelines and upholding a commitment to ethical and rigorous research practices, you'll be well-equipped to conduct your research effectively and contribute meaningful insights to your field of study, thereby enhancing the integrity of the research process steps.

Step 6: Analyze and Interpret Data

Embarking on the research process steps, once you have gathered your research data, the subsequent critical phase is to delve into analysis and interpretation. This stage demands a meticulous examination of the data, spotting trends, and forging insightful conclusions that directly respond to your research question. Reflect on these tactics for a robust approach to data analysis and interpretation:

• Organize and Clean Your Data

A pivotal aspect of the research process steps is to start by structuring your data in an orderly and coherent fashion. This organizational task may encompass:

• Creating a spreadsheet or database to store your data
• Assigning codes or labels to facilitate grouping or comparison
• Cleaning the data by removing any errors, inconsistencies, or missing values
• Converting data into different formats or scales for compatibility
• Calculating measures of central tendency (mean, median, mode)
• Determining measures of variability (range, standard deviation)
• Creating frequency tables or histograms to visualize the distribution of your data
• Identifying any outliers or unusual patterns in your data
• Perform Inferential Analysis

Integral to the research process steps, you might engage in inferential analysis to evaluate hypotheses or extrapolate findings to a broader demographic, contingent on your research design and query. This analytical step may include:

• Selecting appropriate statistical tests (e.g., t-tests, ANOVA, regression analysis)
• As part of the research process steps, establishing a significance threshold (e.g., p < 0.05) is essential to gauge the likelihood of your results being a random occurrence rather than a significant finding.
• Interpreting the results of your statistical tests in the context of your research question
• Considering the practical significance of your findings, in addition to statistical significance

When interpreting your data, it's essential to:

• Look for relationships, patterns, and trends in your data
• Consider alternative explanations for your findings
• Acknowledge any limitations or potential biases in your research design or data collection
• Leverage data visualization techniques such as graphs, charts, and infographics to articulate your research findings with clarity and impact, thereby enhancing the communicative value of your data.
• Seek feedback from peers, mentors, or subject matter experts to validate your interpretations

It's important to recognize that data interpretation is a cyclical process that hinges on critical thinking, inventiveness, and the readiness to refine your conclusions with emerging insights. By tackling data analysis and interpretation with diligence and openness, you're setting the stage to derive meaningful and justifiable inferences from your research, in line with the research process steps.

Step 7: Present the Findings

After meticulous analysis and interpretation of your research findings, as dictated by the research process steps, the moment arrives to disseminate your insights. Effectively presenting your research is key to captivating your audience and conveying the importance of your findings. Employ these strategies to create an engaging and persuasive presentation:

• Organize Your Findings : 

Use the PEEL method to structure your presentation:

• Point: Clearly state your main argument or finding
• Evidence: Present the data and analysis that support your point
• Explanation: Provide context and interpret the significance of your evidence
• Link: Connect your findings to the broader research question or field
• Tailor Your Message

Understanding your audience is crucial to effective communication. When presenting your research, it's important to tailor your message to their background, interests, and level of expertise, effectively employing user personas to guide your approach.

• Use clear, concise language and explain technical terms
• Highlight what makes your research unique and impactful
• Craft a compelling narrative with a clear structure and hook
• Share the big picture, emphasizing the significance of your findings
• Engage Your Audience : Make your presentation enjoyable and memorable by incorporating creative elements:
• Use visual aids, such as tables, charts, and graphs, to communicate your findings effectively
• To vividly convey your research journey, consider employing storytelling techniques, such as UX comics or storyboards, which can make complex information more accessible and engaging.
• Injecting humor and personality into your presentation can be a powerful tool for communication. Utilize funny messages or GIFs to lighten the mood, breaking up tension and refocusing attention, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of humor in communication.

By adhering to these strategies, you'll be well-prepared to present your research findings in a manner that's both clear and captivating. Ensure you follow research process steps such as citing your sources accurately and discussing the broader implications of your work, providing actionable recommendations, and delineating the subsequent phases for integrating your findings into broader practice or policy frameworks.

The research process is an intricate journey that demands meticulous planning, steadfast execution, and incisive analysis. By adhering to the fundamental research process steps outlined in this guide, from pinpointing your topic to showcasing your findings, you're setting yourself up for conducting research that's both effective and influential. Keep in mind that the research journey is iterative, often necessitating revisits to certain stages as fresh insights surface or unforeseen challenges emerge.

As you commence your research journey, seize the chance to contribute novel insights to your field and forge a positive global impact. By tackling your research with curiosity, integrity, and a dedication to excellence, you're paving the way towards attaining your research aspirations and making a substantial difference with your work, all while following the critical research process steps.

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Research Process Steps: What they are + How To Follow

There are various approaches to conducting basic and applied research. This article explains the research process steps you should know. Whether you are doing basic research or applied research, there are many ways of doing it. In some ways, each research study is unique since it is conducted at a different time and place.

Conducting research might be difficult, but there are clear processes to follow. The research process starts with a broad idea for a topic. This article will assist you through the research process steps, helping you focus and develop your topic.

Research Process Steps

The research process consists of a series of systematic procedures that a researcher must go through in order to generate knowledge that will be considered valuable by the project and focus on the relevant topic.

To conduct effective research, you must understand the research process steps and follow them. Here are a few steps in the research process to make it easier for you:

Step 1: Identify the Problem

Finding an issue or formulating a research question is the first step. A well-defined research problem will guide the researcher through all stages of the research process, from setting objectives to choosing a technique. There are a number of approaches to get insight into a topic and gain a better understanding of it. Such as:

• A preliminary survey
• Case studies
• Interviews with a small group of people
• Observational survey

Step 2: Evaluate the Literature

A thorough examination of the relevant studies is essential to the research process . It enables the researcher to identify the precise aspects of the problem. Once a problem has been found, the investigator or researcher needs to find out more about it.

This stage gives problem-zone background. It teaches the investigator about previous research, how they were conducted, and its conclusions. The researcher can build consistency between his work and others through a literature review. Such a review exposes the researcher to a more significant body of knowledge and helps him follow the research process efficiently.

Step 3: Create Hypotheses

Formulating an original hypothesis is the next logical step after narrowing down the research topic and defining it. A belief solves logical relationships between variables. In order to establish a hypothesis, a researcher must have a certain amount of expertise in the field. 

It is important for researchers to keep in mind while formulating a hypothesis that it must be based on the research topic. Researchers are able to concentrate their efforts and stay committed to their objectives when they develop theories to guide their work.

Step 4: The Research Design

Research design is the plan for achieving objectives and answering research questions. It outlines how to get the relevant information. Its goal is to design research to test hypotheses, address the research questions, and provide decision-making insights.

The research design aims to minimize the time, money, and effort required to acquire meaningful evidence. This plan fits into four categories:

• Exploration and Surveys
• Data Analysis
• Observation

Step 5: Describe Population

Research projects usually look at a specific group of people, facilities, or how technology is used in the business. In research, the term population refers to this study group. The research topic and purpose help determine the study group.

Suppose a researcher wishes to investigate a certain group of people in the community. In that case, the research could target a specific age group, males or females, a geographic location, or an ethnic group. A final step in a study’s design is to specify its sample or population so that the results may be generalized.

Step 6: Data Collection

Data collection is important in obtaining the knowledge or information required to answer the research issue. Every research collected data, either from the literature or the people being studied. Data must be collected from the two categories of researchers. These sources may provide primary data.

• Questionnaire

Secondary data categories are:

• Literature survey
• Official, unofficial reports
• An approach based on library resources

Step 7: Data Analysis

During research design, the researcher plans data analysis. After collecting data, the researcher analyzes it. The data is examined based on the approach in this step. The research findings are reviewed and reported.

Data analysis involves a number of closely related stages, such as setting up categories, applying these categories to raw data through coding and tabulation, and then drawing statistical conclusions. The researcher can examine the acquired data using a variety of statistical methods.

Step 8: The Report-writing

After completing these steps, the researcher must prepare a report detailing his findings. The report must be carefully composed with the following in mind:

• The Layout: On the first page, the title, date, acknowledgments, and preface should be on the report. A table of contents should be followed by a list of tables, graphs, and charts if any.
• Introduction: It should state the research’s purpose and methods. This section should include the study’s scope and limits.
• Summary of Findings: A non-technical summary of findings and recommendations will follow the introduction. The findings should be summarized if they’re lengthy.
• Principal Report: The main body of the report should make sense and be broken up into sections that are easy to understand.
• Conclusion: The researcher should restate his findings at the end of the main text. It’s the final result.

LEARN ABOUT: 12 Best Tools for Researchers

The research process involves several steps that make it easy to complete the research successfully. The steps in the research process described above depend on each other, and the order must be kept. So, if we want to do a research project, we should follow the research process steps.

QuestionPro’s enterprise-grade research platform can collect survey and qualitative observation data. The tool’s nature allows for data processing and essential decisions. The platform lets you store and process data. Start immediately!

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UMGC Effective Writing Center Primary Research and the Research Process

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• Writing Resources

The Role of Primary Research

Primary vs. Secondary Research

First, let’s distinguish between secondary and primary research:

• Secondary research is information that has been published.
• Primary research is new information gathered by you. 

The most common example of primary research is your direct observation and reporting. Primary research also includes interviews (face-to-face, phone, email), questionnaires (surveys), and experiments—all of which would be accompanied by your analysis, which is also a part of primary research.

Why Is Primary Research Important?

Primary research provides information that is more directly related to what or whom you are studying than secondary research. For example, if you are writing about the prevalence of concussions on your community’s youth football teams, you would conduct primary research because

• First, you’re unlikely to find previously published (secondary research) reports about concussions on your particular community's teams, so you have to generate the information yourself.
• Second, the best way to learn about this specific issue is to talk directly to the team’s coaches, parents, and players—not through a third party. In doing primary research, you often function like a newspaper reporter who goes out and gets the story firsthand.
• Third, you can compare what you discover about your local teams (your primary research) to what has been published in other studies (secondary research).

Most workplace research projects contain a combination of secondary and primary research.

Examples of Primary Research for Specific Topics

Regardless of your topic, your writing will almost always benefit by the addition of primary research, unless the assignment or task specifies otherwise. In the work place, primary research is often the focus of what you write. Here are some typical topics for the work place or community with suggestions for the role primary research could play.

Topic: Alternatives to Email

Today most everyone suffers from email overload. Let's say you have found an application that provides a more efficient way to communicate. You want to purchase and implement it in your work place. Your first task will be to establish the extent to which email is a problem and then to demonstrate how the other application could help.

Primary research opportunities:

• number of emails received/sent in your office daily or weekly
• surveys of employees to determine their time spent dealing with email
• screen captures of alternative applications and how they would help the situation

Topic: Paperless Office

If you were to propose to your office manager a transition to a paperless office, you would first need to show why the status quo (dependence on hard-copy documents) is a problem. Then you would present the benefits of transition to paperless.

• number of hard-copy documents, the cost and maintenance of machines that produce them
• photos of clutter caused by hard-copy documents and photos of the spaces needed to store them
• survey of employees on the time they spend making hard copies and filing them
• survey of employees on their preferences—paperless or hard copy.

Topic: Community Playground

As a parent, you've had it. Your townhouse community needs to renovate its shabby, unsafe playground. Before any plans are drawn up or equipment purchased, your first task is to convincingly document the need for the renovation:

• photos of the current playground, highlighting its negative features
• interviews with residents and their children
• photos of well-done playgrounds at other townhouse communities
• telephone survey of contractors and their estimates for renovation

Topic: Office Recycling

It's embarrassing in this day and age that your small town is not recycling, not to mention failing in its civic responsibilities. You are determined to institute a recycling program. First, you would document the mess and waste caused by not recycling, then you would show the benefits of recycling and examples of clean, efficient recycling facilities in towns similar to yours.

• interviews with citizens about their attitudes toward recycling
• photos of recyclable materials in landfills
• collection of data on amount of recyclable waste thrown out in one day at your town's landfill
• photos of recycling stations at other towns

How to Choose and Filter Research Topics

An ancient Chinese proverb tells us, the longest journey begins with the first step. Never has that saying been more true than when it comes to writing a research paper.

Your first step in writing a paper is to choose and filter your topic. This critical first step will determine how long it will take you to reach your goal of a polished paper. A bad step at this point could send you over a cliff. That's why it's best to follow a series of steps as you focus and narrow a research topic that will let you produce your best writing.

Ethics and Primary Research

To conduct some forms of primary research, professional researchers, including college teachers, must normally receive permission from an institutional review board. These boards often evaluate research proposals on the basis of principles originally set out in the Belmont Report of 1979.

You may be surprised to learn that, even though you are conducting primary research for a class project, you still must abide by certain ethical guidelines. These imply that you:

Get Permission. Receiving "informed consent" to study someone includes ensuring that the subject knows the risks and benefits of participating and gives consent legally and voluntarily. Permission is not required for materials publically available.

Agree on Anonymity. This is important when using data from interviews, surveys and observations, unless agreed otherwise. "Confidentiality" means that, unless agreed otherwise, an individual's identify cannot be determined using the details you publish.

Do No Harm. As an ethical researcher you are bound to consider any potential negative effects on the individual of what you publish. These effects can range from embarrassment, to job loss, to physical endangerment.

Seek Approval. It's always wiser and more ethical to receive permission than to apologize for not doing so, whether that permission comes from a boss, company public affairs or human resources department, or an individual.

Dan Connelly has a  short and informative YouTube video  on this topic.

Use of Primary Research

Whenever you focus on a specific issue in a specific work place or community, some form of primary research will be needed to establish and document the status quo and, most likely, will also be helpful in the presentation of recommendations and solutions. Most of all, primary research shows your direct, active involvement and provides a level of authenticity to your writing that is not possible when relying solely on secondary research.

Why So Much #$%! Research?

Actually, that’s an intelligent question. It's another way of asking why so much importance is placed on the ability to use research materials when writing in college. The answer is simple: because an adult professional conducts some form of research and analysis of research virtually every work day.

You may be asked to:

• evaluate a new inventory program for possible purchase
• determine the relationship between an employee's case load and client outcome
• compare your company’s price structure to a competitor’s
• find the best location for opening a new satellite office
• select the best cell phone service for your staff or family

As you prepare your research writing assignments, get feedback for each step of this process--from your teacher, coworkers, or classmates. Your goal is to carefully complete each step so that one of the most important truths about writing is revealed to you:

Each step builds upon the one before it. One misstep can compromise the end product.

However, the flip side of that coin is much shinier: The writer who works methodically through the five steps of the process—and especially the writer who solicits feedback from places like the  Effective Writing Center —is much more likely to have an outstanding outcome.

Great Links:

• The Research Process - Online Guide to Writing and Research
• Secrets of My Research Success

Primary Research Methods May Include:

• Questionnaires
• Focus Groups
• Telephone Surveys
• Test Marketing

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Starting Your Research Process

The journey from choosing a topic to completing a research-based assignment is called the research process.

This process is made up of all the necessary steps you complete to be successful in finding the information you need.

Choosing a topic is an important early part of that process. Flexibility is a virtue when choosing a topic, and your finished topic may not always look exactly like your original one. Your original topic might be too broad or too narrow, or there may not be enough information on your topic, or you may discover a more interesting one as you conduct your research.

Once you have a general idea of your topic, you may be tempted to head straight for the library databases to begin your search, and you may not initially see a lot of useful information. This does not mean you have a bad topic. Begin instead with a search for background information, especially if you are not familiar with the subject area. This will help to better inform and define your topic. As you search for background information, look for keywords that you may be able to use a search terms within the databases. These may be words that you see over and over as you read through the information on your topic. Your keywords may also be synonyms or related terms.

Most importantly, don’t panic!

While the research process can seem overwhelming at first, with regular practice, thoroughly researching and writing about your topic becomes second nature.

Let’s take a look at a sample research process to help us get a fuller understanding of the complete process.

Sarah’s art history professor just assigned the course project, and Sarah is delighted that it isn’t the typical research paper. Instead, it involves putting together a website to help readers understand a topic. It will certainly help Sarah get a grasp on the topic herself! Learning by attempting to teach others, she agrees, might be a good idea. The professor wants the web site to be written for people who are interested in the topic and with backgrounds similar to the students in the course. Sarah likes that a target audience is defined, and since she has a good idea of what her friends might understand and what they most likely need more help with, she thinks it will be easier to know what to include in her site. For this project, Sarah’s professor has formed the students into teams. Sarah wasn’t sure she liked this idea at first, but it seems to be working out okay. Sarah’s team has decided that their topic for this website will be 19th century women painters. However, one of her teammates, Chris, is concerned: “Isn’t that an awfully big topic?” The team checks with the professor, who agrees they would be taking on far more than they could successfully explain on their website. He suggests they develop a draft thesis statement to help them focus and, after several false starts, they come up with: The involvement of women painters in the Impressionist movement had an effect upon the subjects portrayed. They decide this sounds more manageable. Because Sarah doesn’t feel comfortable with the technical aspects of setting up the website, she offers to start locating resources that will help them to develop the site’s content.

Step One: Plan

Before we learn more about what happens with Sarah and her team, let’s look at the components of the planning process. To do this, we’ll look at two different concept maps because the planning process involves a lot of different components such as:

• Understanding a range of searching techniques
• Understanding the various tools and how they differ
• Knowing how to create effective search strategies
• Being open to searching out the most appropriate tools
• Understanding that revising your search as you proceed is important
• Recognizing that subject terms are of value

And these are just the items to understand! There are also the things you need to be able to do:

• Clearly phrase your search question.
• Develop an appropriate search strategy, using key techniques.
• Selecting good search tools, including specialized ones.
• Use the terms and techniques that are best suited to your search.

Here is a visual representation of these components:

Now, take a look at the essence of these items condensed into a different concept map:

As you read about Sarah’s quest for information, and reflect on your own information searches in the past, remember particularly the bullet within the Plan pillar that emphasizes the need to revise your search as you work. It is very important to do this, and to build time into the process so you are able to revise. As you learn more about your topic, or the terms used in conjunction with its concepts, or key scholars in the field, it is only natural that you will need to shift focus, and, perhaps, change course. This is a natural part of the research process and indicates that your efforts are bearing fruit. Let’s return to Sarah…

Step Two: Develop Research Strategies

The next time the class meets, Sarah tells her teammates what she has done so far:

“I thought I’d start with some scholarly sources, since they should be helpful, right? I put a search into the online catalog for the library, but nothing came up! The library should have books on this topic, shouldn’t it? I typed the search in exactly as we have it in our thesis statement. That was so frustrating. Since that didn’t work, I tried Google, and put in the search. I got over 8 million results, but when I looked over the ones on the first page, they didn’t seem very useful. One was about the feminist art movement in the 1960s, not during the Impressionist period. The results all seemed to have the words I typed highlighted, but most really weren’t useful. I am sorry I don’t have much to show you. Do you think we should change our topic?”

Alisha suggests that Sarah talk with a reference librarian. She mentions that a librarian came to talk to another of her classes about doing research, and it was really helpful. Alisha thinks that maybe Sarah shouldn’t have entered the entire thesis statement as the search, and maybe she should have tried databases to find articles. The team decides to brainstorm all the search tools and resources they can think of.

Here’s what they came up with:

Based on your experience, do you see anything you would add?

Sarah and her team think that their list is pretty good. They decide to take it further and list the advantages and limitations of each search tool, at least as far as they can determine.

Alisha suggests that Sarah should show the worksheet to a librarian and volunteers to go with her. The librarian, Prof. Harrison, says they have made a really good start, but he can fill them in on some other search strategies that will help them to focus on their topic. Would Sarah and Alisha like to learn more?

Let’s step back from this case study again, and think about the elements that someone doing research should plan before starting to enter search terms in Google, Wikipedia, or even a scholarly database. There is some preparation you can do to make things go much more smoothly than they have for Sarah.

Step Three: Self-Reflection

As you work through your own research quests, it is very important to be self-reflective:

• What do you really need to find?
• Do you need to learn more about the general subject before you can identify the focus of your search?
• How thoroughly did you develop your search strategy?
• Did you spend enough time finding the best tools to search?
• What is going really well, so well that you’ll want to remember to do it in the future?

Another term for what you are doing is metacognition, or thinking about your thinking. Reflect on what Sarah is going through as you read this chapter. Does some of it sound familiar based on your own experiences? You may already know some of the strategies presented here. Do you do them the same way? How does it work? What pieces are new to you? When might you follow this advice? Don’t just let the words flow over you, rather think carefully about the explanation of the process. You may disagree with some of what you read. If you do, follow though and test both methods to see which provides better results.

Step Four: Selecting Search Tools

After you have thought the planning process through more thoroughly, start to think about where you can look for information. Part of planning to do research is determining which search tools will be the best ones to use. This applies whether you are doing scholarly research or trying to answer a question in your everyday life, such as what would be the best place to go on vacation.

“Search tools” might be a bit misleading, since a person might be the source of the information you need. Or it might be a web search engine, a specialized database, an association—the possibilities are endless. Often people automatically search Google first, regardless of what they are looking for. Choosing the wrong search tool may just waste your time and provide only mediocre information, whereas other sources might provide really spot-on information and quickly, too. In some cases, a carefully constructed search on Google, particularly using the advanced search option, will provide the necessary information, but other times it won’t. This is true of all sources: make an informed choice about which ones to use for a specific need.

So, how do you identify search tools? Let’s begin with a first-rate method.

For academic research, talking with a librarian or your professor is a great start. They will direct you to those specialized tools that will provide access to what you need. If you ask a librarian for help, they may also show you some tips about searching in the resources. This chapter will cover some of the basic strategies that will work in many search tools, but a librarian can show you very specific ways to focus your search and retrieve the most useful items.

If neither your professor nor a librarian is available when you need help, check your school’s library website to see what guidance is provided. There will often be subject-related guides or lists of the best resources to assist researchers. There may be a directory of the databases that the library subscribes to and the subjects they cover. Take advantage of the expertise of librarians by using such guides. Novice researchers usually don’t think of looking for this type of help, and, as a consequence, often waste time.

When you are looking for non-academic material, consider who cares about this type of information: Who works with it? Who produces it or help guides for it?

Some sources are really obvious, and you are already using them—for example, if you need information about the weather in London three days from now, you might check Weather.com  for London’s forecast. You don’t go to a library (in person or online), and you don’t do a research database search. For other information you need, think the same way. Are you looking for anecdotal information on old railroads? Find out if there is an organization of railroad buffs. You can search on the web for this kind of information, or, if you know about and have access to it, you could check the Encyclopedia of Associations . This source provides entries for all U.S. membership organizations, which can quickly lead you to a potentially wonderful source of information. Librarians can point you to tools like these.

As you consider the information presented in this chapter, keep the scope of the information you are looking for in mind. In the previous chapter we examined the topic of scope in detail. The breadth and depth of the information you require will have an impact as you plan.

Consider Asking an Expert

Have you thought about using people, not just inanimate sources, as a way to obtain information? This might be particularly appropriate if you are working on an emerging topic or a topic with local connections. There are a variety of reasons that talking with someone will add to your research.

For personal interactions, there are other specific things you can do to obtain better results. Do some background work on the topic before contacting the person you hope to interview. The more familiarity you have with your topic and its terminology, the easier it will be to ask focused questions. Focused questions are important if you want to get into the meat of what you need. Asking general questions because you think the specifics might be too detailed rarely leads to the best information. Acknowledge the time and effort someone is taking to answer your questions, but also realize that people who are passionate about subjects enjoy sharing what they know. Take the opportunity to ask experts about sources they would recommend.

Determine Search Concepts and Keywords

Once you’ve selected some good resources for your topic, and possibly talked with an expert, it is time to move on to identify words you will used to search for information on your topic in various databases and search engines. This is sometimes referred to as building a search query. When deciding what terms to use in a search, break down your topic into its main concepts. Don’t enter an entire sentence, or a full question. Different databases and search engines process such queries in different ways, but many look for the entire phrase you enter as a complete unit, rather than the component words. While some will focus on just the important words, such as Sarah’s Google search that you read about earlier in this chapter, the results are often still unsatisfactory. The best thing to do is to use the key concepts involved with your topic. In addition, think of synonyms or related terms for each concept. If you do this, you will have more flexibility when searching in case your first search term doesn’t produce any or enough results. This may sound strange, since if you are looking for information using a Web search engine, you almost always get too many results. Databases, however, contain fewer items, and having alternative search terms may lead you to useful sources. Even in a search engine like Google, having terms you can combine thoughtfully will yield better results.

First, let’s take a look at a video that explains the process pretty clearly:

The following worksheet is a written example of a process you can use to come up with search terms. It illustrates how you might think about the topic of violence in high schools. Notice that this exact phrase is not what will be used for the search. Rather, it is a starting point for identifying the terms that will eventually be used.

Now, use a clean copy of the same worksheet to think about the topic Sarah’s team is working on. How might you divide their topic into concepts and then search terms? Keep in mind that the number of concepts will depend on what you are searching for. And that the search terms may be synonyms or narrower terms. Occasionally, you may be searching for something very specific, and in those cases, you may need to use broader terms as well. Jot down your ideas then compare what you have written to the information on the second, completed worksheet and identify 3 differences.

Boolean Operators

Once you have the concepts you want to search, you need to think about how you will enter them into the search box. Often, but not always, Boolean operators will help you. You may be familiar with Boolean operators. They provide a way to link terms. For a better understanding of a complex topic, let’s  take a look at a video:

Now let’s  look at an example using Sarah’s group and the same written form we used above:

We will start by capturing the ideas of the women creating the art. We will use  women painters and women artists  as the first step in our sample search. You could do two separate searches by typing one or the other of the terms into the search box of whatever tool you are using:

women painters

women artists

You would end up with two separate result lists and have the added headache of trying to identify unique items from the lists. You could also search on the phrase

women painters and women artists

But once you understand Boolean operators, that last strategy won’t make as much sense as it seems to.

There are three Boolean operators:  and, or , and  not .

And  is used to get the intersection of all the terms you wish to include in your search. With this example

you are asking that the items you retrieve have both of those terms. If an item only has one term, it won’t show up in the results. This is not what the searcher had in mind—she is interested in both artists and painters, because she doesn’t know which term might be used. She doesn’t intend that both terms have to be used. Let’s go on to the next Boolean operator, which will help us out with this problem.

Or  is used when you want at least one of the terms to show up in the search results. If both do, that’s fine, but it isn’t a condition of the search. So  or  makes a lot more sense for this search:

women painters or women artists

Now, if you want to get fancy with this search, you could use both  and  as well as  or :

women and (painters or artists)

The parentheses mean that these two concepts, painters and artists, should be searched as a unit, and the search results should include all items that use one word or the other. The results will then be limited to those items that contain the word  women . If you decide to use parentheses for appropriate searches, make sure that the items contained within them are related in some way. With  or , as in our example, it means either of the terms will work. With  and , it means that both terms will appear in the document.

Type both of these searches in  Google Scholar  and compare the results (please note, you must capitalize OR when using it as a Boolean operator in Google products). Were they the same? If not, can you determine what happened? Which result list looked better?

Here is another example of a search string, using both parentheses and two Boolean operators:

entrepreneurship and (adolescents or teens)

In this search, you are looking for entrepreneurial initiatives connected with people in their teens. Because there are so many ways to categorize this age group, it makes sense to indicate that either of these terms should appear in the results, along with entrepreneurship.

However, this search string isn’t perfect. Can you pick out two problems with the search terms?

The third Boolean operator,  not , can be problematic.  Not  is used to exclude items from your search. If you have decided, based on the scope of the results you are getting, to focus only on a specific aspect of a topic, use  not , but be aware that items are being lost in this search. For example, if you entered

entrepreneurship and (adolescents or teens) not adults

you might lose some good results. Why? If you would like to see graphical representations of the effects of Boolean operators, take a look at the Scope chapter in this book.

Here is another good visual overview of Boolean operator use from MIT.

Other Helpful Search Techniques

Using Boolean operators isn’t the only way you can create more useful searches. In this section, we will review several others.

In this search:

Entrepreneurs and (adolescents or teens)

you might think that the items that are retrieved from the search can refer to entrepreneurs plural or entrepreneur singular. If you did, you spotted a problem. Because computers are very literal, they usually look for the exact terms you enter. While it is true that some search functions are moving beyond this model, you want to think about alternatives, just to be safe. In this case, using the singular as well as the plural form of the word might help you to find useful sources. Truncation, or searching on the root of a word and whatever follows, lets you do this.

So, if you search on

Entrepreneur* and (adolescents or teens)

You will get items that refer either to the singular or plural version of the word  entrepreneur , but also  entrepreneurship .

Look at these examples:

Think of two or three words you might retrieve when searching on these roots. It is important to consider the results you might get and alter the root if need be. An example of this is  polic* . Would it be a good idea to use this root if you wanted to search on  policy  or  policies ? Why or why not?

In some cases, a symbol other than an asterisk is used. To determine what symbol to use, check the help section in whatever resource you are using. The topic should show up under the truncation or stemming headings.

Here is the same search terms worksheet you saw earlier, but with truncation acknowledged:

Phrase Searches

Phrase searches are particularly useful when searching the web. If you put the exact phrase you want to search in quotation marks, you will only get items with those words as a phrase and not items where the words appear separately in a document, website, or other resource. Your results will usually be fewer, although surprisingly, this is not always the case. Try these two searches in the search engine of your choice:

“essay exam”

Was there a difference in the quality and quantity of results? If you would like to find out if the database or search engine you are using allows phrase searching and the conventions for doing so, search the help section. These help tools can be very, well, helpful!

Advanced Searches

Advanced searching allows you to refine your search query and prompts you for ways to do this. Consider the basic  Google.com  search box. It is very minimalistic, but that minimalism is deceptive. It gives the impression that searching is easy and encourages you to just enter your topic, without much thought, to get results. You certainly do get many results. But are they really good results? Simple search boxes do many searchers a disfavor. There is a better way to enter searches.

