Research: Where do I begin?

Before you begin your research, you should ask yourself some questions. These will help narrow your search parameters.

What kind of information are you looking for?

Do you want facts? Opinions? News reports? Research studies? Analyses? Personal reflections? History?

Where would be a likely place to look?

Which sources are likely to be most useful to you? Libraries? The Internet? Databases? Newspapers? Government records?

If, for example, you are searching for information on some current event, a reliable newspaper like The Sydney Morning Herald will be a useful source. Are you searching for statistics on some aspect of the population? Then, start with documents such as census reports. Do you want some scholarly interpretations of literature? If so, academic periodicals in databases and books are likely to have what you’re looking for. Want to know about commercial products? Will those companies have Websites with information? Are you searching for local history? Then a museum, government office, or local newspaper archive is likely to be the most useful.

(https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/558/1/ )

Online vs. Print Publications

An important distinction when doing research is the difference between traditional publications and Internet resources. The Internet may be the most convenient place to begin your research, but it is not always the best.

Internet Sources: Anything published exclusively online in a variety of digital formats. Material includes: web pages, PDF documents, ebooks, multimedia.

Traditional Publications: This includes anything that has been published in print form and is widely available at libraries and bookstores. Material includes: books, textbooks, newspapers, popular and scholarly journals, and magazines.

Summary:

We live in an age overflowing with sources of information. With so many information sources at our fingertips, knowing where to start, sorting through it all and finding what we want can be overwhelming! This handout provides answers to the following research-related questions: Where do I begin? Where should I look for information? What types of sources are available?

Traditional print sources

Books and Textbooks: Books present a multitude of topics. Because of the time it takes to publish a book, books usually contain more dated information than will be found in journals and newspapers.

Newspapers: Newspapers contain very up-to-date information by covering the latest events and trends. Newspapers report both information that is factual in nature and also share opinions. Generally, however, they will not take a “big picture” approach or contain information about larger trends.

Digital sources

Websites: Most of the information on the Internet is distributed via websites. Websites vary widely in quality of information and validity of sources.

Blogs and personal websites: Blogs and personal sites vary widely in quality of information and validity of sources. For example, many prestigious journalists and public figures may have blogs, which may be more credible of a blog than most.

Social media, message boards, discussion lists, and chat rooms: These types of sources exist for all kinds of disciplines, both in and outside of the university. Some may be useful, depending on the topic you are studying, but just like personal websites, the information is not always credible.

Databases: The databases are a great place to find quality information, they are a little trickier to access, but totally worth the effort. Go to the Databases tab to learn how to access.

Primary Research

Research isn't limited to published material that can be found on the Internet or at the library. Many topics you choose to write on may not have an abundance of sources and hence may require a different kind of approach to conducting research. This approach involves collecting information directly from the world around you and can include interviews, observations, and surveys; this is called primary research.

If you are working on writing about a problem local to your school or community, you may need to conduct primary research. You may be able to find secondary sources (such as those found at the library or online) on the more general topic you are pursuing, but may not find specifics on your school or town. To supplement this lack of sources, you can collect data on your own.

Many different types of primary research exist. Some common types used in writing classes and beyond include:

• Interviews: A conversation between two or more people in which one person (the interviewer) asks a series of questions to another person or persons (the interviewee).
• Surveys and questionnaires: A process of gathering specific information from people in a systematic way with a set series of questions. Survey questions usually have pre-specified or short responses.
• Observations: Careful viewing and documenting of the world around you.

Searching Online: Overview

Searching online can be both beneficial and frustrating. You may find vast amounts of information, or you may not find the kinds of information you're looking for. Searching online will provide you with a wealth of information, but not all of it will be useful or of the highest quality.

Search engines such as Google and Yahoo have been providing "sponsored links"—links that appear on the first few pages of the search results and that are paid for by advertisers. This means that you may end up clicking on something that is not relevant to your search, but instead actually advertising. The image presented here gives you an example of this on Google.

What does this mean for a researcher? Understanding the nature of the Internet, how to navigate it, and how it is organised can help you assess the quality of information and Web sites, filtering out that which does not relate or is of questionable quality.

Searching with a Search Engine

A search engine is a device that sends out inquiries to sites on the Web and catalogs any Web site it encounters, without evaluating it. Methods of inquiry differ from search engine to search engine, so the results reported by each one will also differ. Search engines maintain an incredibly large number of sites in their archives, so you must limit your search terms in order to avoid becoming overwhelmed by an unmanageable number of responses.

Search engines are good for finding sources for well-defined topics. Typing in a general term such as "education" or "Shakespeare" will bring back far too many results, but by narrowing your topic, you can get the kind (and amount) of information that you need.

Example:

• Go to Google (a search engine)
• Type in a general term ("education")
• Add modifiers to further define and narrow your topic ("rural education Indiana")
• Be as specific as you can ("rural education Indiana elementary school")
• Submit your search.

Adjust your search based upon the number of responses you receive (if you get too few responses, submit a more general search; if you get too many, add more modifiers).

Learn how the search engine works

Read the instructions and FAQs located on the search engine to learn how that particular site works. Each search engine is slightly different, and a few minutes learning how to use the site properly will save you large amounts of time and prevent useless searching.

Each search engine has different advantages. Google is one of the largest search engines, followed closely by MSN and Yahoo. This means that these three search engines will search a larger portion of the Internet than other search engines. Lycos allows you to search by region, language, and date. Ask allows you to phrase your search terms in the form of a question. It is wise to search through multiple search engines to find the most available information.

Select your terms carefully

Using inexact terms or terms that are too general will cause you problems. If your terms are too broad or general, the search engine may not process them. Search engines are programmed with various lists of words the designers determined to be so general that a search would turn up hundreds of thousands of references. Check the search engine to see if it has a list of such stopwords. One stopword, for example, is "computers." Some search engines allow you to search stopwords with a specific code (for Google, entering a "+" before the word allows you to search for it).

If your early searches turn up too many references, try searching some relevant ones to find more specific or exact terms. You can start combining these specific terms with NOT (see the section on Boolean operators below) when you see which terms come up in references that are not relevant to your topic. In other words, keep refining your search as you learn more about the terms.

You can also try to make your terms more precise by checking the online catalog of a library. For example, check THOR+, the Purdue University Library online catalog, and try their subject word search. Or try searching the term in the online databases in the library.

Most search engines now have "Advanced Search" features. These features allow you to use Boolean operators (below) as well as specify other details like date, language, or file type.

Evaluating Media Bias

Bias in the media is considered to be a "particular tendency, trend, inclination, feeling, or opinion" about someone or something. Bias can attempt to sway the opinion of the audience to hold an opinion for personal or political reasons. A strong bias will tend to attempt to deceive the audience with one side of an argument; no bias, or a neutral bias will present both sides of an argument without attempting to sway the audience.

There are websites dedicated to evaluating the bias and reliability of news sources. An example is Media Bias/Fact Check (MBFC). This "independent online media outlet is "dedicated to educating the public on media bias and deceptive news practices" according to MBFC. Read more about MBFC at: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/

Still hungry for more research, writing and thinking skills? Try this University of Wollongong Research Skills Page.