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How to Get Started With a Research Project

Last Updated: October 3, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Chris Hadley, PhD . Chris Hadley, PhD is part of the wikiHow team and works on content strategy and data and analytics. Chris Hadley earned his PhD in Cognitive Psychology from UCLA in 2006. Chris' academic research has been published in numerous scientific journals. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 310,611 times.

You'll be required to undertake and complete research projects throughout your academic career and even, in many cases, as a member of the workforce. Don't worry if you feel stuck or intimidated by the idea of a research project, with care and dedication, you can get the project done well before the deadline!

Development and Foundation

Step 1 Brainstorm an idea or identify a problem or question.

  • Don't hesitate while writing down ideas. You'll end up with some mental noise on the paper – silly or nonsensical phrases that your brain just pushes out. That's fine. Think of it as sweeping the cobwebs out of your attic. After a minute or two, better ideas will begin to form (and you might have a nice little laugh at your own expense in the meantime).

Step 2 Use the tools you've already been given.

  • Some instructors will even provide samples of previously successful topics if you ask for them. Just be careful that you don't end up stuck with an idea you want to do, but are afraid to do because you know someone else did it before.

Step 4 Think from all angles.

  • For example, if your research topic is “urban poverty,” you could look at that topic across ethnic or sexual lines, but you could also look into corporate wages, minimum wage laws, the cost of medical benefits, the loss of unskilled jobs in the urban core, and on and on. You could also try comparing and contrasting urban poverty with suburban or rural poverty, and examine things that might be different about both areas, such as diet and exercise levels, or air pollution.

Step 5 Synthesize specific topics.

  • Think in terms of questions you want answered. A good research project should collect information for the purpose of answering (or at least attempting to answer) a question. As you review and interconnect topics, you'll think of questions that don't seem to have clear answers yet. These questions are your research topics.

Step 7 Brush across information you have access to.

  • Don't limit yourself to libraries and online databases. Think in terms of outside resources as well: primary sources, government agencies, even educational TV programs. If you want to know about differences in animal population between public land and an Indian reservation, call the reservation and see if you can speak to their department of fish and wildlife.
  • If you're planning to go ahead with original research, that's great – but those techniques aren't covered in this article. Instead, speak with qualified advisors and work with them to set up a thorough, controlled, repeatable process for gathering information.

Step 8 Clearly define your project.

  • If your plan comes down to “researching the topic,” and there aren't any more specific things you can say about it, write down the types of sources you plan to use instead: books (library or private?), magazines (which ones?), interviews, and so on. Your preliminary research should have given you a solid idea of where to begin.

Expanding Your Idea with Research

Step 1 Start with the basics.

  • It's generally considered more convincing to source one item from three different authors who all agree on it than it is to rely too heavily on one book. Go for quantity at least as much as quality. Be sure to check citations, endnotes, and bibliographies to get more potential sources (and see whether or not all your authors are just quoting the same, older author).
  • Writing down your sources and any other relevant details (such as context) around your pieces of information right now will save you lots of trouble in the future.

Step 2 Move outward.

  • Use many different queries to get the database results you want. If one phrasing or a particular set of words doesn't yield useful results, try rephrasing it or using synonymous terms. Online academic databases tend to be dumber than the sum of their parts, so you'll have to use tangentially related terms and inventive language to get all the results you want.

Step 3 Gather unusual sources.

  • If it's sensible, consider heading out into the field and speaking to ordinary people for their opinions. This isn't always appropriate (or welcomed) in a research project, but in some cases, it can provide you with some excellent perspective for your research.
  • Review cultural artifacts as well. In many areas of study, there's useful information on attitudes, hopes, and/or concerns of people in a particular time and place contained within the art, music, and writing they produced. One has only to look at the woodblock prints of the later German Expressionists, for example, to understand that they lived in a world they felt was often dark, grotesque, and hopeless. Song lyrics and poetry can likewise express strong popular attitudes.

Step 4 Review and trim.

Expert Q&A

Chris Hadley, PhD

  • Start early. The foundation of a great research project is the research, which takes time and patience to gather even if you aren't performing any original research of your own. Set aside time for it whenever you can, at least until your initial gathering phase is complete. Past that point, the project should practically come together on its own. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0
  • When in doubt, write more, rather than less. It's easier to pare down and reorganize an overabundance of information than it is to puff up a flimsy core of facts and anecdotes. Thanks Helpful 1 Not Helpful 0

how to start a research assignment

  • Respect the wishes of others. Unless you're a research journalist, it's vital that you yield to the wishes and requests of others before engaging in original research, even if it's technically ethical. Many older American Indians, for instance, harbor a great deal of cultural resentment towards social scientists who visit reservations for research, even those invited by tribal governments for important reasons such as language revitalization. Always tread softly whenever you're out of your element, and only work with those who want to work with you. Thanks Helpful 8 Not Helpful 2
  • Be mindful of ethical concerns. Especially if you plan to use original research, there are very stringent ethical guidelines that must be followed for any credible academic body to accept it. Speak to an advisor (such as a professor) about what you plan to do and what steps you should take to verify that it will be ethical. Thanks Helpful 6 Not Helpful 2

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  • ↑ http://www.butte.edu/departments/cas/tipsheets/research/research_paper.html
  • ↑ https://www.nhcc.edu/academics/library/doing-library-research/basic-steps-research-process
  • ↑ https://library.sacredheart.edu/c.php?g=29803&p=185905
  • ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/common_writing_assignments/research_papers/choosing_a_topic.html
  • ↑ https://www.unr.edu/writing-speaking-center/student-resources/writing-speaking-resources/using-an-interview-in-a-research-paper
  • ↑ https://www.science.org/content/article/how-review-paper

About This Article

Chris Hadley, PhD

The easiest way to get started with a research project is to use your notes and other materials to come up with topics that interest you. Research your favorite topic to see if it can be developed, and then refine it into a research question. Begin thoroughly researching, and collect notes and sources. To learn more about finding reliable and helpful sources while you're researching, continue reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Basic Steps in the Research Process

The following steps outline a simple and effective strategy for writing a research paper. Depending on your familiarity with the topic and the challenges you encounter along the way, you may need to rearrange these steps.

Step 1: Identify and develop your topic

Selecting a topic can be the most challenging part of a research assignment. Since this is the very first step in writing a paper, it is vital that it be done correctly. Here are some tips for selecting a topic:

  • Select a topic within the parameters set by the assignment. Many times your instructor will give you clear guidelines as to what you can and cannot write about. Failure to work within these guidelines may result in your proposed paper being deemed unacceptable by your instructor.
  • Select a topic of personal interest to you and learn more about it. The research for and writing of a paper will be more enjoyable if you are writing about something that you find interesting.
  • Select a topic for which you can find a manageable amount of information. Do a preliminary search of information sources to determine whether existing sources will meet your needs. If you find too much information, you may need to narrow your topic; if you find too little, you may need to broaden your topic.
  • Be original. Your instructor reads hundreds of research papers every year, and many of them are on the same topics (topics in the news at the time, controversial issues, subjects for which there is ample and easily accessed information). Stand out from your classmates by selecting an interesting and off-the-beaten-path topic.
  • Still can't come up with a topic to write about? See your instructor for advice.

Once you have identified your topic, it may help to state it as a question. For example, if you are interested in finding out about the epidemic of obesity in the American population, you might pose the question "What are the causes of obesity in America ?" By posing your subject as a question you can more easily identify the main concepts or keywords to be used in your research.

Step 2 : Do a preliminary search for information

Before beginning your research in earnest, do a preliminary search to determine whether there is enough information out there for your needs and to set the context of your research. Look up your keywords in the appropriate titles in the library's Reference collection (such as encyclopedias and dictionaries) and in other sources such as our catalog of books, periodical databases, and Internet search engines. Additional background information may be found in your lecture notes, textbooks, and reserve readings. You may find it necessary to adjust the focus of your topic in light of the resources available to you.

Step 3: Locate materials

With the direction of your research now clear to you, you can begin locating material on your topic. There are a number of places you can look for information:

If you are looking for books, do a subject search in One Search . A Keyword search can be performed if the subject search doesn't yield enough information. Print or write down the citation information (author, title,etc.) and the location (call number and collection) of the item(s). Note the circulation status. When you locate the book on the shelf, look at the books located nearby; similar items are always shelved in the same area. The Aleph catalog also indexes the library's audio-visual holdings.

Use the library's  electronic periodical databases  to find magazine and newspaper articles. Choose the databases and formats best suited to your particular topic; ask at the librarian at the Reference Desk if you need help figuring out which database best meets your needs. Many of the articles in the databases are available in full-text format.

Use search engines ( Google ,  Yahoo , etc.) and subject directories to locate materials on the Internet. Check the  Internet Resources  section of the NHCC Library web site for helpful subject links.

Step 4: Evaluate your sources

See the  CARS Checklist for Information Quality   for tips on evaluating the authority and quality of the information you have located. Your instructor expects that you will provide credible, truthful, and reliable information and you have every right to expect that the sources you use are providing the same. This step is especially important when using Internet resources, many of which are regarded as less than reliable.

Step 5: Make notes

Consult the resources you have chosen and note the information that will be useful in your paper. Be sure to document all the sources you consult, even if you there is a chance you may not use that particular source. The author, title, publisher, URL, and other information will be needed later when creating a bibliography.

Step 6: Write your paper

Begin by organizing the information you have collected. The next step is the rough draft, wherein you get your ideas on paper in an unfinished fashion. This step will help you organize your ideas and determine the form your final paper will take. After this, you will revise the draft as many times as you think necessary to create a final product to turn in to your instructor.

Step 7: Cite your sources properly

Give credit where credit is due; cite your sources.

Citing or documenting the sources used in your research serves two purposes: it gives proper credit to the authors of the materials used, and it allows those who are reading your work to duplicate your research and locate the sources that you have listed as references. The  MLA  and the  APA  Styles are two popular citation formats.

