How to Research Effectively

Organizing Your Project

Narrow your topic. You may have a general idea of what you want to research or write about, but chances are you aren't writing a multi-volume treatise on the subject. The more narrow your topic is, the more likely you will be to contribute something of value to the field. If you're working on a research paper for school, you can use the page requirements (or limits) as a guide to narrow your topic. Use the same approach if you're writing an article for a website or print publication, and have been given a word limit. For example, "butterflies" probably is too broad for a 20-page research paper. If you know you want to write about butterflies, narrow your topic to a particular species of butterflies, or butterflies found in a particular geographic area. You may have to do some basic preliminary research to appropriately narrow your topic. This gives you a sense of how much information is available. If it's more than you could possibly dig through, consider narrowing your topic again.

Set preliminary research goals. For a science-based research project, it can help to think of your goals as the hypotheses that guide a scientific experiment. For other types of research, think in terms of questions you hope to answer through your research. Typically, you'll want to create a basic thesis statement for your final report. This is what you ultimately want your research to prove. Creating a thesis statement before you've even begun your research might seem backwards, but to research effectively, you need to know what you're looking for. For example, maybe you have narrowed your butterfly topic to focus on why butterflies are attracted to a particular park in your hometown. Your thesis statement at this stage might be "Butterflies are attracted to Panorama Park because of the flowers planted there." Keep in mind that you can adjust your thesis statement later if your research shows that it's inaccurate or inappropriate. To return to the butterfly example, your thesis statement means you are focusing your research on the park you named and the flowers that are planted in that park. If you find out through your research that the butterflies are not particularly fond of those flowers, you may have to adjust your thesis.

Assess the overall scope of your project. To accurately plan the scope of your project, think about who you are and why you're doing this research. If you're doing research for a school project, your scope will be more limited than if you are attempting to unearth a new discovery or theory in a particular field. Essentially, the scope of your project is how far you're going to go. For example, if you're writing a research paper on the role of the Germans in the American Revolutionary War, the role of the French in the same war would be outside the scope of your project. The scope of your project may be dictated to you, for example through an assignment sheet from your teacher or professor. Keep your scope in mind as you're planning your research strategy. You don't want to get bogged down in your research or spend too much time chasing after information that turns out to be irrelevant. If you find something that doesn't fall within the scope of your project, you can quickly discard it and move on to something else.

Identify possible sources. Target your research by figuring out what types of sources will be helpful to you and potentially have information you need for your project. Understanding the types of sources you'll need helps you make the most efficient use of your research time. For example, if you're doing research on the butterflies in a local park, surveys of local residents on how they feel about the butterflies probably isn't going to be helpful for you. However, research conducted by students at a nearby university might be beneficial. Focus on the type of source you need. If you're working on a political science or sociology research paper, polls and statistics may be relevant. However, if you're writing a paper in the hard sciences, you want to focus on scientific experiments and journal articles. If your teacher or professor has given you a reading list or identified good sources, start there. Consider it a jumping-off point rather than something to hit as a last resort.

Brainstorm key words. Particularly if you're going to be doing a lot of your research on the internet, the key words you choose will determine how successful your research is. Based on your general knowledge and early reading on your topic, think of words that will get you the information you need. You may want to do basic internet searches just so you can get an idea of how effective your key words will be. For example, if you're writing a research paper on butterflies in a local park, the key word "butterfly" will bring up entirely too much information to be useful for you. Try to make your key words as specific as possible. Once you have your basic key words, look for synonyms of those words, or other related words or phrases. Write all the words you brainstorm on a sheet of paper so you don't forget them or lose track of them. Leave plenty of space around each word so you can take notes or make comments on the effectiveness of each word search as you research.

