8.4 Conducting Research

Research can be conducted in two modes: prewriting research, and project research.

Prewriting research: This is the research you do before you have developed a working thesis and a plan. In this mode, you research as an exploration for gathering, connecting, and generating ideas. In other words, you can use research as a prewriting strategy in the same way you would use free writing, thought-webbing, etc. This mode of research often involves using broad search terms, skimming many sources, reading only key parts of the sources, and taking note of the source just enough to help you find and return to it later for more formal note-taking. (But if you find specific ideas and information that you will begin using in your prewriting, it is best to note the full bibliographic information right away.)

Project research: This is the research you do after you have developed a working thesis and a plan. This kind of research is more focused than prewriting research; it is an attempt to find answers to the specific research questions you have formulated and to find information about your working thesis, such as support for it, relevant facts about it, or even opposition to it. This mode of research involves using specific search terms and phrases, reading sources closely, and taking complete, formal notes intended for use in your essay (both in the text as a summary, paraphrasis, and quotation, as well as on the Works Cited page as entry information).

In both modes of research, you will be continually evaluating sources for legitimacy and reliability, as well as determining their relevance to your aims (including whether they would be primary, secondary, or tertiary sources for your project).

At some point in the process of your research, you will carefully read the best sources you have found and then put them to use in your essay.

That is the overview of conducting research, so in theory, you could begin researching now, but there are key steps mentioned above that require a little more understanding before your engagement in research can become effective and efficient:

• Search terms: You need to know what words and phrases to type into the various search features you will encounter, and you should know the methods for fine-tuning and customizing your search terms. That will be covered below first.
• Avenues and media: You need to know where to look for sources, and which are the best or most efficient for research writing in college. That will be covered below second, organized by the type of avenue or media.
• After you read the information below, you should try beginning your research. Then, once you do, you will need to understand and engage in the following:
• Evaluating legitimacy and reliability: For information on this, see the section Legitimate and Reliable Sources.
• Note-taking for research: For more information on this, see the section Note-Taking for Research.
• Using research: For more information on this, see the section Using Research.

Where should I look?

As you seek sources that can help you to answer your research question, think about the types of “voices” you need to hear from.

• Scientists/researchers who have conducted their own research studies on your topic
• Scholars/thinkers/writers who have also looked at your topic and offered their own analyses of it
• Journalists who are reporting on what they have observed
• Journalists/newspaper or magazine authors who are providing their educated opinions on your topic
• Critics, commentators or others who offer opinions on your topic
• Tertiary sources/fact books that offer statistics or data (usually without analysis)
• Personal stories of individuals who have lived through an event
• Bloggers/tweeters/other social media posters

Search Terms

To conduct research, you will need to use keywords and phrases–search terms–to find what you need. These will often be the words that express your subject or key concepts within your subject.

Typically, it is best to use terms in their noun forms, so rather than searching using the verb “adopt,” you should use the noun “adoption.”

It is also best to keep your search terms short, limited to one, two, or three words if possible. So rather than searching using the terms “the laws about the adoption of various breeds of dogs,” you should use the term “dog adoption laws.”

You should be as precise as you can with the words you choose. This often means selecting the specialized terms (even jargon) used by professionals and experts in your subject. This might be difficult when in the mode of prewriting research, especially if you are not already familiar with your subject. In that case, finding out what the specialized terms are is part of your goal in such prewriting research. Once you do have a notion of the specialized terms within your subject, you should use them as your search terms. For example, within the subject of education, especially the study of and education training, you won’t get the best search results by using the terms “methods and concepts for learning and teaching.” That is because the field of education has a specialized term for that: “pedagogy.” If you use the search term “pedagogy,” you will get much better results about methods and concepts for learning and teaching.

• Use quotation marks. Are you searching for a phrase? Put it in quotation marks: “textbook affordability” will get you results for that exact phrase.
• Use AND/+. Are you searching for two terms that you think are topically related? Use AND (or +) to connect them: education AND racism, or, education + racism, will only bring up results that include both terms
• Use NOT/- to limit what you don’t want. Are you searching for a term that’s commonly associated with a topic you don’t want to learn about? Use NOT (or -) in front of the keyword you don’t want results from articles NOT magazines, or, articles – magazines, will bring up results that are about articles, but exclude any results that also include the term magazines.
• Use an asterisk to get a variety of word endings. Do you want to get back as many results on a topic as possible? Use * at the end of a word for any letters that might vary: smok*, will bring up results that include the term smoke, smoking, and smokers.
• Remember to search terms, not entire phrases or sentences. And swap out synonyms for your core keywords. This video helps to explain how you can play around with key terms:

Research Strategy: Coming Up with Keywords for Your Topic

1. What are at least two phrases related to your research topic that you can search “in quotation marks”?
2. What are your NOT words — the words that you want to exclude from your search?
3. For which words would the asterisk be helpful?
4. What are three core keywords (using the guidelines in the video above) that you can use in a search for your topic? What are synonyms for each of those three words?

Databases

Although regular search engines, such as Google, might be more familiar to you, databases provide far better results for college essays in general. A database is a collection of publications and sources designed specifically for research, and they have three advantages over regular search engines:

1. Databases provide results that regular search engines can’t, such as full articles that will not appear when doing a regular Google search. This is normally because of copyright permissions that databases have. This is also why access to databases have access fees, which many colleges cover automatically for currently enrolled students.
2. Databases provide customizable search features, such as drop-down menus for Boolean operators. This makes customizing your search easier, and databases provide these features because, again, they are specifically designed for doing academic research.
3. Databases provide more legitimate and reliable sources, and some databases even have search features that eliminate all but peer-reviewed sources. This take a lot of the work out of evaluating sources for legitimacy and reliability; your research process can move more quickly when you can be less skeptical about each source you find.

How Can You Use an Academic Research Database Effectively?

• Avoid typing your whole research question into the search field. Use only keywords, in various combinations
• Use several keywords at once, and be willing to change each word for a synonym if you hit a dead end with one set of words
• Use “AND” or “OR” to retrieve more results or to limit your results
• Use the database’s own Subject Terms to help you to refine your searches within that database

If you are a currently enrolled student, it is likely that your college automatically covers the access cost for you on some common databases. To find out which databases your college provides access to, consult your professor or your college library (which often provides access through library web page features such as “electronic subscriptions”). Also, note that some databases provide a limited number of free articles per year to currently enrolled students, so even if your college doesn’t provide access to the database you want, you might still be able to get cost-free access. You should never have to pay for an article. 

Search Engines

When doing regular Internet research, you will typically use search engines, such as Google, Bing, or others. Then you will sift through the results and explore the web pages or electronic resources among those results that seem to best fit your aims.

The primary advantages of doing this regular kind of search engine research are that it is familiar to most students, who already do this kind of research casually dozens of times a day, and that it will typically provide many, many results. The great disadvantages are that the results are not as relevant nor as reliable as what databases provide, for most search engines are not designed for the kind of research you will do for college.

There are two ways to mitigate these disadvantages:

• Use versions of popular search engines designed for research. One popular option is Google Scholar, which is free and available like regular Google is, and which provides database-like results.
• Use Boolean operators as noted above to get only the kinds of results that are most relevant and reliable. Remember that you can use these operators to limit the results to only Websites that are connected with schools and colleges, such as “.edu” sites, or results that include the mention of being “peer-reviewed,” etc.

Many students report using and liking Google Scholar. If Google Scholar works for you – and it certainly can work well – then by all means continue to use it along with Academic Databases. What may happen, however, is that while you can find article titles via Google Scholar searches, you may not get access to the full article because you do not have a paid subscription to the journal in which the article is published.