Advanced search screens show you many of the options available to you to refine your search, and, therefore, get more manageable numbers of better items. Many web search engines include advanced search screens, as do databases for searching research materials. Advanced search screens will vary from resource to resource and from web search engine to research database, but they often let you search using

• Implied Boolean operators (for example, the “all the words” option is the same as using the Boolean  and )
• Limiters for date, domain (.edu, for example), type of resource (articles, book reviews, patents)
• Field (a field is a standard element, such as title of publication or author’s name)
• Phrase (rather than entering quote marks)

Let’s see how this works in practice.

Exercise: Google Searches

Go to the  advanced search option in Google .

Take a look at the options Google provides to refine your search. Compare this to the basic Google search box. One of the best ways you can become a better searcher for information is to use the power of advanced searches, either by using these more complex search screens or by remembering to use Boolean operators, phrase searches, truncation, and other options available to you in most search engines and databases.

While many of the text boxes at the top of the Google Advanced Search page mirror concepts already covered in this chapter (for example, “this exact word or phrase” allows you to omit the quotes in a phrase search), the options for narrowing your results can be powerful. You can limit your search to a particular domain (such as .edu for items from educational institutions) or you can search for items you can reuse legally (with attribution, of course!) by making use of the “usage rights” option. However, be careful with some of the options, as they may excessively limit your results. If you aren’t certain about a particular option, try your search with and without using it and compare the results. If you use a search engine other than Google, check to see if it offers an advanced search option: many do.

Subject Headings

In the section in this chapter on advanced searches, you read about field searching. To explain further, if you know that the last name of the author whose work you are seeking is Wood, and that he worked on forestry-related topics, you can do a far better search using the author field. Just think what you would get in the way of results if you entered a basic search such as  forestry and wood . It is great to use the appropriate Boolean operator, but oh, the results you will get! But what if you specified that  wood  had to show up as part of the author’s name? This would limit your results quite a bit.

So what about  forestry ? Is there a way to handle that using a field search? The answer is yes. Subject headings are terms that are assigned to items to group them. An example is cars—you could also call them autos, automobiles, or even more specific labels like SUVs or vans. You might use the Boolean operator or  and string these all together. But if you found out that the sources you are searching use  automobiles  as the subject heading, you wouldn’t have to worry about all these related terms, and could confidently use their subject heading and get all the results, even if the author of the piece uses  cars  and not  automobiles .

How does this work? In many databases, a person called an indexer or cataloger scrutinizes and enters each item. This person performs helpful, behind-the-scenes tasks such as assigning subject headings, age levels, or other indicators that make it easier to search very precisely. An analogy is tagging, although indexing is more structured than tagging. If you have tagged items online, you know that you can use any terms you like and that they may be very different from someone else’s tags. With indexing, the indexer chooses from a set group of terms. Obviously, this precise indexing isn’t available for web search engines—it would be impossible to index everything on the web. But if you are searching in a database, make sure you use these features to make your searches more precise and your result lists more relevant. You also will definitely save time.

You may be thinking that this sounds good. Saving time when doing research is a great idea. But how will you know what subject headings exist, so you can use them? Here is a trick that librarians use. Even librarians don’t know what terms are used in all the databases or online catalogs that they use. So a librarian’s starting point isn’t very far from yours. But they do know to use whatever features a database provides to do an effective search. They find out about them by acting like a detective.

You’ve already thought about the possible search terms for your information need. Enter the best search strategy you developed, which might use Boolean operators or truncation. Scan the results to see if they seem to be on topic. If they aren’t, figure out what results you are getting that just aren’t right, and revise your search. Terms you have searched on often show up in bold face type, so they are easy to pick out. Besides checking the titles of the results, read the abstracts (or summaries), if there are any. You may get some ideas for other terms to use. But if your results are fairly good, scan them with the intent to find one or two items that seem to be precisely what you need. Get to the full record (or entry), where you can see all the details entered by the indexers. Here is an example from the University at Albany’s Minerva catalog, but keep in mind that the catalog or database you are using may have entries that look very different.

Once you have the “full” record (which does not refer to the full text of the item, but rather the full descriptive details about the book, including author, subjects, date, and place of publication, and so on), look at the subject headings (they may be called descriptors or some other term, but they should be recognizable as subjects) and see what words are used. They may be identical to the terms you entered, but if not, revise your search using the subject heading words. The results list should now contain items that are relevant for your need.

This chapter presents a strategy for developing a successful search. This figure reviews the key points:

It is tempting to think that once you have gone through all the processes around the circle, as seen in this diagram, your information search is done and you can start writing. However, research is a recursive process. You don’t start at the beginning and continue straight through until you end at the end. Once you have followed this planning model, you will often find that you need to alter or refine your topic and start the process again, as seen here:

This revision process may happen at any time, before or during the preparation of your paper or other final product. The researchers who are most successful do this, so don’t ignore opportunities to revise.

So let’s return to Sarah and her search for information to help her team’s project. Sarah realized she needed to make a number of changes in the search strategy she was using. She had several insights that definitely led her to some good sources of information for this particular research topic. Can you identify the good ideas she implemented?

Sources Used to Create this Chapter

The majority of the content for this section has been adapted from the following OER Material:

• Information Literacy Concepts by David Hisle & Katherine Webb, and published under a CC-BY-NC-SA license.
• The Information Literacy User’s Guide by Deborah Bernnard et al., and published under a CC-BY-NC-SA license.

Media Resources

Any media resources not documented here were part of the original chapter from which this section has been adapted.

McMaster Libraries. “How Library Stuff Works: How to Choose Keywords.” YouTube, 2015. Attribution 3.0 United States (CC BY 3.0 US).

McMaster Libraries. “How Library Stuff Works: Boolean Operators (AND OR NOT).” YouTube, 2016. Attribution 3.0 United States (CC BY 3.0 US).

Starting the Journey: An Intro to College Writing Copyright © by Leonard Owens III; Tim Bishop; and Scott Ortolano is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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2.1: The Research Process

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Defining the Problem

Defining a sociological problem helps frame a question to be addressed in the research process.

Learning Objectives

Explain how the definition of the problem relates to the research process

• The first step of the scientific method is to ask a question, describe a problem, and identify the specific area of interest. The topic should be narrow enough to study within the context of a particular test but also broad enough to have a more general practical or theoretical merit.
• For many sociologists, the goal is to conduct research which may be applied directly to social policy and welfare, while others focus primarily on refining the theoretical understanding of social processes. Subject matter ranges from the micro level to the macro level.
• Like other sciences, sociology relies on the systematic, careful collection of measurements or counts of relevant quantities to be considered valid. Given that sociology deals with topics that are often difficult to measure, this generally involves operationalizing relevant terms.
• operational definition : A showing of something — such as a variable, term, or object — in terms of the specific process or set of validation tests used to determine its presence and quantity.
• operationalization : In humanities, operationalization is the process of defining a fuzzy concept so as to make the concept clearly distinguishable or measurable and to understand it in terms of empirical observations.

Defining the problem is necessarily the first step of the research process. After the problem and research question is defined, scientists generally gather information and other observations, form hypotheses, test hypotheses by collecting data in a reproducible manner, analyze and interpret that data, and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypotheses.

The first step of the scientific method is to ask a question, describe a problem, and identify the specific area of interest. The topic should be narrow enough to study within the context of a particular test but also broad enough to have a more general practical or theoretical merit. For many sociologists, the goal is to conduct research which may be applied directly to social policy and welfare, while others focus primarily on refining the theoretical understanding of social processes. Subject matter ranges from the micro level of individual agency and interaction to the macro level of systems and the social structure.

Like other sciences, sociology relies on the systematic, careful collection of measurements or counts of relevant quantities to be considered valid. Given that sociology deals with topics that are often difficult to measure, this generally involves operationalizing relevant terms. Operationalization is a process that describes or defines a concept in terms of the physical or concrete steps it takes to objectively measure it, as opposed to some more vague, inexact, or idealized definition. The operational definition thus identifies an observable condition of the concept. By operationalizing a variable of the concept, all researchers can collect data in a systematic or replicable manner.

For example, intelligence cannot be directly quantified. We cannot say, simply by observing, exactly how much more intelligent one person is than another. But we can operationalize intelligence in various ways. For instance, we might administer an IQ test, which uses specific types of questions and scoring processes to give a quantitative measure of intelligence. Or we might use years of education as a way to operationalize intelligence, assuming that a person with more years of education is also more intelligent. Of course, others might dispute the validity of these operational definitions of intelligence by arguing that IQ or years of education are not good measures of intelligence. After all, a very intelligent person may not have the means or inclination to pursue higher education, or a less intelligent person may stay in school longer because they have trouble completing graduation requirements. In most cases, the way we choose to operationalize variables can be contested; few operational definitions are perfect. But we must use the best approximation we can in order to have some sort of measurable quantity for otherwise unmeasurable variables.

A link to the YouTube element can be found in Contributors & Attributions section.

Operationalizing Variables : This video discusses what it means to operationalize a variable using the example of “good health. ”

Reviewing the Literature

Sociological researchers review past work in their area of interest and include this “literature review” in the presentation of their research.

Explain the purpose of literature reviews in sociological research

• Literature reviews showcase researchers’ knowledge and understanding of the existing body of scholarship that relates to their research questions.
• A thorough literature review demonstrates the ability to research and synthesize. Furthermore, it provides a comprehensive overview of what is and is not known, and why the research in question is important to begin with.
• Literature reviews offer an explanation of how the researcher can contribute toward the existing body of scholarship by pursuing their own thesis or research question.
• essay : A written composition of moderate length exploring a particular issue or subject.
• Theses : A dissertation or thesis is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author’s research and findings. The term thesis is also used to refer to the general claim of an essay or similar work.
• disciplinary : Of or relating to an academic field of study.

A literature review is a logical and methodical way of organizing what has been written about a topic by scholars and researchers. Literature reviews can normally be found at the beginning of many essays, research reports, or theses. In writing the literature review, the purpose is to convey what a researcher has learned through a careful reading of a set of articles, books, and other relevant forms of scholarship related to the research question. Furthermore, creating a literature review allows researchers to demonstrate the ability to find significant articles, valid studies, or seminal books that are related to their topic as well as the analytic skill to synthesize and summarize different views on a topic or issue.

