Introduction to Research
by
Richard F. Taflinger, PhD
This page has been accessed times
since 5 June 1996.
This is Part One of a Four Part series on
doing research to support papers and speeches.
Information, ideas and opinions surround us,
most of which we never question. In fact, we have to ignore most of them or
suffer from brain burnout. However, when we do pay attention we usually accept
it as it comes in from whatever source. Fo
r example, do you ever wonder if you're getting the whole story from TV news
shows or newspapers? Do you wonder what's been left out, if anything? Or why? However, if we wish to understand something, not
just accept someone else's word for it but actually understand it, and in turn
pass on our understanding to someone else, we must question opinion and
assumption and theory and speculation. The purpose of the questions is to gather
evidence.
WHAT IS RESEARCH?
Research is finding out what you don't
already know. No one knows everything, but everybody knows something. However,
to complicate matters, often what you know, or think you know, is incorrect.
There are two basic purposes for research: to
learn something, or to gather evidence. The first, to learn something, is for
your own benefit. It is almost impossible for a human to stop learning. It may
be the theory of relativity or the RBIs of your favorite ball player, but you
continue to learn. Research is organized learning, looking for specific things
to add to your store of knowledge. You may read SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN for the
latest research in quantum mechanics, or the sports section for last night's
game results. Either is research.
What you've learned is the source of the
background information you use to communicate with others. In any conversation
you talk about the things you know, the things you've learned. If you know
nothing about the subject under discussion, you can neither contribute nor
understand it. (This fact does not, however, stop many people from joining in
on conversations, anyway.) When you write or speak formally, you share what
you've learned with others, backed with evidence to show that what you've learned
is correct. If, however, you haven't learned more than your audience already
knows, there is nothing for you to share. Thus you do research.
THREE TYPES OF RESEARCH
There are three types of research, pure,
original, and secondary. Each type has the goal of finding information and/or
understanding something. The difference comes in the strategy employed in
achieving the objective.
Pure Research
Pure research is research done simply to find
out something by examining anything. For instance, in some pure scientific
research scientists discover what properties various materials possess. It is
not for the sake of applying those properties to anything in particular, but
simply to find out what properties there are. Pure mathematics is for the sake
of seeing what happens, not to solve a problem.
The fun of pure research is that you are not
looking for anything in particular. Instead, anything and everything you find
may be joined with anything else just to see where that combination would lead,
if anywhere.
Let's take an example. I was reading a
variety of books and magazines once. There were a some science fiction novels,
Jean Auel's THE CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR, Carl Sagan's
BROCA'S BRAIN, several Isaac Asimov collections of science essays and two of his
history books, ADVERTISING AGE and AD WEEK magazines, some programs on PBS, a
couple of advertising textbooks I was examining for adoption in my class, and
several other things I can't even remember now. This was pure research; I was
reading and watching television for the sake of reading and watching about
things I didn't know.
Relating all of the disparate facts and
opinions in all of these sources led me to my opinions on stereotyping and
pigeonholing as vital components of human thought, now a major element in my
media criticism and advertising psychology classes. When I started I had no
idea this pure research would lead where it did. I was just having fun.
Original Research
Original, or primary research is looking for information that
nobody else has found. Observing people's response to advertising, how prison
sentences influence crime rates, doing tests, observations, experiments, etc.,
are to discover something new.
Orginal research requires two things: 1) knowing what has
already been discovered, having a background on the subject; and 2) formulating
a method to find out what you want to know. To accomplish the first you indulge
in secondary research (see below).
For the second, you decide how best to find
the information you need to arrive at a conclusion. This method may be using
focus groups, interviews, observations, expeditions, experiments, surveys, etc.
For example, you can decide to find out what
the governmental system of the Hittite Empire was like on the basis of their
communication system to determine how closely the empire could be governed by a
central bureaucracy. The method to do this original research would probably
require that you travel to the Middle East and examine such things as roads,
systems of writing, courier systems without horses, archeological evidence,
actual extent of Hittite influence (commercial, military, laws, language,
religion, etc.) and anything else you can think of and find any evidence for.
Secondary Research
Secondary research is finding out what others
have discovered through original research and trying to reconcile conflicting
viewpoints or conclusions, find new relationships between normally non-related
research, and arrive at your own conclusion bas ed on
others' work. This is, of course, the usual course for college students.