Failure to cite your sources properly is plagiarism. Plagiarism is avoidable!

Step 8: Proofread

The final step in the process is to proofread the paper you have created. Read through the text and check for any errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Make sure the sources you used are cited properly. Make sure the message that you want to get across to the reader has been thoroughly stated.

Additional research tips:

  • Work from the general to the specific -- find background information first, then use more specific sources.
  • Don't forget print sources -- many times print materials are more easily accessed and every bit as helpful as online resources.
  • The library has books on the topic of writing research papers at call number area LB 2369.
  • If you have questions about the assignment, ask your instructor.
  • If you have any questions about finding information in the library, ask the librarian.

Contact Information

Craig larson.

Librarian 763-424-0733 [email protected] Zoom:  myzoom   Available by appointment

Get Started

Libraries | Research Guides

Start your research, purpose of this guide, develop a research question, decide on sources, locate your resources.

  • Tips for Reading and Notetaking
  • Course Reserves This link opens in a new window
  • Cite Your Sources
  • Individual and Group Study Spaces
  • Make an Appointment to Meet with a Librarian This link opens in a new window

This tutorial on research methods will help you gain practical skills and knowledge you can apply for all research needs.

Scroll down to learn about:.

  • Developing a Research Question : How do you get background knowledge? Develop a thesis? Start searching?
  • Deciding on Sources : What's the difference between academic and popular sources, or primary and secondary sources?
  • Locating Sources : How do you locate articles, books and literature reviews both from NUL and other academic institutions?
  • Tips for Reading and Note-taking : What are different strategies for reading scholarly articles and books?

Have a question or need help? Contact any NUL Subject Specialist Librarian for personal assistance.

  • Build Background on your Topic
  • Build a Question
  • Videos: Choose and Search Keywords

Somewhere in between your initial idea and settling on a research question, you'll need to do background research on how scholars in a particular subject area have discussed your topic. You may find background research in your textbook or class readings, academic books in the library's collection, or reference sources.

The databases below compile reference sources from a variety of disciplines, and they can be a great way to consider how your topic has been studied from different angles.

  • Oxford Bibliographies This link opens in a new window Offers annotated bibliographies of the most important books and articles on specific topics in a growing range of subject areas. Particularly useful for anyone beginning research.
  • Oxford Reference Online This link opens in a new window Online version of many Oxford University Press reference works, ranging from specialized dictionaries and companions to major reference works such as the Encyclopedia of Human Rights, the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink, the Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States, and the Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History, among many others.
  • CQ Researcher Plus Archive This link opens in a new window The CQ Researcher is a collection of reports covering political and social issues, with regular reports on topics in health, international affairs, education, the environment, technology and the U.S. economy.

Use  NU Search  to browse for books, reference entries, and periodicals to build background information.

After you have an initial project idea, you can think deeper about the idea by developing a "Topic + Question + Significance" sentence. This formula came from Kate Turabian's  Student's Guide to Writing College Papers . Turabian notes that you can use it plan and test your question, but do not incorporate this sentence directly into your paper (p. 13):

TOPIC: I am working on the topic of __________, QUESTION: because I want to find out __________, SIGNIFICANCE: so that I can help others understand __________.

Remember : the shorter your final paper, the narrower your topic needs to be. Having trouble?

  • Which specific subset of the topic you can focus on? Specific people, places, or times?
  • Is there a cause and effect relationship you can explore?
  • Is there something about this topic that is not addressed in scholarship?

Turabian, Kate L.  Student's Guide to Writing College Papers . 4th edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2010.

How do you move from a research question to searching in a database? You first have to pick out keywords from your research question.

  • Evaluating Sources
  • Academic vs. Popular Publications
  • Primary vs. Secondary Sources
  • Video: Types of Scholarly Articles

When evaluating a source of information, consider both the content of the source itself and  the context in which the source was created.  

CONTENT 

  •  What does it say? What is its main point or argument? Relevance to your topic? What new information, facts, or opinions does it include? 
  •  Where did you find it? Where was it published? 
  •  When was it written? Within the past few days, weeks, or years? Is it historical? Has its information changed over time? 
  •  Who created this information? What are their credentials? 
  •  Why does this source exist? Is its purpose to inform, persuade, or entertain? 
  •  How does it incorporate data or evidence? What kinds of evidence?

CONTEXT  

  •  What is the audience for this source? General readers, people who work in a specific field, academics? Does it assume previous knowledge? 
  •  Where can you find other information about this topic? 
  •  When was this information last updated? Has it been revised, redacted, or challenged? 
  •  Who is missing from the conversation? Does it include opposing viewpoints, marginalized voices, or global perspectives? 
  •  Why do you need this information? Is it for an academic assignment, work project, personal decision-making, or to share with others?* 
  •  How did the information find you?  Was it through a relevance-ranked search, social media algorithm, advertising cookie, or press release? 

 *Sources that may be appropriate for sharing with others, deepening personal understanding, or decision-making may not be appropriate for an academic assignment or work presentation. When in doubt, check with your librarian or professor for more guidance! 

Adapted from  Beyond the Source  created by the DePaul University Libraries .

Not all "articles" are the same! They have different purposes and different "architecture".

  • Original article – information based on original research
  • Case reports – usually of a single case
  • Technical notes -  describe a specific technique or procedure
  • Pictorial essay – teaching article with images
  • Review – detailed analysis of recent research on a specific topic
  • Commentary – short article with author’s personal opinions
  • Editorial – often short review or critique of original articles
  • Letter to the Editor – short & on subject of interest to readers

Peh, WCG and NG, KH. (2008) "Basic Structure and Types of Scientific Papers." Singapore Medical Journal , 48 (7) : 522-525.  http://smj.sma.org.sg/4907/4907emw1.pdf  accessed 4/24/19.

  • What are the differences between types of articles? "Scholarly articles," "trade journals," "popular magazines," and "newspapers" are all referred to as "articles" - pretty confusing, right?! Check out this table which distinguishes between the different kinds of "articles" that could be useful sources.

Primary sources  provide the raw data you use to support your arguments. Some common types of primary resources include manuscripts, diaries, court cases, maps, data sets, experiment results, news stories, polls, or original research.  One other way to think about primary sources is  the author was there .

Secondary sources  analyze primary sources, using primary source materials to answer research questions.  Secondary sources may analyze, criticize, interpret or summarize data from primary sources. The most common secondary resources are books, journal articles, or reviews of the literature. 

Depending on the subject in which you are doing your research, what counts as a primary or secondary source can vary!  Here are some examples of types of sources that relate to dragons in different disciplines:

There are many types of primary resources, so it is important to define your parameters by:

  • Discipline (e.g. art, history, physics, political science)
  • Format (e.g. book, manuscript, map, photograph)
  • Type of information you need (e.g. numerical data, images, polls, government reports, letters)

Look at the  Primary and Secondary Sources  guide for more clarification on what primary and secondary sources are in different disciplines! 

  • Find Articles
  • Videos: Books at NU and Other Libraries
  • Find Literature Reviews

Northwestern has access to millions of articles not available through Google!

From the library website , enter your keywords into the NUSearch search box. All results with those keywords in the title or description will appear in the search results. Limit your results to "Peer-reviewed Journals" for scholarly articles.

For a more specific search,  go to one of the Libraries' many scholarly databases. If you know the name of your database, find it with  Databases A-Z . Find subject-specific lists of databases in our  Research Guides.

Searching a scholarly database is different from using a Google search. When searching: 

  • Use an advanced search, which  allows you to search for multiple keywords. "AND" allows you to enter more than one term in multiple search boxes to focus your search (e.g. apples AND oranges) for articles about both. "OR" broadens your results (e.g. apples OR oranges) for articles about either. 
  • The results may link to a full-text version of the article, but if one is not available, the library can likely get it for you! Clicking the "Find it @ NU" button  on the database's left-hand navigation will display other Northwestern databases that may have access to it. If we don't have access to the article, request it through Interlibrary Loan. 

Locating Books

To locate a book, use the NUsearch.  The catalog will tell you the location and call number for retrieval. You can also request for books to be pulled and picked up at the Circulation desk of your choosing.

Borrowing Materials from other Institutions

Need to borrow a book Northwestern does not own or have an article PDF scanned and sent to you? Log into (or create) your interlibrary loan account.  You may also check the status of your interlibrary loan requests here. Contact the Interlibrary Loan Department for more assistance.

  • Interlibrary Loan Department

  • Annual Reviews The Annual Reviews provide substantially researched articles written by recognized scholars in a wide variety of disciplines that summarize the major research literature in the field. These are often a good place to start your research and to keep informed about recent developments.
  • Oxford Handbooks Online Scholarly reviews of research in 15 subject fields including: Archaeology, Business/Management, Classical Studies, Criminology/Criminal Justice, Economics/Finance, History, Law, Linguistics, Literature, Music, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Physical Sciences, Political Science, Psychology, Religion, Sociology.

Search for literature review articles in subject databases:

  • Type the phrase "Literature Review" (with quotation marks) as a search term OR
  • Look to see if there is an option to limit your search results by  Document Type  (this may appear underneath the search box or among the filters on the left side of the search results display).

how to start a research assignment

Be careful The document type "Review" is often used and may identify articles that are book reviews, software reviews or reviews of films, performances, art exhibits, etc.

how to start a research assignment

Need Help? Ask Your Librarian

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Created and maintained by Instruction & Curriculum Support , with content also developed by Chris Davidson, Jason Kruse, Gina Petersen, and Amy Odwarka (intern, fall 2019). 

  • Next: Tips for Reading and Notetaking >>
  • Last Updated: Jan 4, 2024 11:08 AM
  • URL: https://libguides.northwestern.edu/start-research

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How Do I Get Started in Research?

Main navigation.

One major perk of being a Stanford student is that you will have opportunities to do original research with the Stanford faculty. Faculty across the university are engaged in research, and if you are interested in joining them in their pursuit, it will be up to you to get the ball rolling.

