Chapter 6: Researching your subject

Regardless of which technique people use, the challenge is to sort the relevant information from
the irrelevant, and the accurate from the bogus.

Primary research: creating information yourself.

Secondary research: collecting information that other people have already covered or created. ‘

The difference between academic and workplace research:

• in academic research, the goal is to find information that will help answer a scholarly question.
They are usually more abstract than applied. they get at the underlying principles of a
phenomenon. Moreover, they usually require secondary research such as academic journals or
books. if you do primary research such as in labs experiments, you will do them only after
secondary research.

• In workplace research, the goal is to find information that help you answer a practical question
usually involves your organization. Because workplace research questions are usually focused
on improving a situation at a particular organization, they call much more primary research.

The research process:

1- Analyse your Audience
Who are your most important readers? What are their personal characteristics? their attitudes toward your
subject, their motivations for reading? If you are writing to an expert audience that might be skeptical about
your message, you need to do a lot of research to gather the evidence for a convincing argument.

2- Analyse your Purpose:

Why are you writing? Understanding your purpose helps you understand the types of information readers will
expect. Think in terms of what you want your readers to know or believe or do after they finish reading your
document.

3- Analyse your subject:

What do you already know about your subject? What do you still need to find out? Using techniques such as
freewriting and brainstorming, you can determine those aspects of the subject you need to investigate.

4- Visualize the Deliverable

What application will you need to deliver: a proposal, a report, a Web site? What kind of oral presentation will
you need to deliver?

5- Work out a Schedule and a Budget for the Project

When is the deliverable — the document or the presentation — due? Do you have a budget for phone calls,
database searches, or travel to libraries or other sites?

6- Determine What information Will need to Be Part of that Deliverable

Draft an outline of the contents, focusing on the kinds of information that readers will expect to see in each part.

7- Determine What information you Still need to Acquire

Make a list of the pieces of information you don’t yet have.
8- Create Questions you need to Answer in your Deliverable
Writing the questions in a list force you to think carefully about your topic. One question suggests another, and
soon you have a lengthy list that you need to answer.

9- Conduct Secondary Research

Study journal articles and Web-based sources such as online journals, discussion boards, blogs, and podcasts.

10- Conduct Primary Research

You can answer some of your questions by consulting company records, by interviewing experts in your
organization, by distributing questionnaires, and by interviewing other people in your organization and industry.

11- evaluate your information

Once you have your information, you need to evaluate its quality: is it accurate, comprehensive, unbiased, and
current?

12- Do More Research

If the information you have acquired doesn’t sufficiently answer your questions, do more research. And if you
have thought of additional questions that need to be answered, do more research. When do you stop doing
research? You will stop only when you think you have enough high-quality information to create the
deliverable.

Choosing appropriate research method:

• it means choosing the ways in which you will conduct your research.
• Different research questions require different research methods.
• you need to answer 3 questions:

I. What type of research media might you use? (Books, journals, or online websites? )
II. What type of research tools might you use? (via online catalogues or abstract services? )
III. What type of primary research might you conduct? (Observations, inspections, demonstrations,
experiments, interviews, questionnaires, or field research?)

• Guidelines: p123
- be persistent: use useful information
- Record your data carefully. Prepare the materials you will need. Write information down, on paper
or online. Record interviews (with the respondents’ permission).
- Triangulate your research methods: use more than one or two methods.

Conducting secondary research:

• As a worker, you might find most of the information at your organization’s information centre.
Information centre is the organization’s library.
Understanding the Research Media
• 4 types of information media:
1- print such as books, journals, and reports. it is a useful tool for information that does not need to
be updated periodically. To find printed documents, you will use online catalogues.

2- Online database such as LexisNexis, ProQuest, InfoTrac.. that provide access to large databases
of journals, articles, ..etc

3- Websites

4- social media: all of which require user- generated information. A discussion board is online
discussion that readers contribute to by posting messages. A blog is web-based periodical published
by a person or a group, to which readers can contribute comments. A wiki is a website that users write
and edit online.

Traditional research tools:

- Online catalogues: databases of books, mirror materials. Etc. it lists and describes the holdings.
- Reference works: include general dictionaries, encyclopaedias, almanacs, atlases. Etc
- Periodical indexes: a list of articles classified according to title, subject and author. there are
periodical indexes in all fields. If your library does not have the article you want, you can use:

• Interlibrary loan: your library finds a library that has the article and sends it or faxes it to your
library.

• Document delivery service.

Newspaper indexes: p128

keep in mind that the print and the electronic version vary greatly. the print version is the preferred
one.
1- Abstract services: they are like indexes, but they provide abstracts: brief summaries of the articles

2- Government information: The U.S government is the world’s

biggest publisher in many fields. they are not listed in journals or abstracts but available on paper, on
CD, and on the web.

Using social media and other interactive resources:

1- Discussion boards: online discussion sponsored by professional organizations, private companies,
and others. they are useful in providing quick, practical advice. However, the advice might not be
authoritative.

2- Wikis: easy to create and edit content on them. Wikis contain articles, information about students,
reading lists, book reviews, and documents. they contain information about topics that can change day
to day. They represent a much boarder spectrum of viewpoints than media because they rely on
information contributed voluntary.

3- Blogs: bloggers almost invite their readers to post comments. Bloggers not always independent
voicers.

4- Tagged content: descriptive keywords people use to describe contents. They can be one word
without spaces or multiword descriptors.

5- RSS feeds: short for rich site summary or simple syndications allows readers to check just one
place. it allows organizations to deliver news to a desktop computer.

Evaluating the information: p133

• Accurate
• Unbiased: search for sources that have no financial stake.
• Comprehensive: from different kinds of people and from people representing all viewpoints.
• Appropriately technical: detailed to respond to your needs and you can understand it.
• Current
• Clear: easy to understand. Conducting primary research:

Observations and demonstrations:

demonstration means you are watching someone carry out a process while observation you are
carrying the process of taking notes. Etc.

• Inspections: they are like observations, but you participate more actively and complicated.

• Experiments: used in practical field. it includes 4 phases:

1- Establishing a hypothesis: a hypothesis an informed guess about the relationship between two
factors.
2- Testing the hypothesis: Usually, you need an experimental group and a control group.
3- Analysing the data
4- reporting the data

Field research: they are qualitative and sometimes both quantitative and qualitative. When you are
doing a field research try to minimize 2 common problems:
- the effect of the experiment on the behavior you are studying
- bias on the recording and analysis of the data

Interviews: in choosing a respondent answer 3 questions:

1. what questions do you want to answer?
2. Who could provide this information?
3. is the person willing to be interviewed?
Guidelines
1. Preparing for the interview: do your homework, do not ask questions already answered, prepare
good questions, check your equipment.
2. Beginning the interview: arrive on time, thank the respondent for taking the time, state the subject
and purpose of the interview if you wish to tape the interview ask permission.
3. Conducting the interview: take notes, start with the prepared questions, be prepared to ask follow
up questions, be prepared to get the interview back on track.
4. Concluding the interview: thank the respondent, ask for follow up interview.

Inquires:
an alternative to personal interview is to send an inquiry. this inquiry can take the form of letter,
email, or a message. Physical letter is more formal and might be more appropriate for important topics
such as layoffs or safety. respondent might not answer and there is less opportunity to follow up by
asking for clarification.

Questionnaires:
Questionnaires enable you to solicit information from a large group of people. You can send
questionnaires through the mail, e-mail them, present them as forms on a Web site, or use survey
software (such as SurveyMonkey).
Questionnaires are vulnerable to three problems:
1- Some of the questions will misfire.
2- You won’t obtain as many responses as you want.
3- You cannot be sure the respondents are representative.

Using questionnaires effectively calls for four steps:

Ask effective questions.
Test the questionnaire.
Administer the questionnaire.
Present questionnaire data in your document.

Understand the six common types of questions:

multiple choice
Likert scale
semantic differentials
ranking
short answer
short essay