A strong literature review has the following properties:

• It is organized around issues, themes, factors, or variables that are related directly to the thesis or research question.
• It demonstrates the researcher’s familiarity with the body of knowledge by providing a good synthesis of what is and is not known about the subject in question, while also identifying areas of controversy and debate, or limitations in the literature sharing different perspectives.
• It indicates the theoretical framework that the researcher is working with.
• It places the formation of research questions in their historical and disciplinary context.
• It identifies the most important authors engaged in similar work.
• It offers an explanation of how the researcher can contribute toward the existing body of scholarship by pursuing their own thesis or research question.

Formulating the Hypothesis

A hypothesis is a potential answer to your research question; the research process helps you determine if your hypothesis is true.

Explain how hypotheses are used in sociological research and the difference between dependent and independent variables

• Hypotheses are testable explanations of a problem, phenomenon, or observation.
• Both quantitative and qualitative research involve formulating a hypothesis to address the research problem.
• Hypotheses that suggest a causal relationship involve at least one independent variable and at least one dependent variable; in other words, one variable which is presumed to affect the other.
• An independent variable is one whose value is manipulated by the researcher or experimenter.
• A dependent variable is a variable whose values are presumed to change as a result of changes in the independent variable.
• dependent variable : In an equation, the variable whose value depends on one or more variables in the equation.
• independent variable : In an equation, any variable whose value is not dependent on any other in the equation.
• hypothesis : Used loosely, a tentative conjecture explaining an observation, phenomenon, or scientific problem that can be tested by further observation, investigation, or experimentation.

A hypothesis is an assumption or suggested explanation about how two or more variables are related. It is a crucial step in the scientific method and, therefore, a vital aspect of all scientific research. There are no definitive guidelines for the production of new hypotheses. The history of science is filled with stories of scientists claiming a flash of inspiration, or a hunch, which then motivated them to look for evidence to support or refute the idea.

While there is no single way to develop a hypothesis, a useful hypothesis will use deductive reasoning to make predictions that can be experimentally assessed. If results contradict the predictions, then the hypothesis under examination is incorrect or incomplete and must be revised or abandoned. If results confirm the predictions, then the hypothesis might be correct but is still subject to further testing.

Both quantitative and qualitative research involve formulating a hypothesis to address the research problem. A hypothesis will generally provide a causal explanation or propose some association between two variables. Variables are measurable phenomena whose values can change under different conditions. For example, if the hypothesis is a causal explanation, it will involve at least one dependent variable and one independent variable. In research, independent variables are the cause of the change. The dependent variable is the effect, or thing that is changed. In other words, the value of a dependent variable depends on the value of the independent variable. Of course, this assumes that there is an actual relationship between the two variables. If there is no relationship, then the value of the dependent variable does not depend on the value of the independent variable.

Determining the Research Design

The research design is the methodology and procedure a researcher follows to answer their sociological question.

Compare and contrast quantitive methods and qualitative methods

• Research design defines the study type, research question, hypotheses, variables, and data collection methods. Some examples of research designs include descriptive, correlational, and experimental. Another distinction can be made between quantitative and qualitative methods.
• Sociological research can be conducted via quantitative or qualitative methods. Quantitative methods are useful when a researcher seeks to study large-scale patterns of behavior, while qualitative methods are more effective when dealing with interactions and relationships in detail.
• Quantitative methods include experiments, surveys, and statistical analysis, among others. Qualitative methods include participant observation, interviews, and content analysis.
• An interpretive framework is one that seeks to understand the social world from the perspective of participants.

Although sociologists often specialize in one approach, many sociologists use a complementary combination of design types and research methods in their research. Even in the same study a researcher may employ multiple methods.

• quantitative methods : Quantitative research refers to the systematic empirical investigation of social phenomena via statistical, mathematical, or computational techniques.
• qualitative methods : Qualitative research is a method of inquiry employed in many different academic disciplines, traditionally in the social sciences, but also in market research and further contexts. Qualitative researchers aim to gather an in-depth understanding of human behavior and the reasons that govern such behavior. The qualitative method investigates the why and how of decision making, not just what, where, and when. Hence, smaller but focused samples are more often needed than large samples.
• scientific method : A method of discovering knowledge about the natural world based in making falsifiable predictions (hypotheses), testing them empirically, and developing peer-reviewed theories that best explain the known data.

A research design encompasses the methodology and procedure employed to conduct scientific research. Although procedures vary from one field of inquiry to another, identifiable features distinguish scientific inquiry from other methods of obtaining knowledge. In general, scientific researchers propose hypotheses as explanations of phenomena, and design research to test these hypotheses via predictions which can be derived from them.

The design of a study defines the study type, research question and hypotheses, independent and dependent variables, and data collection methods. There are many ways to classify research designs, but some examples include descriptive (case studies, surveys), correlational (observational study), semi-experimental (field experiment), experimental (with random assignment), review, and meta-analytic, among others. Another distinction can be made between quantitative methods and qualitative methods.

Quantitative Methods

Quantitative methods are generally useful when a researcher seeks to study large-scale patterns of behavior, while qualitative methods are often more effective when dealing with interactions and relationships in detail. Quantitative methods of sociological research approach social phenomena from the perspective that they can be measured and quantified. For instance, socio-economic status (often referred to by sociologists as SES) can be divided into different groups such as working-class, middle-class, and wealthy, and can be measured using any of a number of variables, such as income and educational attainment.

Qualitative versus Quantitative Methods : These two researchers are debating the relative merits of using qualitative or quantitative methods to study social phenomena such as the learning processes of children.

Qualitative Methods

Qualitative methods are often used to develop a deeper understanding of a particular phenomenon. They also often deliberately give up on quantity, which is necessary for statistical analysis, in order to reach a greater depth in analysis of the phenomenon being studied. While quantitative methods involve experiments, surveys, secondary data analysis, and statistical analysis, qualitatively oriented sociologists tend to employ different methods of data collection and hypothesis testing, including participant observation, interviews, focus groups, content analysis, and historical comparison.

Qualitative sociological research is often associated with an interpretive framework, which is more descriptive or narrative in its findings. In contrast to the scientific method, which follows the hypothesis-testing model in order to find generalizable results, the interpretive framework seeks to understand social worlds from the point of view of participants.

Defining the Sample and Collecting Data

Defining the sample and collecting data are key parts of all empirical research, both qualitative and quantitative.

Describe different types of research samples

• It is important to determine the scope of a research project when developing the question. The choice of method often depends largely on what the researcher intends to investigate. Quantitative and qualitative research projects require different subject selection techniques.
• It is important to determine the scope of a research project when developing the question. While quantitative research requires at least 30 subjects to be considered statistically significant, qualitative research generally takes a more in-depth approach to fewer subjects.
• For both qualitative and quantitative research, sampling can be used. The stages of the sampling process are defining the population of interest, specifying the sampling frame, determining the sampling method and sample size, and sampling and data collecting.
• There are various types of samples, including probability and nonprobability samples. Examples of types of samples include simple random samples, stratified samples, cluster samples, and convenience samples.
• Good data collection involves following the defined sampling process, keeping the data in order, and noting comments and non-responses. Errors and biases can result in the data. Sampling errors and biases are induced by the sample design. Non-sampling errors can also affect results.
• data collection : Data collection is a term used to describe a process of preparing and collecting data.
• sample : A subset of a population selected for measurement, observation or questioning, to provide statistical information about the population.
• bias : The difference between the expectation of the sample estimator and the true population value, which reduces the representativeness of the estimator by systematically distorting it.

Social scientists employ a range of methods in order to analyze a vast breadth of social phenomena. Many empirical forms of sociological research follow the scientific method. Scientific inquiry is generally intended to be as objective as possible in order to reduce the biased interpretations of results. Sampling and data collection are a key component of this process.

It is important to determine the scope of a research project when developing the question. The choice of method often depends largely on what the researcher intends to investigate. For example, a researcher concerned with drawing a statistical generalization across an entire population may administer a survey questionnaire to a representative sample population. By contrast, a researcher who seeks full contextual understanding of the social actions of individuals may choose ethnographic participant observation or open-ended interviews. These two types of studies will yield different types of data. While quantitative research requires at least 30 subjects to be considered statistically significant, qualitative research generally takes a more in-depth approach to fewer subjects.

In both cases, it behooves the researcher to create a concrete list of goals for collecting data. For instance, a researcher might identify what characteristics should be represented in the subjects. Sampling can be used in both quantitative and qualitative research. In statistics and survey methodology, sampling is concerned with the selection of a subset of individuals from within a statistical population to estimate characteristics of the whole population. The stages of the sampling process are defining the population of interest, specifying the sampling frame, determining the sampling method and sample size, and sampling and data collecting.

There are various types of samples. A probability sampling is one in which every unit in the population has a chance (greater than zero) of being selected in the sample, and this probability can be accurately determined. Nonprobability sampling is any sampling method where some elements of the population have no chance of selection or where the probability of selection can’t be accurately determined. Examples of types of samples include simple random samples, stratified samples, cluster samples, and convenience samples.

Good data collection involves following the defined sampling process, keeping the data in time order, noting comments and other contextual events, and recording non-responses. Errors and biases can result in the data. Sampling errors and biases, such as selection bias and random sampling error, are induced by the sample design. Non-sampling errors are other errors which can impact the results, caused by problems in data collection, processing, or sample design.

Analyzing Data and Drawing Conclusions

Data analysis in sociological research aims to identify meaningful sociological patterns.

Compare and contrast the analysis of quantitative vs. qualitative data

• Analysis of data is a process of inspecting, cleaning, transforming, and modeling data with the goal of highlighting useful information, suggesting conclusions, and supporting decision making. Data analysis is a process, within which several phases can be distinguished.
• One way in which analysis can vary is by the nature of the data. Quantitative data is often analyzed using regressions. Regression analyses measure relationships between dependent and independent variables, taking the existence of unknown parameters into account.
• Qualitative data can be coded–that is, key concepts and variables are assigned a shorthand, and the data gathered are broken down into those concepts or variables. Coding allows sociologists to perform a more rigorous scientific analysis of the data.

Sociological data analysis is designed to produce patterns. It is important to remember, however, that correlation does not imply causation; in other words, just because variables change at a proportional rate, it does not follow that one variable influences the other.

• Without a valid design, valid scientific conclusions cannot be drawn. Internal validity concerns the degree to which conclusions about causality can be made. External validity concerns the extent to which the results of a study are generalizable.
• correlation : A reciprocal, parallel or complementary relationship between two or more comparable objects.
• causation : The act of causing; also the act or agency by which an effect is produced.
• Regression analysis : In statistics, regression analysis includes many techniques for modeling and analyzing several variables, when the focus is on the relationship between a dependent variable and one or more independent variables. More specifically, regression analysis helps one understand how the typical value of the dependent variable changes when any one of the independent variables is varied, while the other independent variables are held fixed.

The Process of Data Analysis

Analysis of data is a process of inspecting, cleaning, transforming, and modeling data with the goal of highlighting useful information, suggesting conclusions, and supporting decision making. In statistical applications, some people divide data analysis into descriptive statistics, exploratory data analysis (EDA), and confirmatory data analysis (CDA). EDA focuses on discovering new features in the data and CDA focuses on confirming or falsifying existing hypotheses. Predictive analytics focuses on the application of statistical or structural models for predictive forecasting or classification. Text analytics applies statistical, linguistic, and structural techniques to extract and classify information from textual sources, a species of unstructured data.

Data analysis is a process, within which several phases can be distinguished. The initial data analysis phase is guided by examining, among other things, the quality of the data (for example, the presence of missing or extreme observations), the quality of measurements, and if the implementation of the study was in line with the research design. In the main analysis phase, either an exploratory or confirmatory approach can be adopted. Usually the approach is decided before data is collected. In an exploratory analysis, no clear hypothesis is stated before analyzing the data, and the data is searched for models that describe the data well. In a confirmatory analysis, clear hypotheses about the data are tested.

Regression Analysis

The type of data analysis employed can vary. One way in which analysis often varies is by the quantitative or qualitative nature of the data.

Quantitative data can be analyzed in a variety of ways, regression analysis being among the most popular. Regression analyses measure relationships between dependent and independent variables, taking the existence of unknown parameters into account. More specifically, regression analysis helps one understand how the typical value of the dependent variable changes when any one of the independent variables is varied, while the other independent variables are held fixed.

A large body of techniques for carrying out regression analysis has been developed. In practice, the performance of regression analysis methods depends on the form of the data generating process and how it relates to the regression approach being used. Since the true form of the data-generating process is generally not known, regression analysis often depends to some extent on making assumptions about this process. These assumptions are sometimes testable if a large amount of data is available. Regression models for prediction are often useful even when the assumptions are moderately violated, although they may not perform optimally. However, in many applications, especially with small effects or questions of causality based on observational data, regression methods give misleading results.

Qualitative data can involve coding–that is, key concepts and variables are assigned a shorthand, and the data gathered is broken down into those concepts or variables. Coding allows sociologists to perform a more rigorous scientific analysis of the data. Coding is the process of categorizing qualitative data so that the data becomes quantifiable and thus measurable. Of course, before researchers can code raw data such as taped interviews, they need to have a clear research question. How data is coded depends entirely on what the researcher hopes to discover in the data; the same qualitative data can be coded in many different ways, calling attention to different aspects of the data.

Sociological Data Analysis

Correlation, Causation, and Spurious Relationships : This mock newscast gives three competing interpretations of the same survey findings and demonstrates the dangers of assuming that correlation implies causation.

Conclusions

In terms of the kinds of conclusions that can be drawn, a study and its results can be assessed in multiple ways. Without a valid design, valid scientific conclusions cannot be drawn. Internal validity is an inductive estimate of the degree to which conclusions about causal relationships can be made (e.g., cause and effect), based on the measures used, the research setting, and the whole research design. External validity concerns the extent to which the (internally valid) results of a study can be held to be true for other cases, such as to different people, places, or times. In other words, it is about whether findings can be validly generalized. Learning about and applying statistics (as well as knowing their limitations) can help you better understand sociological research and studies. Knowledge of statistics helps you makes sense of the numbers in terms of relationships, and it allows you to ask relevant questions about sociological phenomena.

Preparing the Research Report

Sociological research publications generally include a literature review, an overview of the methodology followed, the results and an analysis of those results, and conclusions.

Describe the main components of a sociological research paper

• Like any research paper, a sociological research report typically consists of a literature review, an overview of the methods used in data collection, and analysis, findings, and conclusions.
• A literature review is a creative way of organizing what has been written about a topic by scholars and researchers.
• The methods section is necessary to demonstrate how the study was conducted, including the population, sample frame, sample method, sample size, data collection method, and data processing and analysis.
• In the findings and conclusion sections, the researcher reviews all significant findings, notes and discusses all shortcomings, and suggests future research.
• methodology : A collection of methods, practices, procedures, and rules used by those who work in some field.
• quantitative : Of a measurement based on some quantity or number rather than on some quality.
• literature review : A literature review is a body of text that aims to review the critical points of current knowledge including substantive findings as well as theoretical and methodological contributions to a particular topic.

Like any research paper, sociological research is presented with a literature review, an overview of the methods used in data collection, and analysis, findings, and conclusions. Quantitative research papers are usually highly formulaic, with a clear introduction (including presentation of the problem and literature review); sampling and methods; results; discussion and conclusion. In striving to be as objective as possible in order to reduce biased interpretations of results, sociological esearch papers follow the scientific method. Research reports may be published as books or journal articles, given directly to a client, or presented at professional meetings.

A literature review is a creative way of organizing what has been written about a topic by scholars and researchers. You will find literature reviews at the beginning of many essays, research reports, or theses. In writing the literature review, your purpose is to convey to your reader what you have learned through a careful reading of a set of articles related to your research question.

• It is organized around issues, themes, factors, or variables that are related directly to your thesis or research question.
• It shows the path of prior research and how the current project is linked.
• It provides a good synthesis of what is, and is not, known.
• It indicates the theoretical framework with which you are working.
• It identifies areas of controversy and debate, or limitations in the literature sharing different perspectives.
• It places the formation of research questions in their historical context.
• It identifies the list of the authors that are engaged in similar work.

The methodssection is necessary to demonstrate how the study was conducted, and that the data is valid for study. Without assurance that the research is based on sound methods, readers cannot countenance any conclusions the researcher proposes. In the methodology section, be sure to include: the population, sample frame, sample method, sample size, data collection method, and data processing and analysis. This is also a section in which to clearly present information in table and graph form.

In the findings and conclusion sections, the researcher reviews all significant findings, notes and discusses all shortcomings, and suggests future research. The conclusion section is the only section where opinions can be expressed and persuasive writing is tolerated.

Contributors and Attributions

• Curation and Revision. by : Boundless.com. CC BY-SA

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• OpenStax College, Introduction to Sociology. September 17, 2013. ( CC BY ; OpenStax CNX via http://cnx.org/content/m42796/latest/?collection=col11407/latest )
• Scientific method. ( CC BY-SA ; Wikipedia via en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method%23Elements_of_the_scientific_method)
• Introduction to Sociology/Sociological Methods. ( CC BY-SA ; Wikibooks via en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Sociology/Sociological_Methods%23Characterization)
• Sociology. ( CC BY-SA ; Wikipedia via en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology)
• operationalization. ( CC BY-SA ; Wikipedia via en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/operationalization)
• operational definition. ( CC BY-SA ; Wiktionary via en.wiktionary.org/wiki/operational_definition)
• Operationalizing Variables. at : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RBoTaFp7Mg . Public Domain . License Terms : Standard YouTube license
• OpenStax College, Introduction to Sociology. July 3, 2012. ( CC BY ; OpenStax CNX via http://cnx.org/content/m42796/latest/?collection=col11407/latest )
• Review Literature. ( CC BY-SA ; ccar Wikispace via ccar.wikispaces.com/Review+Literature)
• Social Research Methods/Reading and Writing Social Research. ( CC BY-SA ; Wikibooks via en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Social_Research_Methods/Reading_and_Writing_Social_Research%23Goals_to_Meet_When_Writing_a_Literature_Review)
• disciplinary. ( CC BY-SA ; Wiktionary via en.wiktionary.org/wiki/disciplinary)
• Theses. ( CC BY-SA ; Wikipedia via en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Theses)
• essay. ( CC BY-SA ; Wiktionary via en.wiktionary.org/wiki/essay)
• SanDiegoCityCollegeLearingRecourceCity-bookshelf. ( CC BY ; Wikimedia via commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SanDiegoCityCollegeLearingRecourceCity-bookshelf.jpg)
• independent variable. ( CC BY-SA ; Wiktionary via en.wiktionary.org/wiki/independent_variable)
• Introduction to Sociology/Sociological Methods. ( CC BY-SA ; Wikibooks via en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Sociology/Sociological_Methods%23Hypothesis_Development)
• hypothesis. ( CC BY-SA ; Wiktionary via en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hypothesis)
• dependent variable. ( CC BY-SA ; Wiktionary via en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dependent_variable)
• scientific method. ( CC BY-SA ; Wiktionary via en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scientific_method)
• Introduction to Sociology/Sociological Methods. ( CC BY-SA ; Wikibooks via en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Sociology/Sociological_Methods%23Quantitative_and_Qualitative)
• Research design. ( CC BY-SA ; Wikipedia via en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_design)
• Scientific method. ( CC BY-SA ; Wikipedia via en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method)
• quantitative methods. ( CC BY-SA ; Wikipedia via en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/quantitative%20methods)
• qualitative methods. ( CC BY-SA ; Wikipedia via en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/qualitative%20methods)
• Qualitative versus Quantitative Methods. at : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddx9PshVWXI . Public Domain . License Terms : Standard YouTube license
• Sampling (statistics). ( CC BY-SA ; Wikipedia via http://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_(statistics) )
• Social research. ( CC BY-SA ; Wikipedia via en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_research%23Methodology)
• Social research. ( CC BY-SA ; Wikipedia via en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_research)
• data collection. ( CC BY-SA ; Wikipedia via en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/data%20collection)
• sample. ( CC BY-SA ; Wiktionary via en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sample)
• bias. ( CC BY-SA ; Wiktionary via en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bias)
• r.i.a.-29-284427417055-292.jpg. ( CC BY ; File:Data_Collection_(G.L.O.R.I.A.)_(4427417055).jpg via commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/)
• Coding. ( CC BY-SA ; ccr733 Wikispace via ccr733.wikispaces.com/Coding)
• Regression analysis. ( CC BY-SA ; Wikipedia via en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_analysis)
• Validity (statistics). ( CC BY-SA ; Wikipedia via en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Validity_(statistics))
• Data analysis. ( CC BY-SA ; Wikipedia via en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_analysis)
• Regression analysis. ( CC BY-SA ; Wikipedia via en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression%20analysis)
• correlation. ( CC BY-SA ; Wiktionary via en.wiktionary.org/wiki/correlation)
• causation. ( CC BY-SA ; Wiktionary via en.wiktionary.org/wiki/causation)
• Help question coding - help desk. ( Public Domain ; Wikimedia via commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Help_question_coding_-_help_desk.PNG)
• Correlation, Causation, and Spurious Relationships. at : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNonyq1yhiE . Public Domain . License Terms : Standard YouTube license
• Linear regression. ( Public Domain ; Wikipedia via en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Linear_regression.svg)
• Social Research Methods/Reading and Writing Social Research. ( CC BY-SA ; Wikibooks via en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Social_Research_Methods/Reading_and_Writing_Social_Research)
• quantitative. ( CC BY-SA ; Wiktionary via en.wiktionary.org/wiki/quantitative)
• literature review. ( CC BY-SA ; Wikipedia via en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/literature%20review)
• methodology. ( CC BY-SA ; Wiktionary via en.wiktionary.org/wiki/methodology)

Module 6: Research

Preliminary research strategies.