Ways of doing research

Generally speaking, there are two ways Stanford students can engage in research:

  • You can assist a faculty member with their research project
  • You can pursue your own  independent research project  (guided by a faculty mentor), where the research question and methodology are determined by you

Some students just assist in faculty research and then decide that they are not interested in pursuing their own research project. Other students don’t get involved in research until the day they are ready to propose their own independent project. And some students will pursue both options: usually they assist a faculty member earlier in their Stanford career, and then engage in their own independent research project later on.

How can I get involved with faculty research?

Assisting a professor with their research project can teach you valuable new skills, help you determine whether or not you enjoy the research process, and prompt you to think about whether you may want to design your own research project someday. There are many ways you can get involved.

Apply to a structured research program

During the summer, many departments and centers will have a research program that hires dozens of students for full-time summer work. Be sure to check the  list of departments and centers that receive VPUE funding,  as these are the most likely places to find such  summer research programs . There are also several summer research programs that are not funded by VPUE, such as the  Bio-X Program  and the  NeURO Fellowship Program.  The  Stanford On & Off-Campus Learning Opportunities (SOLO)  site is another place to search for research programs to apply to.

Note that most summer research programs will have their application deadlines either late in Autumn quarter or during Winter quarter.

In addition to these summer research programs, be aware that there are also structured research programs that happen at other times during the year. If you are interested in the Humanities, for example, check out the  Humanities Research Intensive  program, which happens over spring break (applications due in Autumn). And if you are interested in sciences and engineering, consider the  ChEM-H Undergraduate Scholars Program,  which runs from winter quarter through the following fall (applications due in Autumn).  

Check job ads on mailing lists, newsletters, SOLO, and Handshake

Professors looking for research assistants often advertise over email (especially on their departmental mailing lists), on the weekly  Academic Advising Newsletter,  on  SOLO,  or on  Handshake.  If you’re not on any departmental mailing lists, ask the department’s  Student Services Officer  if you can be added to a mailing list for current or prospective majors. Job postings may happen during any quarter, and are usually for only one or two students for part-time work.  

Connect with a professor you already know

There is no better place to start learning about research than chatting with a professor you may already know through classes or other connections. Rather than asking for a job up front, we recommend asking to meet during office hours to get advice on getting started in research. While it is possible your professor may have a research position open, you can still gain valuable tips and connections even if they have nothing available for you at the moment. Remember to ask what other faculty members your professor recommends that you reach out to if you are interested in doing research in this subject.  

Reach out to a professor you haven't met yet

If you have a topic of interest, but don’t yet know any professors working in that field, your first step is to find out which faculty are working on that topic.

  • Visit the department webpage  for departments most closely related to your topic of interest. Take a look at the Faculty Profiles to find information about the research interests of the faculty associated with these departments.  
  • Visit the Student Services Officer  in the departments most closely related to your topic of interest. The  Student Services Officer  can talk with you about your interests and try to help you identify one or more faculty whose research you may want to learn more about.

Once you have identified the faculty whose research most interests you, visit their office hours or send them an email to request a meeting for further conversation about their research interests and your own. Again, rather than asking for a job up front, we recommend asking to meet during office hours to get advice on getting started in research. Remember to ask what other faculty members your professor recommends that you reach out to if you are interested in doing research in this subject.

More Suggestions for Finding Faculty

  • How to Email Faculty
  • Connecting with Faculty  (including our Networking with Faculty video presentation)

Further Help

If you are uncertain about any of these steps, go talk with your  Academic Advisor ! They guide students at all stages of the research process to help them identify faculty and future mentors, think about how to start the conversation, and more. They are also good people to turn to when interested in getting  funding for an independent project.

  • Undergrad Research at Stanford
  • What type of Student Grant is best for your needs?
  • Getting Started With Undergraduate Research: Options and Opportunities (video)
  • How do I pursue an independent project?
  • Research Gave Meaning to My Undergraduate Years (Todd Davies, Symbolic Systems)

Return to the Advising Student Handbook

Advanced Search

How to Start Your Research: A DIY Guide : Understanding Your Assignment

  • DIY - The Research Process
  • Understanding Your Assignment
  • Choosing a Topic
  • Finding Sources
  • Evaluating and Narrowing Sources
  • Organizing and Integrating Sources

Understanding your assignment is the first step in producing a successful research paper or project. The tools in the side column will help you understand and plan out how to complete a research paper/project assignment. Below is a checklist of questions to consider before choosing a topic.

Read your assignment as soon as you get it.

  • -What is the goal or purpose of the assignment?
  • -When is the paper/project due? Are there additional due dates?
  • -What is the length requirement? This will help determine the scope of your paper/project.
  • -Is there a research component?
  • -How many and what types of sources do you need? 
  • -What is the citation style (link to citation guides) and format of your assignment?
  • -What are the grading criteria? Is there a grading rubric?

If you still have questions after working through this checklist, contact your professor for clarification.

Creative Commons attribution non-commercial share-alike license

Additional Material

The links below contain an assignment planning guide and a video clip about understanding research papers/projects.

Assignment Planner Research Advice Video

Consultations

All Bucknell students are welcome to make an appointment with a librarian to consult about their research-related assignments, and to make an appointment with a Writing Center staff member or Peer Writing Consultant to consult about their writing.

Research Consultation Writing Consultation

  • << Previous: DIY - The Research Process
  • Next: Choosing a Topic >>
  • Last Updated: Aug 28, 2023 12:04 PM
  • URL: https://researchbysubject.bucknell.edu/diy-research

how to start a research assignment

How to Start a Research Project: Home

  • Video Tutorials

Getting Started

This guide will help you get started with the research process and organize your results in order to manage the many steps involved in doing research.

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What's Here?

Step 1: understand the assignment.

Step 2: Choose a Topic

Step 3: Develop a Research Question

Step 4: identify keywords, step 5: develop a search string, step 6: choose the right database, step 7: mark, save, and email your results, step 8: write your paper, step 9: cite your sources, need more help.

Research can be a complex, lengthy, and sometimes intimidating process, but the APU Libraries can help. Librarians are always available to give you customized research suggestions, and you can find books and articles (print and online) via the APU Libraries website .

Subject-Specific Research Assistance

Did you know that there's a librarian who specializes in helping students from your major? Contact your subject librarian for customized help.

Identifying the amount and types of sources your assignment requires will help you choose the right online research tools.

Before you begin developing a strategy for searching the library catalog and databases, you should clarify several things about the assignment:

  • What type of assignment is it? (Research paper, essay, opinion paper, review, or other?)
  • How long does your paper need to be?
  • How many sources do you need for your bibliography?
  • What types of information do you need? (Statistics, Web pages, books, articles, images, audio/video clips, or other?)
  • Do you need current or historical sources? Or both?

If you are unclear on any of the requirements, ASK YOUR PROFESSOR ASAP ! Doing this early in the semester will save you stress later on and will show your professor that you are proactive.

Step 2: Choose a Topic

Sometimes your topic is assigned by your professor. However, most of the time your professor will give you the freedom to choose your own research topic. Choosing a topic that is specific enough to be manageable without being too narrow can be difficult, but these steps can help.

First, think about what topics might be of interest to you. You can get ideas by skimming your textbook, reading news magazines like Time , or keeping an eye on the news.

Once you've identified a broad topic, looking at a few scholarly reference books (such as dictionaries and encyclopedias) can help you figure out which authors and sources are the most important to know about. Scholarly encyclopedias can also help you discover narrower aspects of your broad topic so that your topic is more manageable.

Often a scholarly reference book will give you a short, authoritative overview of your topic and suggest additional sources for you to read. In essence, reading a reference article can save you time and give you a head-start on your project!

There are two easy ways to find reference material. First, try doing a keyword search of the APU Library Catalog for your topic, limiting your search to the Reference collection (use the drop-down "View Entire Collection" menu and choose "Reference"). Second, try searching for your topic in an online reference database , such as Credo Reference ,  Gale Virtual Reference Library , Oxford Reference Online , or SAGE eReference .

After you've identified and narrowed a research topic, you should re-state it in the form of a research question. Phrasing your topic in the form of a question helps to direct your research process.

Asking whether a fact or statistic directly answers your research question can help you find the most relevant information for your topic. A good research question also leads to a direct answer in the form of a thesis.

A sample research question might be: What are some strategies for improving employee retention among female law enforcement officers?

This question might lead to the following thesis in the final paper: "Recommended strategies for improving employee retention among female law enforcement officers include: flexible benefits and scheduling, diversity training, and..."

A good research question also helps you pull out the different concepts your research will cover. Concepts are discrete ideas that can be researched independently from each other, although most of the time you are looking for research on how multiple concepts interact with each other. Our example, "What are some strategies for improving employee retention among female law enforcement officers?" has 3 distinct concepts:

  • Employee retention
  • Law enforcement officers

These concepts will become the search keywords you will use in the Library Catalog and online article databases. Keywords are words that appear in the title, table of contents, and other parts of the book or article record in the catalog or database. Keyword searching is different from subject searching, since a keyword search will only return results that exactly match the terms you enter . Searching by subject headings will allow you to pull up books and articles on that topic, regardless of whether or not a particular keyword appears in the record. For more information on subject searching, see our LibGuide on Finding Library Resources by Subject .

Keep in mind that not every author will use the same keywords to describe a topic: one author might write about "police officers," and another might use the phrase "law enforcement officers."

For this reason, you will want to identify some synonyms and related terms for each of your keywords before you start searching. For example:

  • Synonyms/related terms: recruitment, promotion, advancement, loyalty
  • Synonyms/related terms: women, mothers
  • Synonyms/related terms: police, sheriff, cops

Once you've identified your search terms and synonyms, the final pre-search step is to combine those terms into search strings.