An example from recent years was the relating
of tectonic, geologic, biologic, paleontologic, and
astronomic research to each other. Relating facts from these researches led to
the conclusion that the mass extinctions of 65 million years ago, including the
dinosaurs, was the result of an asteroid or comet
striking the earth in the North Atlantic at the site of
Secondary research should not be belittled
simply because it is not original research. Fresh insights and viewpoints,
based on a wide variety of facts gleaned from original research in many areas,
has often been a source of new ideas. Even more, it has provided a clearer
understanding of what the evidence means without the influence of the original
researcher's prejudices and preconceptions.
DIRECTED AND NONDIRECTED RESEARCH
Research can be directed or non-directed.
Non-directed research is finding out things for the sheer fun of finding them
out.
Directed research, on the other hand, is done
with a specific purpose in mind. The purpose could be to make a point, write a
paper or speech, or simply know more about a specific thing. It is directed
since it deals with something specific, and someone decides what to try next.
It simply doesn't have a specific outcome in mind. For example, directed
research in microelectronics is not trying to achieve a specific goal. It does,
however, deal specifically with microelectronics, be it the conducting
properties of alloys and compounds, electron etching, or dual bonding. It does
not concern itself with anthropology. There is also a researcher or project
director who decides what is worth pursuing and what is not.
Directed research is what you want to do when
you are preparing a report. You have a specific goal in mind, to communicate
what you want your audience to know about your topic. Thus, you direct your
research toward finding what you can about your topic, not to find out what
there is to know about whatever you come across.
#
Research, pure, original or secondary,
carries with it an inherent danger to those who are close-minded or comfortable
in their preconceptions and prejudices. In case you're wondering, that includes
everybody. However, there are people who, having arrived at a conclusion by
whatever means, reject anything that contradicts, or at least doesn't support,
their preconceptions and prejudices. Research has at its essence the shakeup of
what you already know (if you already know it, it isn't research, it 's self-congratulation for perspicacity). Let's take a
look at how this works.
Research may show that what you already know
isn't correct. This is a hard thing for many people to accept. You will, on
occasion, come across a piece of evidence that contradicts your a priori assumptions (those that you
hold as self-evident, some thing is simply because it is), and that is at best
disconcerting and at worst traumatic. For example, you may hold an a priori assumption "all men are
created equal". You may then find an article that states "it is a
basic fact of life that all men are inherently unequal" (people raised in
the caste system in
. . .
If you've actually thought about it, you
should have come to the conclusion that both statements,
"all men are created equal," and "all men are unequal," are
correct. They are also both incorrect. They are also both meaningless noises as
evidence. They are, by nature, unprovable and thus
not evidence.
What is evidence in this case? Your first step
must lie in defining your terms.
What are "men"? Do you mean the
male sex of the human species? Do you mean human beings in general: male,
female, regardless of age, race, economic or social position, all
socio-economic systems and governments?
What do you mean by "all"? All
"men" (whatever that means) that are like
you? That are not like you? That are
like anything at all? The word "all" connotes "without
limit". You put no limits on what are "men"? Are women
"men"? Are children, whatever sex, "men"? Are you
discussing sociology, biology, politics, historicity, economics?
In what context? Are you discussing war, voting, pay
rates, restrooms?
What do you mean by "created"? Born
through biological processes? Through technological
procedures (test tube babies, cloning, genetic engineering)? By some supernatural intervention with universal entropy? By government decree?
What do you mean by "equal"? Under the law? Under the sun? Under the divinity of your choice? Equal
to what? You? Others?
If you find these questions
confusing, good. You're thinking
about them.
If you find these questions irritating and/or
ridiculous ("everyone know what "All men are created equal"
means!"), then you're being close-minded and will limit your research to
only what agrees with your own prejudices and will discount or totally ignore
anything that contradicts your own narrow ideas. (If you find the above
sentence insulting, you either have an over-developed sense of empathy or you
prove my point.)
Let us assume that you define "All men
are created equal" as "Every human being, without exception, is born
exactly the same as every other human being" ("all" as in
totality, "men" as human beings, "created" as born,
"equal" as in 2 + 2 = 4). Is that what you mean by "All men are
created equal"? All humans are born physically, biologically, socially,
economically, politically, geographically, intellectually, etc., the same? One
needs only enter a maternity ward to realize that such a case is ridiculous.
Let us change the definition slightly.
"Every human being, without exception, is spontaneously invented by God
exactly the same as every other human being". The question becomes,
"Which God?" Yahveh, the Christian God, Allah, Zeus, Wodin,
Osiris, etc.? This definition also leaves the above questions intact.
Perhaps the word that needs defining is
"equal". "Every human being, without exception, is born evenly
balanced with every other human being." Does this mean that for every poor
human there's a wealthy? For every fat human there's a thin? For every tall
human there's a short? Is any of those what you mean
by the phrase?
What has happened to the phrase "All men
are created equal" as evidence to prove a point you wish to make? The
answer to this question is, "It's disappeared." The sentiment is just
that, a sentiment. Semantically, it's meaningless. Emotionally, it's extremely
effective. As evidence, it doesn't exist.
#
The research you do is designed to give you
the ammunition you need to back up what you have to say even with those that
disagree with you and question what you say. That ammunition is evidence that
your opponent can, or has no choice except to agree with.
You will, of course, have those that disagree
with what you say; nobody agrees with anybody on everything. Thus, if you make
a point, you must back it up with evidence that even those that disagree must
accept. Such evidence must be what is termed objective; that is, evidence that
even those that disagree can discover for themselves. For example, Galileo said
that objects, regardless of their weight, fell at the same speed. Aristotle
said that heavy objects fell faster than light objects. Giovanni Benedetti did
experiments that demonstrated his ideas. Those that disagreed with him finally
stopped arguing "common sense" and ran the same experiments -- and
demonstrated Benedetti’s ideas. Such objective evidence could not be argued
away and thus the evidence was accepted.
EVIDENCE
One thing that many people leave out of their
discussions of just about anything is evidence. They often rely more on volume
or force of personality rather than proof to back up their ideas. They shout
down their less forceful opponents so opposing ideas or evidence are either not
heard or disregarded. Imagine one of these people in a court of law: they say
"that man is guilty". "Why?" "Because
I say (or think or affirm) so." How about someone who says
"The Holocaust never happened, because I don't believe it happened."
Or "Blacks (women, Chicanos, whites, Jews, Catholics, Greeks, et cetera ad
nauseam) are inferior because they are." Would you be willing to accept
their statements, simply on the basis that they said them? I doubt it.
Nonetheless, people accept such statements
all the time because getting evidence to support them is not typical. For example,
if your friend (father, mother, teacher, etc.) tells you something, do you ask
for evidence, or do you accept what they say? After all, why would or should
they lie to you? When you consider that most of the information you get comes
from friends (family, teachers, etc.), then the habit of demanding evidence or
proof for statements is not formed. Nonetheless, the habit of demanding
evidence is necessary to avoid making mistakes, being misled or duped, or
passing errors on to others.
Ideas, opinions, beliefs, and theories
abound. You merely need to stand around at a party to hear how everyone has an
opinion about anything under discussion: politics, religion, the new TV season,
Star Wars (movie or defense system), the skill (or lack of skill) of any team in
any sport. Sometimes these discussions can reach a volume level only found in
overpopulated animal shelters or auto wrecking yards.
However, how many of them are worthy of
respect? How many should you agree with? For example, someone may say,
"Women are inferior." Do you agree? Disagree? Why? Inferior
how? Inferior to what? Define inferior. Define
women. All women? Some women?
Your mother? Your sister? Who
says? What is their motive for saying that? What makes them think so? Why
should you agree with them? Did they answer any of these questions? Finally,
when you hear the sentence, "Women are inferior," do you ask yourself
these questions? Do you ask any of these questions? Why? More, if you didn't,
why not?
If you did ask the questions,
congratulations: you're using your head for something besides keeping your ears
apart. If you didn't, don't feel bad--you're like the majority who don't think
about what they don't think about (why not? They don't think about it).
Evidence is also the key to understanding
your subject. A way to understand something is to break it down into its
component parts, examine each one, and put it back together.
For example, your subject is state income
tax. First you break the subject down into the component parts: state budget,
current tax base, current tax methods -- sales, property, excise, cigarette and
alcohol, B&O, etc., and anything else you can think of.
Second, you find evidence, actual information
about each component part. It might be the percentages of the total tax income
provided by each method, how the tax base fluctuates according to economic
conditions, and/or what budget elements are provided by which tax method.
Third, you put the subject back together
again, only now with a full understanding of each component and how it relates
to each other component. Thus you have a more complete understanding of your
topic.
Finally, evidence is the key to having others
accept your ideas. To communicate your understanding of a topic you give your
audience the same evidence that you found to understand it yourself. Remember
that if you don't give your audience any reasons why what you have to say
should be believed, then there is no reason why they
should believe you.
Go to Part Four: The Process
of Research
You can reach me by e-mail
at: richt@turbonet.com
This page was created by
Richard F. Taflinger. Thus, all errors, bad links,
and even worse style are entirely his fault.
Copyright © 1996,
2011 Richard F. Taflinger.
This and all other pages created by and containing the original work of Richard
F. Taflinger are copyrighted, and are thus subject to
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