The first step towards writing a research paper is pretty obvious: find sources. Not everything that you find will be good, and those that are good are not always easily found.  Having an idea of what you’re looking for–what will most help you develop your essay and enforce your thesis–will help guide your process.

Example of a Research Process

A good research process should go through these steps:

• Decide on the topic.
• Narrow the topic in order to narrow search parameters.
• Create a question that your research will address.
• Generate sub-questions from your main question.
• Determine what kind of sources are best for your argument.
• Create a bibliography as you gather and reference sources.

Each of these is described in greater detail below.

The research process is messy! Do not start research haphazardly—come up with a plan first.

A research plan should begin after you can clearly identify the focus of your argument. First, inform yourself about the basics of your topic (Wikipedia and general online searches are great starting points). Be sure you’ve read all the assigned texts and carefully read the prompt as you gather preliminary information.  This stage is sometimes called pre-research .

A broad online search will yield thousands of sources, which no one could be expected to read through. To make it easier on yourself, the next step is to narrow your focus. Think about what kind of position or stance you can take on the topic. What about it strikes you as most interesting? Refer back to the prewriting stage of the writing process, which will come in handy here.

Preliminary Search Tips

• It is okay to start with Wikipedia as a reference, but do not use it as an official source. Look at the links and references at the bottom of the page for more ideas.
• Use “Ctrl+F” to find certain words within a webpage in order to jump to the sections of the article that interest you.
• Use quotation marks to narrow your search from just tanks in WWII to “Tanks in WWII” or “Tanks” in “WWII”.
• Find specific types of websites by adding “site:.gov” or “site:.edu” or “site:.org”. You can also search for specific file types like “filetype:.pdf”.
• Click on “Search Tools” under the search bar in Google and select “Any time” to see a list of options for time periods to help limit your search. You can find information just in the past month or year, or even for a custom range.

Use features already available through Google Search like Search Tools and Advanced Search to narrow and refine your results.

As you narrow your focus, create a list of questions that you’ll need to answer in order to write a good essay on the topic.  The research process will help you answer these questions.

Another part of your research plan should include the type of sources you want to gather. Keep track of these sources in a bibliography and jot down notes about the book, article, or document and how it will be useful to your essay. This will save you a lot of time later in the essay process–you’ll thank yourself!

• Revision and Adaptation. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• The Research Process graphic. Authored by : Kim Louie for Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Organizing Your Research Plan. Provided by : Boundless. Located at : https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-writing/ . Project : Boundless Writing. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike

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10.2: The Process of Writing a Research Paper

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• Athena Kashyap & Erika Dyquisto
• City College of San Francisco via ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative

Process of Writing a Research Paper

The process of writing a research paper can be a journey, one that can be difficult at times and perhaps overwhelming. But breaking down the process into parts can make it feel manageable. The process of integrated reading and writing discussed earlier in this book is amplified in a research paper. The recursiveness of the reading-writing process is also amplified, meaning that you may have to go back and forth more between reading and writing, and the order in which you do your work may be even less linear. This, combined with the generally larger scope of the research paper, is what can make research papers feel a little overwhelming. Below, you will find a general order in which the process of the research paper occurs along with some strategies to help you. The main piece of advice any instructor can give you is: Do not put off the work. The sooner you begin your exploration, research, and writing, the better. The next three general pieces of advice are to:

• Create a research question that begins with the word "why" or "how" to guide you.
• Avoid getting bogged down in the research or working with sources that don't really relate to your question.
• Annotate while you read, and as soon as you begin writing down ideas from others in a document, be sure to also write down where the thought, idea, or quote came from.

The General Process

Determine your general topic and evaluate what you know about it.

As you may recall, to narrow the focus of your topic, you may try free writing exercises, such as brainstorming. You may also need to ask a specific research question—a broad, open-ended question that will guide your research. You may use your research question to create a research proposal (some instructors require this). See the next session to learn more about research proposals.

Plan and Schedule

Before you start researching your topic, take time to plan your research and writing schedule. Research projects can take days, weeks, or even months to complete. Creating a schedule is a good way to ensure that you do not end up being overwhelmed by all the work you have to do as the deadline approaches.

Each step of a research project requires time and attention. Careful planning helps ensure that you will keep your project running smoothly and produce your best work. Set up a project schedule that shows when you will complete each step. Think about how you will complete each step and what project resources you will use. Resources may include anything from library databases and word-processing software to interview subjects and writing tutors.

To develop your schedule, use a calendar and work backward from the date your final draft is due. Generally, it is wise to divide half of the available time on the research phase of the project and half on the writing phase. For example, if you have a month to work, plan for two weeks for each phase. If you have a full semester, plan to begin research early and to start writing by the middle of the term. You might think that no one really works that far ahead, but try it. You will probably be pleased with the quality of your work and with the reduction in your stress level.

As you plan, break down major steps into smaller tasks if necessary. For example, conducting research involves locating potential sources, evaluating their usefulness and reliability, reading, and taking notes. Defining these smaller tasks makes the project more manageable by giving you concrete goals to achieve.

In this chapter, we will follow a student named Miguel, who is studying health care administration, as he prepares a research paper. While observing Miguel's process, you will also plan, research, and draft your own research paper. As an example of creating a plan, Miguel had six weeks to complete his research project. Working backward from a due date of May 2, he mapped out a schedule for completing his research by early April so that he would have ample time to write. Miguel chose to write his schedule in his weekly planner to help keep himself on track.

During this step of the process, it is also a good idea to plan the resources and organizational tools you will use to keep yourself on track throughout the project. Flowcharts, calendars, and checklists can all help you stick to your schedule. Always start from the time your project is due. If you have a smart phone with a task list in which you can add calendar deadlines and alarms, use that too! Decide how much time each part of the process is likely to take (and maybe multiply that amount of time by 1.5 or 2 times to get a realistic amount of time). Then schedule a deadline based on that amount of time on your calendar for each task, working backward from the due date.

Review Miguel's schedule. Key target dates are shaded. Note that Miguel planned times to use available resources by visiting the library and writing center and by meeting with his instructor.

Miguel's Research Schedule

Create your own research schedule -- just as Miguel has -- but base it on your own deadlines and what you need to do.

Writing at Work

When you create a project schedule at work, you set target dates for completing certain tasks and identify the resources you plan to use on the project. It is important to build in some flexibility. Materials may not be received on time because of a shipping delay. An employee on your team may be called away to work on a higher-priority project. Essential equipment may malfunction. You should always plan for the unexpected.

Stay Organized

Although setting up a schedule is easy, sticking to one is challenging. Even if you are the rare person who never procrastinates, unforeseen events may interfere with your ability to complete tasks on time. A self-imposed deadline may slip your mind despite your best intentions. Organizational tools—calendars, checklists, note cards, software, and so forth—can help you stay on track.

Throughout your project, organize both your time and your resources systematically. Review your schedule frequently and check your progress. It helps to post your schedule in a place where you will see it every day. Both personal and workplace e-mail systems usually include a calendar feature where you can record tasks, arrange to receive daily reminders, and check off completed tasks. Electronic devices such as smartphones have similar features.

Organize project documents in a binder or electronic folder, and label project documents and folders clearly. Use note cards or an electronic document to record bibliographical information for each source you plan to use in your paper. Tracking this information throughout the research process can save you hours of time when you create your references page.

Revisit the schedule created in Exercise 1. Transfer it into a format that will help you stay on track from day to day. You may wish to input it into your smartphone, write it in a weekly planner, post it by your desk, or have you email account send you daily reminders. Consider setting up a buddy system with a classmate that will help you both stay on track.

Identify Challenges

Do any of these scenarios sound familiar? You have identified a book that would be a great resource for your project, but it is currently checked out of the library. You planned to interview a subject matter expert on your topic, but she calls to reschedule your meeting. You have begun writing your draft, but now you realize that you will need to modify your thesis and conduct additional research. Or you have finally completed your draft when your computer crashes, and days of hard work disappear in an instant.

These troubling situations are all too common. No matter how carefully you plan your schedule, you may encounter a glitch or setback. Managing your project effectively means anticipating potential problems, taking steps to minimize them where possible, and allowing time in your schedule to handle any setbacks.

Many times a situation becomes a problem due only to lack of planning. For example, if a book is checked out of your local library, it might be available through interlibrary loan, which usually takes a few days for the library staff to process. Alternatively, you might locate another, equally useful source. If you have allowed enough time for research, a brief delay will not become a major setback.

You can manage other potential problems by staying organized and maintaining a take-charge attitude. Take a minute each day to save a backup copy of your work on a portable hard drive. Maintain detailed note cards and source cards as you conduct research—doing so will make citing sources in your draft infinitely easier. If you run into difficulties with your research or your writing, ask your instructor for help, or make an appointment with a writing tutor.