To give you the most precise results, online search tools like the library catalog and databases require a specific format for search statements, including the use of words called Boolean operators . Boolean operators are the words AND, OR, and NOT. Placing these words between your search terms will help you find books and articles that are targeted to your research topic.

The Boolean operator AND gives you more targeted results by requiring that two or more terms all appear within the title, abstract, or table of contents of a book or article. Let's imagine we are looking for information on workplace discrimination.

A keyword search in the library catalog for "discrimination" returns 423 titles.

A keyword search for "discrimination AND workplace" returns only 12 titles, but those 12 are much more relevant to our topic.

The Boolean operator OR is the opposite of AND. OR generally gives you more search results by requiring either one term or another to appear in a book or article. OR works best when you are looking for synonyms or related terms.

For example, a keyword search in the library catalog for "recruitment" returns 62 titles.

A keyword search for "recruitment OR retention" returns 141 titles.

A keyword search for "recruitment AND retention" returns 17 titles.

There are 2 types of research sources that can be found through the APU Libraries web site: books and articles.

To find books, use the APU Library Catalog :

To find articles, use a database. This short video from RMIT (an Australian university) can help you understand what library databases contain and how they work:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKIbnNLCh8g&feature=player_embedded

APU subscribes to more than 120 subscription databases , so it can be tricky to find the right one! The easiest way to choose the right database for your topic is to use the subject menu on the "All Databases" page--it will help you find a database recommended for your subject.

Still not sure? A good multidisciplinary database to begin with is Academic Search Premier :

(Search results will open in a new window.)

Once you've started finding books and articles on your topic, be sure to save the information. This will save you time as you organize your notes and start preparing your bibliography.

In the APU Library Catalog , you can download information about the books you find by adding them to your book bag: 

Then, click the "View Bag" button and follow the directions to print, save, or email your records: 

You can also automatically generate an APA, MLA, or Chicago-style citation for the books you find by clicking on the "WorldCat Citations" link from the catalog record:

In online databases , look for buttons or checkbozes to mark your articles or save them in a folder. Then look for print/email/save options; usually you can also choose to have a pre-formatted citation (in APA, MLA, or Chicago style) included in the email or saved file.

If the database you're using does not have a full-text copy of the article you need, click on the "Full Text Finder" button. The Full Text Finder will tell you if there is a copy of the article in another database; if so, it will link you to the full text.

If the Full Text Finder indicates that full text is not available, it will provide you with a link to the ArticleReach service. Click the link to request a free, scanned copy of the article from another library. For more information about ArticleReach, please see our ArticleReach guide .

By this point, you should have a pretty good idea of what your main points are. If you want some help with the writing process , you should schedule an appointment with the APU Writing Center . The writing tutors can give you tips, feedback, and suggestions that can help you write a great paper!

It is important that you cite your information sources correctly in your paper, for several reasons:

  • You need to give credit to the original author of your information.
  • If you don't cite your sources, you may be accused of plagiarism .
  • Providing citations shows your professor that you have devoted time and effort to researching your topic.
  • Citations help future readers of your work locate the sources you've used, so that they can build upon the research you've started.

If you need help citing sources, there are several how-to guides available in the LibGuides system.

  • Next: Video Tutorials >>
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A Beginner's Guide to Starting the Research Process

Research process steps

When you have to write a thesis or dissertation , it can be hard to know where to begin, but there are some clear steps you can follow.

The research process often begins with a very broad idea for a topic you’d like to know more about. You do some preliminary research to identify a  problem . After refining your research questions , you can lay out the foundations of your research design , leading to a proposal that outlines your ideas and plans.

This article takes you through the first steps of the research process, helping you narrow down your ideas and build up a strong foundation for your research project.

Table of contents

Step 1: choose your topic, step 2: identify a problem, step 3: formulate research questions, step 4: create a research design, step 5: write a research proposal.

First you have to come up with some ideas. Your thesis or dissertation topic can start out very broad. Think about the general area or field you’re interested in—maybe you already have specific research interests based on classes you’ve taken, or maybe you had to consider your topic when applying to graduate school and writing a statement of purpose .

Even if you already have a good sense of your topic, you’ll need to read widely to build background knowledge and begin narrowing down your ideas. Conduct an initial literature review to begin gathering relevant sources. As you read, take notes and try to identify problems, questions, debates, contradictions and gaps. Your aim is to narrow down from a broad area of interest to a specific niche.

Make sure to consider the practicalities: the requirements of your programme, the amount of time you have to complete the research, and how difficult it will be to access sources and data on the topic. Before moving onto the next stage, it’s a good idea to discuss the topic with your thesis supervisor.

>>Read more about narrowing down a research topic

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So you’ve settled on a topic and found a niche—but what exactly will your research investigate, and why does it matter? To give your project focus and purpose, you have to define a research problem .

The problem might be a practical issue—for example, a process or practice that isn’t working well, an area of concern in an organization’s performance, or a difficulty faced by a specific group of people in society.

Alternatively, you might choose to investigate a theoretical problem—for example, an underexplored phenomenon or relationship, a contradiction between different models or theories, or an unresolved debate among scholars.

To put the problem in context and set your objectives, you can write a problem statement . This describes who the problem affects, why research is needed, and how your research project will contribute to solving it.

>>Read more about defining a research problem

Next, based on the problem statement, you need to write one or more research questions . These target exactly what you want to find out. They might focus on describing, comparing, evaluating, or explaining the research problem.

A strong research question should be specific enough that you can answer it thoroughly using appropriate qualitative or quantitative research methods. It should also be complex enough to require in-depth investigation, analysis, and argument. Questions that can be answered with “yes/no” or with easily available facts are not complex enough for a thesis or dissertation.

In some types of research, at this stage you might also have to develop a conceptual framework and testable hypotheses .

>>See research question examples

The research design is a practical framework for answering your research questions. It involves making decisions about the type of data you need, the methods you’ll use to collect and analyze it, and the location and timescale of your research.

There are often many possible paths you can take to answering your questions. The decisions you make will partly be based on your priorities. For example, do you want to determine causes and effects, draw generalizable conclusions, or understand the details of a specific context?

You need to decide whether you will use primary or secondary data and qualitative or quantitative methods . You also need to determine the specific tools, procedures, and materials you’ll use to collect and analyze your data, as well as your criteria for selecting participants or sources.

>>Read more about creating a research design

Finally, after completing these steps, you are ready to complete a research proposal . The proposal outlines the context, relevance, purpose, and plan of your research.

As well as outlining the background, problem statement, and research questions, the proposal should also include a literature review that shows how your project will fit into existing work on the topic. The research design section describes your approach and explains exactly what you will do.

You might have to get the proposal approved by your supervisor before you get started, and it will guide the process of writing your thesis or dissertation.

>>Read more about writing a research proposal

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how to start a research assignment

Illustration by James Round

How to plan a research project

Whether for a paper or a thesis, define your question, review the work of others – and leave yourself open to discovery.

by Brooke Harrington   + BIO

is professor of sociology at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. Her research has won international awards both for scholarly quality and impact on public life. She has published dozens of articles and three books, most recently the bestseller Capital without Borders (2016), now translated into five languages.

Edited by Sam Haselby

Need to know

‘When curiosity turns to serious matters, it’s called research.’ – From Aphorisms (1880-1905) by Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

Planning research projects is a time-honoured intellectual exercise: one that requires both creativity and sharp analytical skills. The purpose of this Guide is to make the process systematic and easy to understand. While there is a great deal of freedom and discovery involved – from the topics you choose, to the data and methods you apply – there are also some norms and constraints that obtain, no matter what your academic level or field of study. For those in high school through to doctoral students, and from art history to archaeology, research planning involves broadly similar steps, including: formulating a question, developing an argument or predictions based on previous research, then selecting the information needed to answer your question.

Some of this might sound self-evident but, as you’ll find, research requires a different way of approaching and using information than most of us are accustomed to in everyday life. That is why I include orienting yourself to knowledge-creation as an initial step in the process. This is a crucial and underappreciated phase in education, akin to making the transition from salaried employment to entrepreneurship: suddenly, you’re on your own, and that requires a new way of thinking about your work.

What follows is a distillation of what I’ve learned about this process over 27 years as a professional social scientist. It reflects the skills that my own professors imparted in the sociology doctoral programme at Harvard, as well as what I learned later on as a research supervisor for Ivy League PhD and MA students, and then as the author of award-winning scholarly books and articles. It can be adapted to the demands of both short projects (such as course term papers) and long ones, such as a thesis.

At its simplest, research planning involves the four distinct steps outlined below: orienting yourself to knowledge-creation; defining your research question; reviewing previous research on your question; and then choosing relevant data to formulate your own answers. Because the focus of this Guide is on planning a research project, as opposed to conducting a research project, this section won’t delve into the details of data-collection or analysis; those steps happen after you plan the project. In addition, the topic is vast: year-long doctoral courses are devoted to data and analysis. Instead, the fourth part of this section will outline some basic strategies you could use in planning a data-selection and analysis process appropriate to your research question.

Step 1: Orient yourself

Planning and conducting research requires you to make a transition, from thinking like a consumer of information to thinking like a producer of information. That sounds simple, but it’s actually a complex task. As a practical matter, this means putting aside the mindset of a student, which treats knowledge as something created by other people. As students, we are often passive receivers of knowledge: asked to do a specified set of readings, then graded on how well we reproduce what we’ve read.

Researchers, however, must take on an active role as knowledge producers . Doing research requires more of you than reading and absorbing what other people have written: you have to engage in a dialogue with it. That includes arguing with previous knowledge and perhaps trying to show that ideas we have accepted as given are actually wrong or incomplete. For example, rather than simply taking in the claims of an author you read, you’ll need to draw out the implications of those claims: if what the author is saying is true, what else does that suggest must be true? What predictions could you make based on the author’s claims?