Gather your materials. Before you set out to research, you need a few basic items so you can take notes and organize your thoughts. Effective research requires not just finding the information you need, but being able to put all the pieces together to complete a cohesive report. One of the easiest methods to organize your research notes is to buy a stack of index cards. At the top of each card, you'll write the name of the source you're taking notes about. If you're required to use a particular citation format, you might want to create a formatted citation for the source at the top of the card. It will save you time later on when you're working on your final paper. Beyond index cards, you'll also want to gather highlighters, tabs or flags, and adhesive notes. These will help you keep track of information you find in print sources and organize your thoughts as you research.

Finding Good Sources

Search for primary sources. The most effective research focuses on primary sources, which are documents or objects directly related to or involved in the subject of your research. Primary sources are considered the most reliable. Whether a source is considered primary depends on its relation to the topic. Some sources can be primary for one topic but not for another. For example, if you're doing research on D-Day, newspaper articles from June 6, 1944 or a few days afterward would be considered primary sources. However, newspaper articles from 2014 would not. Primary sources are the heart of research, and what differentiates an actual research project from a book report. If you're reading what someone else wrote about your topic and then summarizing what you read, that's a book report – not research. Focusing on primary sources means you may have to get off the internet and go to a library. Some primary sources, such as historic documents and newspapers, have been digitized and are available online. However, many have not. Additionally, databases and digital archives of primary sources often are only accessible by subscription. Public and university libraries often maintain subscriptions to these digital resources, but you'll have to use a library computer to get to them.

Take useful notes. As you're reading the sources you've found, note-taking is important. You don't want to have to read the same thing over and over again. Framing the ideas or facts presented in your source also is a way to learn the information. If you're using the index-card method, jot down a few words to indicate the idea or fact you found in that source. Include a page number if available so you can cite to it directly or quickly find it again. If you see something in a source you want to quote, put it on your notecard. However, do something to make it stand out from the rest of your notes so you don't inadvertently include it in your report as your own words. For example, you may want to highlight a quote so it stands out at a glance as a quote, and not your own notes. You also could write it in a different color. Likewise, as you read a source you may have thoughts of your own, or additional questions you want to explore. Highlight those or write them in a different color so you can instantly recognize them as your own thoughts, not something that should be attributed to your source.

Fill in your research with secondary sources. Secondary sources are, as the label indicates, second to primary sources. Typically these are academics, journalists, or other researchers commenting on or interpreting information related to your topic. The authors of secondary sources are not involved directly in the subject they're discussing – otherwise they would be primary sources. Rather, they are using their own knowledge and expertise to interpret, comment, analyze, investigate, or contextualize something. Secondary sources can be extremely valuable to you in making sense of the primary sources you've found, but it's important to avoid over-using them. With secondary sources, the most important thing to keep in mind when taking notes are ideas. If an author you read has an idea or theory about the topic you're researching that resonates with you, take out a note card and write that idea down. Then if you bring it up in your report you can credit them with having the idea. Taking a theory or idea you read somewhere else and acting like you came up with it is plagiarism. The most effective research builds on ideas and theories introduced by others, rather than stealing them.

Check dates and footnotes on secondary sources. A strong secondary source typically will have extensive footnotes and a bibliography that includes citations to works you've already encountered in your research. This lets you know that you're on the right track. When something was published can be a strong indicator of whether you should rely on it. Ideally, you should check the date of publication before you even read the material. Whether dates matter depends on the subject you're researching. If you're researching a historical event, you'll likely be making use of material dated any time from the date of the event to the present. However, in other areas of research older sources are likely to be outdated and unusable. For example, if you were researching how schoolchildren use the internet, you wouldn't want to use an article written in the early 2000s as a source. Use of the internet has changed significantly since then.

Analyze a source's authority for bias. With primary sources, the authority is obvious. However, with secondary sources, you need to examine the identity and expertise of the author, as well as the biases they might have. If an author is biased, it can undermine their authority, even if they have tremendous expertise on the subject you're researching. For example, suppose you're researching the butterflies in a local park. You find a lengthy, detailed, and informative article in a reputable science journal that discusses the very butterflies you're researching. However, the article is written by a scientist who is infamous for their denial of climate change. This position means they aren't well-respected by most of the scientific community. If their bias has little to nothing to do with the subject at hand, or if they wrote the butterfly article before they spoke out against climate change, you might still be able to use that source. If you do plan to use a source with a potentially biased or compromised author, use caution. If you're working on a project for school, ask your teacher or professor about it.