Identify five potential problems you might encounter in the process of researching and writing your paper. Write them on a separate sheet of paper. For each problem, write at least one strategy for solving the problem or minimizing its effect on your project.

In the workplace, documents prepared at the beginning of a project often include a detailed plan for risk management. When you manage a project, it makes sense to anticipate and prepare for potential setbacks. For example, to roll out a new product line, a software development company must strive to complete tasks on a schedule in order to meet the new product release date. The project manager may need to adjust the project plan if one or more tasks fall behind schedule.

Conduct Research

When going about your research, you will likely use a variety of sources—anything from books and periodicals to video presentations and in-person interviews.Your sources will include both primary sources and secondary sources. Primary sources provide firsthand information or raw data. For example, surveys, in-person interviews, and historical documents are primary sources. Secondary sources, such as biographies, literary reviews, or journal articles, include some analysis or interpretation of the information presented. As you conduct research, you will take detailed, careful notes about your discoveries. You will also evaluate the reliability of each source you find. See more about conducting research in " Evaluating and Working with Sources."

Using appropriate key words, start searching academic databases for scholarly articles about your topic. Try to look for sources from multiple perspectives, source types, and cultures. Print out or keep in a special electronic folder all of the articles you are considering.

Some Exercises or Tips to Follow while You Read

Read and annotate your articles, one at a time. At this time, also do the following for each of your readings:

• As themes or categories appear in what you are reading, assign a colored sticky note to each theme/category. As you read each article, use that color of sticky note to identify the theme wherever it appears in your reading. Note that each theme or category may not appear in all of your articles. However, each article may cover more than one theme. Annotate each article while you read with your thoughts, ideas, and reactions. Also annotate for understanding and main ideas.
• Begin your annotated bibliography if your instructor requires you to write one. Even if your instructor doesn't, creating an annotated bibliography can be a useful step for you to start to organize what you are reading in your mind. For each source, write down the complete MLA citation (in correct format), summarize the article in your own words, critique it (is the article good or not – why?), and explain how you could use it in your research paper. Writing an annotated bibliography takes time, but it is the first step in synthesizing and really thinking about how your sources work together.
• As you read through your articles, you may find that what you read raises more questions for you. This means you may go out and find some more articles, even some that weren’t on your initial annotated bibliography. You may find that what you are reading doesn’t seem relevant after all (although reading abstracts can help avoid this problem) so you may end up not including some articles you initially thought you would. Sometimes you may find that you need more information in some area or you may want to see if others agree with the original author. Or you may want to find out more about something the author wrote about. This is the time to check the list of citations at the end of the article. You can generally find more to read about the topic in that list although keep in mind those sources will be older than what you originally read.

Organize your Research and Ideas

When your research is complete, you will organize your findings and decide which sources to cite in your paper. You will also have an opportunity to evaluate the evidence you have collected and determine whether it helps to answer your research question. You may decide to conduct additional research to ensure that your question is answered thoroughly.

To help organize all of these ideas, begin a word processing document with a section for each theme/category you identified while you were reading. In each theme/section, start writing down your significant annotations you wrote down while reading. Also, be sure to write down the last name of the author and page number of the source you are working with as you do this. Thinking about PIE paragraph development (see " Strategies for Paragraph Development "), you are beginning to write down some of the E(xplanation) and I(nformation) for your research paper.

Exercise 4 \(\PageIndex{1}\)

You may have created a mind map when brainstorming your research paper. If you did, return to that mind map and edit it by adding any new themes or topics you read about that you didn't think of before. Rearrange the mind map so that the connections represent how the topics relate to each other.

If you didn't create a mind map before -- and you are a visual thinker -- create one now. Write down each theme and think about how they relate to each other. Keep subtopic that relate close together on the mind map and keep those ideas that are less closely related farther apart. Then, you might write down the authors of each article underneath the topic(s)/theme(s) they discuss in their work. This way, each section of your research paper can be visually grouped before you write about one section (or mind map bubble) at a time. Topics/themes that are close together in your mind map can appear in close proximity in your paper also.

Draft Your Paper

Now that you've done some initial organizing, you are ready to combine your research findings with your critical analysis of the results in a rough draft. You will incorporate source materials into your paper and discuss each source thoughtfully in relation to your research question. See " Creating a Rough Draft of a Research Paper " to see an explanation of the form and structure of a literature review research paper.

When you cite your reference sources, it is important to both paraphrase well (see " Working with Sources Part 1 ") and pay close attention to standard conventions for citing sources in order to avoid plagiarism, or the practice of using someone else’s words without acknowledging the source. You must cite your source even when you paraphrase. In fact, much higher level research writing in fields other than the humanities involves mostly paraphrasing, not incorporating quotations, so learning to paraphrase well is an invaluable skill that you should try to master. Later in this chapter, you will learn how to incorporate sources in your paper and avoid some of the most common pitfalls of attributing information.

Once you have finished your reading and note taking, go to your document in which you started to organize your notes. Go through each section, re-read your notes, and start coming up with some main ideas for each section and or paragraph that help lead to an answer to your research question. Then make sure each paragraph and section has a point, supporting information, and explanation/analysis (see PIE in " Strategies for Paragraph Development" ). Try to work with one section at a time. You can develop your explanation by comparing different points of view on a subtopic (although x shows this, the results from x’s study show this….), examining the nuances about a topic (i.e., this is similar, except…), discussing the implications of the ideas (looking at it from this perspective can mean…., this can help us by….), and/or critiquing the strength or weakness of some research over others (see sentence stems). Decide where you need more support and see if you can find it. But be sure to connect your research to an overall answer to your research question (what your thesis will eventually be). See what you can add to the analysis in each paragraph. At this point, you should have a general answer to your research question. This general answer is your thesis. Congratulations! You are now most of the way through your journey. See "Structure of the Research Paper" in " Creating a Rough Draft of a Research Paper " to see where to include your thesis.

When you can’t think of a word, think of the best word you can and then put question marks around it so you can revisit it later. Don't let not being able to think of the write word keep you form getting your other thoughts down.

Revise and Edit

Revising and polishing your paper is a multi-step process involving obtaining feedback and figuring out areas that might have holes or how to expand your explanation and possibly reorganizing some of your information. These are higher order concerns (HOCS), and they should be dealt with before you turn your attention to lower order concerns (LOCS) involving words choice, phrasing, checking your citations, and proofreading. When dealing with HOCS, you might reorganize your paper’s structure or revise for unity and cohesion, ensuring that each element in your paper flows into the next logically and naturally. You will also make sure that your paper uses an appropriate and consistent tone. Pay special attention to this where you incorporate quotations and discuss other people's writing (see " Evaluating and Working with Sources ," later in this chapter).

You may have already draft an introduction to get yourself writing, or you may have put that off. Either way, it's time to think about your research question and your audience. Think about what your audience will already know about your topic and provide context accordingly for your audience, in your thesis, ending at your research question. This may require to revise your introduction if you've already drafted one. Remember from the beginning of the chapter that research is a conversation, and since someone else reading your paper would feel like they would be entering a conversation without any context if you jump right into your topic, you need to provide the context for them to enter the conversation with you. That is the purpose of the introduction.

Once you feel confident in the strength of your writing, you will edit your paper for proper spelling, grammar, punctuation, mechanics, and formatting. If you used the question mark trick to mark places where you wanted to review your word choice, now is the time to go back and search for those question marks. Read your essay from the end to the beginning (looking for those question marks), or use the "search" or "find" key in your word processing program, and make any changes needed in word choice and sentence structure. Then proofread according to the tips in Section 7.5, " Proofreading ." Do be careful to check all quotes against the original to make sure they are accurate (don't skip over them when proofreading), and make sure no citations are missing. Finally, make sure your final Works Cited page reflects the sources you actually used in your paper. If you got rid of some during the research process, remove them from the Works Cited list. Conversely, if you added some, add them to your Works Cited page. When you complete this final step -- hopefully not at 3 a.m. the morning before your paper is due -- you will have transformed a simple idea or question into a thoroughly researched and well-written paper you can be proud of!

Contributors

• Adapted from Writing for Success . Provided by: The Saylor Foundation. License: CC-NC-SA 3.0 .

This page most recently updated on June 6, 2020.

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Advice for the Unmotivated

• Robin Abrahams
• Boris Groysberg

How to reignite your enthusiasm for work

Employee disengagement is rampant in the workplace. We’ve all experienced it as customers encountering unhelpful retail clerks and as colleagues dealing with apathetic teammates. But what happens when you yourself feel dead at work?

This article describes what you as an individual can do to sustain your motivation or recover it, even in the most stultifying of jobs. After synthesizing research on this challenge and experimenting with various strategies, the authors have developed a process for recharging yourself called DEAR.

The first step is to detach and objectively analyze your situation so that you can make wise choices about it, instead of reacting in a fight-or-flight way. At day’s end, review what went well at your job and then mentally disconnect from it to give yourself a break. Meditation and exercise can help you do that and will improve your mood and cognitive function. Next, show empathy. Practice self-care, make friends, recognize the accomplishments of others, seek their views, and help them. Research shows that this combats burnout. Third, take action: achieve small wins, invest in rewarding outside activities, redefine your responsibilities, and turn uninteresting tasks into games. Ask yourself how someone you admire would behave in your situation, and dress in a way that projects confidence. Last, reframe your thinking: Focus on the informal roles you enjoy at work, your job’s higher-order purpose, and how others benefit from your work. All these techniques will improve your mental health and increase the energy you bring to your job—even if it is not what you’d like it to be.

In virtually everyone’s career, there comes a time when motivation and interest vanish. The usual tasks feel tedious. It’s hard to muster the energy for new projects. Though we go through the motions of being good employees or managers, we’re not really “there.” We become ghosts or zombies: the working dead.

• Robin Abrahams is a research associate at Harvard Business School.
• BG Boris Groysberg is a professor of business administration in the Organizational Behavior unit at Harvard Business School and a faculty affiliate at the school’s Race, Gender & Equity Initiative. He is the coauthor, with Colleen Ammerman, of Glass Half-Broken: Shattering the Barriers That Still Hold Women Back at Work (Harvard Business Review Press, 2021). bgroysberg

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