In other words, rather than treating a reading as a source of truth – even if it comes from a revered source, such as Plato or Marie Curie – this orientation step asks you to treat the claims you read as provisional and subject to interrogation. That is one of the great pieces of wisdom that science and philosophy can teach us: that the biggest advances in human understanding have been made not by being correct about trivial things, but by being wrong in an interesting way . For example, Albert Einstein was wrong about quantum mechanics, but his arguments about it with his fellow physicist Niels Bohr have led to some of the biggest breakthroughs in science, even a century later.

Step 2: Define your research question

Students often give this step cursory attention, but experienced researchers know that formulating a good question is sometimes the most difficult part of the research planning process. That is because the precise language of the question frames the rest of the project. It’s therefore important to pose the question carefully, in a way that’s both possible to answer and likely to yield interesting results. Of course, you must choose a question that interests you, but that’s only the beginning of what’s likely to be an iterative process: most researchers come back to this step repeatedly, modifying their questions in light of previous research, resource limitations and other considerations.

Researchers face limits in terms of time and money. They, like everyone else, have to pose research questions that they can plausibly answer given the constraints they face. For example, it would be inadvisable to frame a project around the question ‘What are the roots of the Arab-Israeli conflict?’ if you have only a week to develop an answer and no background on that topic. That’s not to limit your imagination: you can come up with any question you’d like. But it typically does require some creativity to frame a question that you can answer well – that is, by investigating thoroughly and providing new insights – within the limits you face.

In addition to being interesting to you, and feasible within your resource constraints, the third and most important characteristic of a ‘good’ research topic is whether it allows you to create new knowledge. It might turn out that your question has already been asked and answered to your satisfaction: if so, you’ll find out in the next step of this process. On the other hand, you might come up with a research question that hasn’t been addressed previously. Before you get too excited about breaking uncharted ground, consider this: a lot of potentially researchable questions haven’t been studied for good reason ; they might have answers that are trivial or of very limited interest. This could include questions such as ‘Why does the area of a circle equal π r²?’ or ‘Did winter conditions affect Napoleon’s plans to invade Russia?’ Of course, you might be able to make the argument that a seemingly trivial question is actually vitally important, but you must be prepared to back that up with convincing evidence. The exercise in the ‘Learn More’ section below will help you think through some of these issues.

Finally, scholarly research questions must in some way lead to new and distinctive insights. For example, lots of people have studied gender roles in sports teams; what can you ask that hasn’t been asked before? Reinventing the wheel is the number-one no-no in this endeavour. That’s why the next step is so important: reviewing previous research on your topic. Depending on what you find in that step, you might need to revise your research question; iterating between your question and the existing literature is a normal process. But don’t worry: it doesn’t go on forever. In fact, the iterations taper off – and your research question stabilises – as you develop a firm grasp of the current state of knowledge on your topic.

Step 3: Review previous research

In academic research, from articles to books, it’s common to find a section called a ‘literature review’. The purpose of that section is to describe the state of the art in knowledge on the research question that a project has posed. It demonstrates that researchers have thoroughly and systematically reviewed the relevant findings of previous studies on their topic, and that they have something novel to contribute.

Your own research project should include something like this, even if it’s a high-school term paper. In the research planning process, you’ll want to list at least half a dozen bullet points stating the major findings on your topic by other people. In relation to those findings, you should be able to specify where your project could provide new and necessary insights. There are two basic rhetorical positions one can take in framing the novelty-plus-importance argument required of academic research:

  • Position 1 requires you to build on or extend a set of existing ideas; that means saying something like: ‘Person A has argued that X is true about gender; this implies Y, which has not yet been tested. My project will test Y, and if I find evidence to support it, that will change the way we understand gender.’
  • Position 2 is to argue that there is a gap in existing knowledge, either because previous research has reached conflicting conclusions or has failed to consider something important. For example, one could say that research on middle schoolers and gender has been limited by being conducted primarily in coeducational environments, and that findings might differ dramatically if research were conducted in more schools where the student body was all-male or all-female.

Your overall goal in this step of the process is to show that your research will be part of a larger conversation: that is, how your project flows from what’s already known, and how it advances, extends or challenges that existing body of knowledge. That will be the contribution of your project, and it constitutes the motivation for your research.

Two things are worth mentioning about your search for sources of relevant previous research. First, you needn’t look only at studies on your precise topic. For example, if you want to study gender-identity formation in schools, you shouldn’t restrict yourself to studies of schools; the empirical setting (schools) is secondary to the larger social process that interests you (how people form gender identity). That process occurs in many different settings, so cast a wide net. Second, be sure to use legitimate sources – meaning publications that have been through some sort of vetting process, whether that involves peer review (as with academic journal articles you might find via Google Scholar) or editorial review (as you’d find in well-known mass media publications, such as The Economist or The Washington Post ). What you’ll want to avoid is using unvetted sources such as personal blogs or Wikipedia. Why? Because anybody can write anything in those forums, and there is no way to know – unless you’re already an expert – if the claims you find there are accurate. Often, they’re not.

Step 4: Choose your data and methods

Whatever your research question is, eventually you’ll need to consider which data source and analytical strategy are most likely to provide the answers you’re seeking. One starting point is to consider whether your question would be best addressed by qualitative data (such as interviews, observations or historical records), quantitative data (such as surveys or census records) or some combination of both. Your ideas about data sources will, in turn, suggest options for analytical methods.

You might need to collect your own data, or you might find everything you need readily available in an existing dataset someone else has created. A great place to start is with a research librarian: university libraries always have them and, at public universities, those librarians can work with the public, including people who aren’t affiliated with the university. If you don’t happen to have a public university and its library close at hand, an ordinary public library can still be a good place to start: the librarians are often well versed in accessing data sources that might be relevant to your study, such as the census, or historical archives, or the Survey of Consumer Finances.

Because your task at this point is to plan research, rather than conduct it, the purpose of this step is not to commit you irrevocably to a course of action. Instead, your goal here is to think through a feasible approach to answering your research question. You’ll need to find out, for example, whether the data you want exist; if not, do you have a realistic chance of gathering the data yourself, or would it be better to modify your research question? In terms of analysis, would your strategy require you to apply statistical methods? If so, do you have those skills? If not, do you have time to learn them, or money to hire a research assistant to run the analysis for you?

Please be aware that qualitative methods in particular are not the casual undertaking they might appear to be. Many people make the mistake of thinking that only quantitative data and methods are scientific and systematic, while qualitative methods are just a fancy way of saying: ‘I talked to some people, read some old newspapers, and drew my own conclusions.’ Nothing could be further from the truth. In the final section of this guide, you’ll find some links to resources that will provide more insight on standards and procedures governing qualitative research, but suffice it to say: there are rules about what constitutes legitimate evidence and valid analytical procedure for qualitative data, just as there are for quantitative data.

Circle back and consider revising your initial plans

As you work through these four steps in planning your project, it’s perfectly normal to circle back and revise. Research planning is rarely a linear process. It’s also common for new and unexpected avenues to suggest themselves. As the sociologist Thorstein Veblen wrote in 1908 : ‘The outcome of any serious research can only be to make two questions grow where only one grew before.’ That’s as true of research planning as it is of a completed project. Try to enjoy the horizons that open up for you in this process, rather than becoming overwhelmed; the four steps, along with the two exercises that follow, will help you focus your plan and make it manageable.

Key points – How to plan a research project

  • Planning a research project is essential no matter your academic level or field of study. There is no one ‘best’ way to design research, but there are certain guidelines that can be helpfully applied across disciplines.
  • Orient yourself to knowledge-creation. Make the shift from being a consumer of information to being a producer of information.
  • Define your research question. Your question frames the rest of your project, sets the scope, and determines the kinds of answers you can find.
  • Review previous research on your question. Survey the existing body of relevant knowledge to ensure that your research will be part of a larger conversation.
  • Choose your data and methods. For instance, will you be collecting qualitative data, via interviews, or numerical data, via surveys?
  • Circle back and consider revising your initial plans. Expect your research question in particular to undergo multiple rounds of refinement as you learn more about your topic.

Good research questions tend to beget more questions. This can be frustrating for those who want to get down to business right away. Try to make room for the unexpected: this is usually how knowledge advances. Many of the most significant discoveries in human history have been made by people who were looking for something else entirely. There are ways to structure your research planning process without over-constraining yourself; the two exercises below are a start, and you can find further methods in the Links and Books section.

The following exercise provides a structured process for advancing your research project planning. After completing it, you’ll be able to do the following:

  • describe clearly and concisely the question you’ve chosen to study
  • summarise the state of the art in knowledge about the question, and where your project could contribute new insight
  • identify the best strategy for gathering and analysing relevant data

In other words, the following provides a systematic means to establish the building blocks of your research project.

Exercise 1: Definition of research question and sources

This exercise prompts you to select and clarify your general interest area, develop a research question, and investigate sources of information. The annotated bibliography will also help you refine your research question so that you can begin the second assignment, a description of the phenomenon you wish to study.

Jot down a few bullet points in response to these two questions, with the understanding that you’ll probably go back and modify your answers as you begin reading other studies relevant to your topic:

  • What will be the general topic of your paper?
  • What will be the specific topic of your paper?

b) Research question(s)

Use the following guidelines to frame a research question – or questions – that will drive your analysis. As with Part 1 above, you’ll probably find it necessary to change or refine your research question(s) as you complete future assignments.

  • Your question should be phrased so that it can’t be answered with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
  • Your question should have more than one plausible answer.
  • Your question should draw relationships between two or more concepts; framing the question in terms of How? or What? often works better than asking Why ?

c) Annotated bibliography

Most or all of your background information should come from two sources: scholarly books and journals, or reputable mass media sources. You might be able to access journal articles electronically through your library, using search engines such as JSTOR and Google Scholar. This can save you a great deal of time compared with going to the library in person to search periodicals. General news sources, such as those accessible through LexisNexis, are acceptable, but should be cited sparingly, since they don’t carry the same level of credibility as scholarly sources. As discussed above, unvetted sources such as blogs and Wikipedia should be avoided, because the quality of the information they provide is unreliable and often misleading.