Use caution with tertiary sources. Tertiary sources go one level beyond secondary sources. Frequently they are a summary of secondary sources, such as an encyclopedia article or a review in a scientific or academic journal. These sources can be helpful for you in finding new articles and sources to use, but you typically don't want to cite them directly in your research. Newspaper and magazine articles also can be tertiary sources. Pay attention to what you're reading. If the writer is talking about, for example, a series of studies conducted at different universities that came to opposing conclusions, seek out the studies themselves rather than citing to that article. At the same time, tertiary sources can be a quick way to find new sources, and to understand more about a potentially dense article or book before you dive into it yourself.

Citing Your Research

Avoid plagiarism. Plagiarism means taking someone else's words and presenting them as though they are your own. Not only is this wrong from a moral or ethical standpoint, but if you are in school it could result in you getting a failing grade on your project or worse. To understand plagiarism, put yourself in the author's shoes. They put a lot of work into their own project to come up with those words. Properly citing them acknowledges that work and shows that you appreciate it. Moreover, you are showing your teachers, editors, or colleagues that you are an upstanding and respectful member of the academic or journalistic community – and that you're making a productive contribution to the field of research. Be aware that many high schools, universities, and other publications use plagiarism checkers that will find words you have copied. Even if you think you won't get caught because you're using a relatively obscure source, the proliferation of plagiarism checkers makes it more likely that you will.

Give credit for sources. Whether you're using footnotes or a "works cited" section at the end of your paper, actively citing the sources you used strengthens your own original work by building the research foundation on which it relies. Always provide a citation for facts – things that can be proven true or false. This is so your reader can confirm the fact that you've presented in your report. The best source for a fact is always a primary source. You also should cite opinions, analysis, speculation, or interpretation that is not your own. For example, suppose you have a source for your butterfly research that believes the butterflies are attracted to the park because people walk their dogs there and butterflies love dogs. If you want to use this opinion in your report, credit it to the specific person that said it. Using phrases like "studies show" or "some scientists believe" won't tell your reader anything. Instead, you might write "Meredith Monarch, butterfly expert at the University of Lepidoptera, speculated that butterflies frequent the park because they enjoy frolicking with the dogs there."

Use the proper citation method. If you're writing a research report for school, your teacher or professor may require you to use a particular citation method. Otherwise, you typically want to use the method that is prevalent in the field. Citation styles or formats may seem arbitrary to you, but for those in the field, the punctuation and formatting serve as short-hand. Someone familiar with a particular style can look at a citation and instantly know what each thing means. Different fields use different citation methods, which can be confusing if you've done research in several areas of study. For example, if you're writing a science paper, you typically will use APA (American Psychological Association) style. However, for a research paper in history or political science, you'll more likely use the Turabian style.

Quote and paraphrase responsibly. If your research report is 90 percent quotes, you haven't personally contributed anything. You're simply summarizing what you've read. To adequately report on your research, you need to bring your sources together in a cohesive and original way. Generally, you only want to have a direct quote from a source when the words themselves are of particular importance, or if the language is so original and succinct it would be nearly impossible to phrase it better. For example, if you're writing a research paper on the Gettysburg Address, you likely will include direct quotes from the speech itself, since those words would hold particular importance. A source's original words can provide color or enhance the meaning of your own thoughts, or can be quoted as an example of a particular line of thought. When you paraphrase, you're putting the information from a source into your own words, rather than quoting the source directly. Keep in mind that paraphrasing doesn't mean simply changing a few words to synonymous words, or altering the word order. For example, "Quick brown foxes jump over lazy dogs" would not be an acceptable paraphrase of "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog."