Tree/Forest analogy and Narrowing a Research Topic

We have to remember that conducting a research project is a
tree, not the forest. In fact, it should be even more tightly focused as the
bark on the north side of the tree to have an excellent research focus. And in
all honesty, this is how we are expected to conduct research.

However, when we review and analyze research, we are
stepping into the forest and looking at several species of trees - say all the
oaks and if they have found the same results as the research on the north side.
We can also expand it to the entire bark of the tree.

So to break it down a bit, when we conduct our own primary
research we are not in the forest, we are looking at the bark on the north side
of one tree. When evaluating and synthesizing our research or that of others,
then we expand and acknowledge other research (this is the lit review process!)

Long time no post...

I really need to get back into the blogger mode, so here goes. I've been teaching several research courses lately and I've found that many students don't understand the differences between types of research. Of course, we have primary, in which we conduct the research, such as creating and administering a survey, performing an observation, creating a case study. In college primary research is rarely done at the undergrad level (unless in a senior capstone project for example). Most research conducted at the undergrad level is looking for an answer to who, what, when, where and sometimes why. At the graduate level where we normally begin to conduct primary research, as well as answer the tougher how and why questions of a topic.

Any type of research requires us to start with a question - Who were the Founding Fathers and what was their individual contributions to the Declaration of Independence? Or what is the best practices in preparing a lesson plan for a elementary science class? Notice that these questions are quite specific. It is vital the we have extremely specific questions before we even conduct our research.

At the graduate level, our questions dig a bit deeper and require even more critical thinking - How does embedding interactive quizzes into the electronic textbook aid in student learning? Why do obesive individuals look for quick fixes to weight loss on television versus going to the physician?

In many cases, coming up with the question is the most difficult part of research. But once we have it, we can then use some of the wording within the question to help us with keywords to begin our research.

Conducting research in 2011

Many of us depend on Google or Bing (or a combination of the two which can be done using bingle.nu), yet there are literally millions of invisible ways of searching the web. Here's a list of a few academic sites to check out and try in the new year:

http://www.libraryspot.com/ - like having a community library on your computer.

http://www.uiweb.uidaho.edu/special-collections/iil.htm - a nice listing of electronic sources available from around the world

http://www.doaj.org/ - one of my personal favorites, a list of all kinds of academic journals that available for free online!

http://www2.guidestar.org/ - Database of nonprofits - great when determining credibility of sources

http://highwire.stanford.edu/lists/allsites.dtl - not all are free, but there are some great links here to a variety of journals.

WikiSeer to help with notes

I've been playing with a site under beta testing, http://www.wikiseer.com. What it does is takes an html webpage and provides a series of quick, easy-to-read keynotes of the page. So far, I've tried it with some general websites like CNN and a site I formerly worked for www.designnews.com and the application works quite well. However, even though the site notes that it will work with pdf files, in which many of our academic sources can be found, I have not been too pleased with the results. But remember, this is in a testing phase, so it won't be perfect.

This is a potential tool to doing a quick review of a research report to determine if you should read the entire copy. However, like any tool, it doesn't replace your own results in reading the complete document, though it could help weed through some documents quickly and efficiently!

An interesting article recently published in "Inside Higher Ed" noted the so-called "Google Effect" of conducting research -- www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/09/29/search. One way to see the differences in search engines is to use the site Bingle, which searches Google and Bing simultaneously -- www.bingle.nu. While I don't usually encourage the use of generalized search engines, in some cases, these sites may offer some relevant information. By all means use Bingle to cut down on your research time and multitask the two major search engines at once!

Even though APA 6th edition has 77 different reference formats from blogs to newspapers to videos to academic journals, there are really only two ways to put in a citation. I always tell students to cite as you write and all you need to put in your citation is AY or AYP -- author's last name and year of publication if you are paraphrasing or summarizing in your own words and author's last name, year of publication, and page or paragraph number where the reader can find the direct quote you used.

For instance for paraphrases and summaries:
(Smith, 2003).
(Smith & Jones, 2003)
(Smith, Jones, & Brown, 2003).

Note in citations we use the ampersand (&) and not the word "and".

For a quote, the citation would look like this:
(Smith, 2003, p. 12)
(Smith & Jones, 2003, para. 12)
(Smith, Jones & Brown, 2003, p. 12)

Would you go shopping without knowing what you are looking for?

Of course not, unless we are merely window shopping. But your research paper should not be window shopping. Before you start your research you need to know what you are looking for or you will spend useless hours just wandering around the Internet. No wonder you get frustrated.

As I always indicate in my lectures, it is all about the keywords - you need 4-6 solid nouns or adjective/noun groupings or even a verb. BUT NEVER USE words like to, for, by, etc. in your search windows. Nor do you want to use vague words like treatment or symptoms. As I often use in my examples, if you search with words such as "breast cancer" AND "African American women" AND postmenopause AND mammogram, you will have some valid documents to use in your paper in one quick search. In the words of Emeril BAM!

Never start searching for your research paper without keywords. Don't waste your time and deal with the guaranteed frustration to follow.

Second piece of advice, use the keywords and search in different databases/search engines. Just because you found nothing or little in one database, doesn't mean you will hit paydirt in the second one or third. If you don't find what you are looking for one in store, do you stop looking! Heck no!