To create an annotated bibliography, provide the following information for at least 10 sources relevant to your specific topic, using the format suggested below.

Name of author(s):
Publication date:
Title of book, chapter, or article:
If a chapter or article, title of journal or book where they appear:
Brief description of this work, including main findings and methods ( c 75 words):
Summary of how this work contributes to your project ( c 75 words):
Brief description of the implications of this work ( c 25 words):
Identify any gap or controversy in knowledge this work points up, and how your project could address those problems ( c 50 words):

Exercise 2: Towards an analysis

Develop a short statement ( c 250 words) about the kind of data that would be useful to address your research question, and how you’d analyse it. Some questions to consider in writing this statement include:

  • What are the central concepts or variables in your project? Offer a brief definition of each.
  • Do any data sources exist on those concepts or variables, or would you need to collect data?
  • Of the analytical strategies you could apply to that data, which would be the most appropriate to answer your question? Which would be the most feasible for you? Consider at least two methods, noting their advantages or disadvantages for your project.

Links & books

One of the best texts ever written about planning and executing research comes from a source that might be unexpected: a 60-year-old work on urban planning by a self-trained scholar. The classic book The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) by Jane Jacobs (available complete and free of charge via this link ) is worth reading in its entirety just for the pleasure of it. But the final 20 pages – a concluding chapter titled ‘The Kind of Problem a City Is’ – are really about the process of thinking through and investigating a problem. Highly recommended as a window into the craft of research.

Jacobs’s text references an essay on advancing human knowledge by the mathematician Warren Weaver. At the time, Weaver was director of the Rockefeller Foundation, in charge of funding basic research in the natural and medical sciences. Although the essay is titled ‘A Quarter Century in the Natural Sciences’ (1960) and appears at first blush to be merely a summation of one man’s career, it turns out to be something much bigger and more interesting: a meditation on the history of human beings seeking answers to big questions about the world. Weaver goes back to the 17th century to trace the origins of systematic research thinking, with enthusiasm and vivid anecdotes that make the process come alive. The essay is worth reading in its entirety, and is available free of charge via this link .

For those seeking a more in-depth, professional-level discussion of the logic of research design, the political scientist Harvey Starr provides insight in a compact format in the article ‘Cumulation from Proper Specification: Theory, Logic, Research Design, and “Nice” Laws’ (2005). Starr reviews the ‘research triad’, consisting of the interlinked considerations of formulating a question, selecting relevant theories and applying appropriate methods. The full text of the article, published in the scholarly journal Conflict Management and Peace Science , is available, free of charge, via this link .

Finally, the book Getting What You Came For (1992) by Robert Peters is not only an outstanding guide for anyone contemplating graduate school – from the application process onward – but it also includes several excellent chapters on planning and executing research, applicable across a wide variety of subject areas. It was an invaluable resource for me 25 years ago, and it remains in print with good reason; I recommend it to all my students, particularly Chapter 16 (‘The Thesis Topic: Finding It’), Chapter 17 (‘The Thesis Proposal’) and Chapter 18 (‘The Thesis: Writing It’).

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Research Method

Home » How To Write A Research Proposal – Step-by-Step [Template]

How To Write A Research Proposal – Step-by-Step [Template]

Table of Contents

How To Write a Research Proposal

How To Write a Research Proposal

Writing a Research proposal involves several steps to ensure a well-structured and comprehensive document. Here is an explanation of each step:

1. Title and Abstract

  • Choose a concise and descriptive title that reflects the essence of your research.
  • Write an abstract summarizing your research question, objectives, methodology, and expected outcomes. It should provide a brief overview of your proposal.

2. Introduction:

  • Provide an introduction to your research topic, highlighting its significance and relevance.
  • Clearly state the research problem or question you aim to address.
  • Discuss the background and context of the study, including previous research in the field.

3. Research Objectives

  • Outline the specific objectives or aims of your research. These objectives should be clear, achievable, and aligned with the research problem.

4. Literature Review:

  • Conduct a comprehensive review of relevant literature and studies related to your research topic.
  • Summarize key findings, identify gaps, and highlight how your research will contribute to the existing knowledge.

5. Methodology:

  • Describe the research design and methodology you plan to employ to address your research objectives.
  • Explain the data collection methods, instruments, and analysis techniques you will use.
  • Justify why the chosen methods are appropriate and suitable for your research.

6. Timeline:

  • Create a timeline or schedule that outlines the major milestones and activities of your research project.
  • Break down the research process into smaller tasks and estimate the time required for each task.

7. Resources:

  • Identify the resources needed for your research, such as access to specific databases, equipment, or funding.
  • Explain how you will acquire or utilize these resources to carry out your research effectively.

8. Ethical Considerations:

  • Discuss any ethical issues that may arise during your research and explain how you plan to address them.
  • If your research involves human subjects, explain how you will ensure their informed consent and privacy.

9. Expected Outcomes and Significance:

  • Clearly state the expected outcomes or results of your research.
  • Highlight the potential impact and significance of your research in advancing knowledge or addressing practical issues.

10. References:

  • Provide a list of all the references cited in your proposal, following a consistent citation style (e.g., APA, MLA).

11. Appendices:

  • Include any additional supporting materials, such as survey questionnaires, interview guides, or data analysis plans.

Research Proposal Format

The format of a research proposal may vary depending on the specific requirements of the institution or funding agency. However, the following is a commonly used format for a research proposal:

1. Title Page:

  • Include the title of your research proposal, your name, your affiliation or institution, and the date.

2. Abstract:

  • Provide a brief summary of your research proposal, highlighting the research problem, objectives, methodology, and expected outcomes.

3. Introduction:

  • Introduce the research topic and provide background information.
  • State the research problem or question you aim to address.
  • Explain the significance and relevance of the research.
  • Review relevant literature and studies related to your research topic.
  • Summarize key findings and identify gaps in the existing knowledge.
  • Explain how your research will contribute to filling those gaps.

5. Research Objectives:

  • Clearly state the specific objectives or aims of your research.
  • Ensure that the objectives are clear, focused, and aligned with the research problem.

6. Methodology:

  • Describe the research design and methodology you plan to use.
  • Explain the data collection methods, instruments, and analysis techniques.
  • Justify why the chosen methods are appropriate for your research.

7. Timeline:

8. Resources:

  • Explain how you will acquire or utilize these resources effectively.

9. Ethical Considerations:

  • If applicable, explain how you will ensure informed consent and protect the privacy of research participants.

10. Expected Outcomes and Significance:

11. References:

12. Appendices:

Research Proposal Template

Here’s a template for a research proposal:

1. Introduction:

2. Literature Review:

3. Research Objectives:

4. Methodology:

5. Timeline:

6. Resources:

7. Ethical Considerations:

8. Expected Outcomes and Significance:

9. References:

10. Appendices:

Research Proposal Sample

Title: The Impact of Online Education on Student Learning Outcomes: A Comparative Study

1. Introduction

Online education has gained significant prominence in recent years, especially due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This research proposal aims to investigate the impact of online education on student learning outcomes by comparing them with traditional face-to-face instruction. The study will explore various aspects of online education, such as instructional methods, student engagement, and academic performance, to provide insights into the effectiveness of online learning.

2. Objectives

The main objectives of this research are as follows:

  • To compare student learning outcomes between online and traditional face-to-face education.
  • To examine the factors influencing student engagement in online learning environments.
  • To assess the effectiveness of different instructional methods employed in online education.
  • To identify challenges and opportunities associated with online education and suggest recommendations for improvement.

3. Methodology

3.1 Study Design

This research will utilize a mixed-methods approach to gather both quantitative and qualitative data. The study will include the following components:

3.2 Participants

The research will involve undergraduate students from two universities, one offering online education and the other providing face-to-face instruction. A total of 500 students (250 from each university) will be selected randomly to participate in the study.

3.3 Data Collection

The research will employ the following data collection methods:

  • Quantitative: Pre- and post-assessments will be conducted to measure students’ learning outcomes. Data on student demographics and academic performance will also be collected from university records.
  • Qualitative: Focus group discussions and individual interviews will be conducted with students to gather their perceptions and experiences regarding online education.

3.4 Data Analysis

Quantitative data will be analyzed using statistical software, employing descriptive statistics, t-tests, and regression analysis. Qualitative data will be transcribed, coded, and analyzed thematically to identify recurring patterns and themes.

4. Ethical Considerations

The study will adhere to ethical guidelines, ensuring the privacy and confidentiality of participants. Informed consent will be obtained, and participants will have the right to withdraw from the study at any time.

5. Significance and Expected Outcomes

This research will contribute to the existing literature by providing empirical evidence on the impact of online education on student learning outcomes. The findings will help educational institutions and policymakers make informed decisions about incorporating online learning methods and improving the quality of online education. Moreover, the study will identify potential challenges and opportunities related to online education and offer recommendations for enhancing student engagement and overall learning outcomes.

6. Timeline

The proposed research will be conducted over a period of 12 months, including data collection, analysis, and report writing.

The estimated budget for this research includes expenses related to data collection, software licenses, participant compensation, and research assistance. A detailed budget breakdown will be provided in the final research plan.

8. Conclusion

This research proposal aims to investigate the impact of online education on student learning outcomes through a comparative study with traditional face-to-face instruction. By exploring various dimensions of online education, this research will provide valuable insights into the effectiveness and challenges associated with online learning. The findings will contribute to the ongoing discourse on educational practices and help shape future strategies for maximizing student learning outcomes in online education settings.

About the author

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Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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  • v.6(1); 2010 Jan

Basic Steps to Building a Research Program

Allison baer.

American Society of Clinical Oncology, Alexandria, VA; Howard Regional Health Care System, Kokomo, IN; Berman Cancer Institute, Greater Baltimore Medical Center, Baltimore, MD; and Clinical Trial Support Unit Hematology/Oncology, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Naftali Bechar

Susan devine.

Establishing a clinical trial infrastructure is an important step when developing a successful research program. Two areas required for success include financial oversight and a qualified research team.

Establishing a clinical trial infrastructure is one of the most challenging, yet important, steps when developing a successful research program. Two areas required for success include financial oversight and sustaining a qualified research team. This article, part of the Attributes of Exemplary Research series, 1 targets new investigators and those expanding their research programs and provides practical advice from successful experts.

Planning From Within

Taking an entrepreneurial approach is a successful mechanism when developing a clinical research program. Maintaining a sustainable program requires fiscal planning, much like a business. When developing the financial infrastructure, it is helpful to consider budgeting from both broad and narrow perspectives. For example, a study budget must be developed for each individual trial, whereas the program itself requires a budget that manages indirect costs required regardless of patient enrollment. The amount dedicated to indirect costs and the mechanisms by which the funds are used vary by institution and are pre-established at some sites. Sites that do not have a pre-established rate make this determination by calculating overhead costs not directly related to the study protocol, including space, utilities, information technology, and staff compensation. The amount varies by program, but many sites require roughly 25% from each study budget to cover the total of all indirect costs.

It is important to remain realistic when considering the amount of money needed for both direct and indirect costs, and to plan meticulously before initiating a new clinical trial, negotiating for industry trials, or establishing a budget within the institution. Institutions with a clinical trials office usually have guidance regarding budgeting and have contracts established with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) regarding the institute's indirect cost requirement. In contrast, practitioners in community settings have increased autonomy to predict costs and negotiate accordingly. Finding a mentor or establishing an institutional partnership can be helpful for physicians in this situation. Greater detail regarding cost-neutral budgeting is discussed in a previous article in the Attributes of Exemplary Research series published March 2009, entitled “Cost-Neutral Clinical Research Enterprise.” 2

Thinking Globally

Researchers are often frustrated that per-patient reimbursement does not always cover the actual costs of conducting a trial and that reimbursement is usually given after patient enrollment. With NCI cooperative group trials, inadequate federal funding is well documented, including an ASCO study that determined the average cost of each patient in a clinical trial to be $6,000, whereas per-patient reimbursement is only $2,000. 3 The key to success is awareness of alternative funding mechanisms and using them to supplement program needs.

A good place to start is within an institution. Some physicians and their staff members receive salaries through a hospital or clinic that supports clinical research, a great employment option for individuals dedicated to conducting trials. These physicians are under less pressure to increase patient volume and are able to dedicate additional time to clinical research. This model has a record for success and is often cited as a reason pediatric clinical trials accrue so well. Physicians who are not salaried can build a similar mechanism into their practice. For example, because research requires additional time not reimbursed by insurance or Medicare, consider adding physician reimbursement as a cost covered by the study budget. Reimbursing physicians for their time is a reasonable study cost and helps create a research culture within the institution.

Sites also benefit from offering a broad menu of clinical trials. If the program is not breaking even conducting federally funded trials, adding industry trials may be a good option. Though investigators are generally pleased by the higher reimbursement rates provided by industry, some complain that industry trials are less stimulating and provide fewer opportunities for publication. Using a combination of trials from industry and the NCI Cooperative Groups can help clinical researchers get the best of both worlds. Always be selective before choosing trials and consider the question being investigated as well as patient demographics. If researchers open a trial that cannot accrue, they tax the program budget by wasting time and resources. Before initiating a new trial, also be mindful of the degree of trial complexity a practice can facilitate, such as the ability to properly prepare biospecimens, manage unstable investigational agents, and meet all eligibility criteria. Financial balance will certainly fail if there are unexpected equipment upgrades required to support the conduct of a trial.

Though NCI per-patient reimbursement alone is often insufficient, many additional options are available through NCI and other federal sources. 4 Becoming a community clinical oncology program (CCOP) is a great option for community sites dedicated to research. CCOPs benefit from having access to numerous phase I, II, and III trials and have autonomy to choose with which research bases they wish to partner. CCOPs also manage their own budgets and receive some funding before patient enrollment, unlike standard cooperative group partnerships. Becoming a CCOP requires a previous record of success.

If a program is still in initial stages, consider becoming an affiliate member of a cooperative group instead. This enables a researcher to partner with a member institution and participate in all trials offered through the institution's cooperative group affiliation. In this mechanism, reimbursement is provided after patients are enrolled and is initially given to the member institution, which is then responsible for channeling funds to partner institutions. Joining the NCI Clinical Trials Support Unit is also an option worth pursuing for programs at all levels. Also, NCI has many investigator-initiated funding opportunities, including training grants and administrative supplements, all of which are listed on the NCI Web site.

In addition to federal options, enhancing knowledge of funding opportunities offered through philanthropic organizations can be beneficial. From professional societies to advocacy organizations, most offer varying levels of grants, and some exceed several million dollars in annual funding. Many of the grants can be used to supplement the research one is already pursuing, such as ASCO's community oncology research grants. 5 Be clear about the requirements associated with grants funded by nonprofit organizations. Most researchers find these grants helpful, but some are not applicable because of conflicts of interest or inability to meet associated requirements.

If a researcher thinks it necessary to cut items from the budget, plan strategically. For example, an easy expenditure to cut may be the funds allocated to conferences and poster presentations. However, name recognition is an important aspect of peer review, and establishing oneself in the research community is imperative for future success. Consider instead applying for an employer travel grant or fee waiver, or through an external organization, such as the one conducting the conference. Also, do not automatically dismiss grants for small amounts of funding; instead, consider realistic ways to incorporate these mechanisms into your program. Smaller grants can be useful to fund feasibility studies or pilot projects. Using supplemental funding mechanisms can greatly enhance a clinical research program.

Developing the Research Team

Physicians dedicated to clinical research are the key to successful programs. Many physicians have endorsed the importance of clinical trials, but few enroll 10% of their patients, an attribute of an exemplary clinical trial site. 1 In the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG), 80% of ECOG community hospital accrual comes from only 20% of registered investigators, indicating that most oncologists do not fully integrate research into their practice. When identifying new staff, it is important to recognize individuals who see clinical trials as an important treatment option. Training physicians who do not already value research is difficult.

Conducting clinical trials in a community setting presents challenges that novice researchers may not have confronted while training at academic institutions. 6 One example is the sheer number of trials onto which community researchers enroll their patients. Whereas academic physicians generally have narrow areas of expertise and accrue to a subset of studies, community physicians typically treat a variety of primary tumors and participate in a broader range of trials. Some physicians overcome this barrier by carrying a booklet that includes a brief explanation of each trial their practice offers. Community physicians may also have to spend more time educating patients and assuring informed consent because patients in the community setting may be less familiar with clinical trial options. In general, it is important to realize that conducting clinical research in a community setting takes time and adaptation. Hiring physicians committed to research and providing them with site-specific training is key to creating a successful research program and sets the tone for other clinical and support staff.

Although the physician is vital to creating a research culture and enrolling patients on trials, nonphysician staff are imperative to the overall success of the program. An ASCO study completed in 2003 found that physicians accounted for only 9% of the overall time required to conduct a clinical trial, whereas nurses and data mangers contributed more than 30% each. 3 At least one dedicated research staff member is critical to ensuring studies receive necessary attention. The clinical research associate (CRA), who may or may not be a nurse, is responsible for research study tasks and assuring all deadlines are met. Study success relies heavily on this person because they are responsible for everything from meeting submission deadlines and reviewing inclusion/exclusion criteria to collecting data and serving as the main source of interaction with patients on study, which can substantially influence participant enrollment and retention. The CRA is also responsible for maintaining the program's regulatory compliance, which is essential to the research program and requires dedicated time beyond the scope of clinical practice.

If the program is small and only one staff person is supported, it is generally best to select a nurse because there are clinical components of research that only nurses are qualified to do. However, if more than one staff person is available, it becomes important to consider the tasks that need completed to determine the best mix of clinical and nonclinical staff. For example, it makes no sense to pay a nurse to photocopy papers or extract data from medical records when appropriately qualified but lower-salaried individuals can be assigned to the task.

Training staff is imperative when developing a research team and should combine on-the-job instruction with formal training. Training within the institution may include mentorship from senior staff, active observation of study tasks, participation during industry initiation visits, and involvement during monitoring/audit preparation. Formal research training can be obtained through professional societies, universities, and online. If the program is new, it may be helpful to gradually build the research portfolio so the CRA has time to learn properly the many responsibilities associated with specific research projects. If a new CRA is starting at an established program, consider initiating incremental advancements so the CRA can be promoted as responsibilities increase. In either situation, the goal should be to prevent overwhelming the individual and providing achievable goals that lead to job satisfaction. These extra steps are important for staff retention. Considering that it takes roughly 6 to 12 months to fully train research staff, frequent job turnover can affect data quality and impede program development.

Other staff that cannot be overlooked include pharmacy staff and those responsible for reimbursement. From the study initiation, clear roles must be established assuring all study tasks are accomplished. Development of standard operating procedures, which are written instructions regarding study responsibilities, are often a good way to be certain that all tasks are consistently met. 1 Although this step requires time up front, it can be highly beneficial during audits and staffing changes and may be required by the study sponsor. Pharmacy staff members, for example, need procedures regarding proper storage and handling of study drugs. Reimbursement specialists need to know how to submit research claims properly and what to charge against the study budget versus the patient insurance. Some practices find it useful to schedule regular meetings to educate staff regarding research and provide updates regarding new protocols. Incremental auditing is also a helpful way for a new program to ensure the quality of research at the institution. Occasional external audits provide feedback not available through internal auditing alone and assure the program is meeting Good Clinical Practice guidelines. Developing a successful research program can be challenging but can provide great personal satisfaction and offers a wide range of treatment options for patients.

Upcoming Events

ASCO plans to offer online educational opportunities in which content providers to the series will discuss these topics in more detail. See ASCO's Web site at www.asco.org/ClinicalTrialResources for more information and access the entire Attributes of Exemplary Research series at http://jop.ascopubs.org/ . The next article in this series, which will provide practical tips regarding contracting, will be published in the March issue of Journal of Oncology Practice .

Feedback Request

Suggest future topic ideas for the series and provide your feedback by sending an e-mail to gro.ocsa@secruoserhcraeser .

For additional literature on this topic, read the article “Clinical Research by Community Oncologists,” published by the American Cancer Society and available free online at http://caonline.amcancersoc.org/cgi/content/full/53/2/73 .

For more information about the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Community Clinical Oncology Program, visit the Web site at http://prevention.cancer.gov/programs-resources/programs/ccop .

View free NCI education modules entitled “Incorporating Cancer Clinical Trials into Your Practice” at http://cme.cancer.gov/clinicaltrials/learning/course7.asp .

Learn about grant and award opportunities offered through ASCO at http://www.asco.org/ASCOv2/Research+Resources/Grants+%26+Awards .

Formal staff training and certification is offered via the Society of Clinical Research Associates and the Association of Clinical Research Professionals.

ASCO Statement on Minimum Standards and Exemplary Attributes of Clinical Trial Sites

The ASCO statement addresses the minimum requirements for sites conducting quality clinical trials as well as the attributes of exemplary sites. Both minimum requirements and exemplary attributes were based on a review of the literature, current regulatory requirements, and consensus among community and academic clinical researchers. To conduct quality clinical research, sites should meet the minimum requirements. It should be noted, however, that the exemplary attributes are voluntary and suggested as goals, not requirements. Not all attributes will apply to all clinical trial sites, and many sites may be able to conduct high-quality clinical trials without accomplishing all attributes.

Authors' Disclosures of Potential Conflicts of Interest

The authors indicated no potential conflicts of interest.

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As NASA works to establish a long-term presence for scientific discovery and exploration on the Moon through the Artemis campaign, CHAPEA missions provide important scientific data to validate systems and develop solutions for future missions to the Red Planet. With the first CHAPEA crew more than halfway through their yearlong mission, NASA is using research gained through the simulated missions to help inform crew health and performance support during Mars expeditions.

Under NASA’s  Artemis  campaign, the agency will establish the foundation for long-term scientific exploration at the Moon, land the first woman, first person of color, and its first international partner astronaut on the lunar surface, and prepare for human expeditions to Mars for the benefit of all.

For more about CHAPEA, visit:

https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/chapea/

Rachel Kraft Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1100 [email protected]

Anna Schneider/Laura Sorto Johnson Space Center, Houston 281-483-5111 [email protected] /[email protected]

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  • What Is a Research Design | Types, Guide & Examples

What Is a Research Design | Types, Guide & Examples

Published on June 7, 2021 by Shona McCombes . Revised on November 20, 2023 by Pritha Bhandari.

A research design is a strategy for answering your   research question  using empirical data. Creating a research design means making decisions about:

  • Your overall research objectives and approach
  • Whether you’ll rely on primary research or secondary research
  • Your sampling methods or criteria for selecting subjects
  • Your data collection methods
  • The procedures you’ll follow to collect data
  • Your data analysis methods

A well-planned research design helps ensure that your methods match your research objectives and that you use the right kind of analysis for your data.

Table of contents

Step 1: consider your aims and approach, step 2: choose a type of research design, step 3: identify your population and sampling method, step 4: choose your data collection methods, step 5: plan your data collection procedures, step 6: decide on your data analysis strategies, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about research design.

  • Introduction

Before you can start designing your research, you should already have a clear idea of the research question you want to investigate.

There are many different ways you could go about answering this question. Your research design choices should be driven by your aims and priorities—start by thinking carefully about what you want to achieve.

The first choice you need to make is whether you’ll take a qualitative or quantitative approach.

Qualitative research designs tend to be more flexible and inductive , allowing you to adjust your approach based on what you find throughout the research process.

Quantitative research designs tend to be more fixed and deductive , with variables and hypotheses clearly defined in advance of data collection.

It’s also possible to use a mixed-methods design that integrates aspects of both approaches. By combining qualitative and quantitative insights, you can gain a more complete picture of the problem you’re studying and strengthen the credibility of your conclusions.

Practical and ethical considerations when designing research

As well as scientific considerations, you need to think practically when designing your research. If your research involves people or animals, you also need to consider research ethics .

  • How much time do you have to collect data and write up the research?
  • Will you be able to gain access to the data you need (e.g., by travelling to a specific location or contacting specific people)?
  • Do you have the necessary research skills (e.g., statistical analysis or interview techniques)?
  • Will you need ethical approval ?

At each stage of the research design process, make sure that your choices are practically feasible.

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Within both qualitative and quantitative approaches, there are several types of research design to choose from. Each type provides a framework for the overall shape of your research.

Types of quantitative research designs

Quantitative designs can be split into four main types.

  • Experimental and   quasi-experimental designs allow you to test cause-and-effect relationships
  • Descriptive and correlational designs allow you to measure variables and describe relationships between them.

With descriptive and correlational designs, you can get a clear picture of characteristics, trends and relationships as they exist in the real world. However, you can’t draw conclusions about cause and effect (because correlation doesn’t imply causation ).

Experiments are the strongest way to test cause-and-effect relationships without the risk of other variables influencing the results. However, their controlled conditions may not always reflect how things work in the real world. They’re often also more difficult and expensive to implement.

Types of qualitative research designs

Qualitative designs are less strictly defined. This approach is about gaining a rich, detailed understanding of a specific context or phenomenon, and you can often be more creative and flexible in designing your research.

The table below shows some common types of qualitative design. They often have similar approaches in terms of data collection, but focus on different aspects when analyzing the data.

Your research design should clearly define who or what your research will focus on, and how you’ll go about choosing your participants or subjects.

In research, a population is the entire group that you want to draw conclusions about, while a sample is the smaller group of individuals you’ll actually collect data from.

Defining the population

A population can be made up of anything you want to study—plants, animals, organizations, texts, countries, etc. In the social sciences, it most often refers to a group of people.

For example, will you focus on people from a specific demographic, region or background? Are you interested in people with a certain job or medical condition, or users of a particular product?

The more precisely you define your population, the easier it will be to gather a representative sample.

  • Sampling methods

Even with a narrowly defined population, it’s rarely possible to collect data from every individual. Instead, you’ll collect data from a sample.

To select a sample, there are two main approaches: probability sampling and non-probability sampling . The sampling method you use affects how confidently you can generalize your results to the population as a whole.

Probability sampling is the most statistically valid option, but it’s often difficult to achieve unless you’re dealing with a very small and accessible population.

For practical reasons, many studies use non-probability sampling, but it’s important to be aware of the limitations and carefully consider potential biases. You should always make an effort to gather a sample that’s as representative as possible of the population.

Case selection in qualitative research

In some types of qualitative designs, sampling may not be relevant.

For example, in an ethnography or a case study , your aim is to deeply understand a specific context, not to generalize to a population. Instead of sampling, you may simply aim to collect as much data as possible about the context you are studying.

In these types of design, you still have to carefully consider your choice of case or community. You should have a clear rationale for why this particular case is suitable for answering your research question .

For example, you might choose a case study that reveals an unusual or neglected aspect of your research problem, or you might choose several very similar or very different cases in order to compare them.

Data collection methods are ways of directly measuring variables and gathering information. They allow you to gain first-hand knowledge and original insights into your research problem.

You can choose just one data collection method, or use several methods in the same study.

Survey methods

Surveys allow you to collect data about opinions, behaviors, experiences, and characteristics by asking people directly. There are two main survey methods to choose from: questionnaires and interviews .

Observation methods

Observational studies allow you to collect data unobtrusively, observing characteristics, behaviors or social interactions without relying on self-reporting.

Observations may be conducted in real time, taking notes as you observe, or you might make audiovisual recordings for later analysis. They can be qualitative or quantitative.

Other methods of data collection

There are many other ways you might collect data depending on your field and topic.

If you’re not sure which methods will work best for your research design, try reading some papers in your field to see what kinds of data collection methods they used.

Secondary data

If you don’t have the time or resources to collect data from the population you’re interested in, you can also choose to use secondary data that other researchers already collected—for example, datasets from government surveys or previous studies on your topic.

With this raw data, you can do your own analysis to answer new research questions that weren’t addressed by the original study.

Using secondary data can expand the scope of your research, as you may be able to access much larger and more varied samples than you could collect yourself.

However, it also means you don’t have any control over which variables to measure or how to measure them, so the conclusions you can draw may be limited.

As well as deciding on your methods, you need to plan exactly how you’ll use these methods to collect data that’s consistent, accurate, and unbiased.

Planning systematic procedures is especially important in quantitative research, where you need to precisely define your variables and ensure your measurements are high in reliability and validity.

Operationalization

Some variables, like height or age, are easily measured. But often you’ll be dealing with more abstract concepts, like satisfaction, anxiety, or competence. Operationalization means turning these fuzzy ideas into measurable indicators.

If you’re using observations , which events or actions will you count?

If you’re using surveys , which questions will you ask and what range of responses will be offered?

You may also choose to use or adapt existing materials designed to measure the concept you’re interested in—for example, questionnaires or inventories whose reliability and validity has already been established.

Reliability and validity

Reliability means your results can be consistently reproduced, while validity means that you’re actually measuring the concept you’re interested in.

For valid and reliable results, your measurement materials should be thoroughly researched and carefully designed. Plan your procedures to make sure you carry out the same steps in the same way for each participant.

If you’re developing a new questionnaire or other instrument to measure a specific concept, running a pilot study allows you to check its validity and reliability in advance.

Sampling procedures

As well as choosing an appropriate sampling method , you need a concrete plan for how you’ll actually contact and recruit your selected sample.

That means making decisions about things like:

  • How many participants do you need for an adequate sample size?
  • What inclusion and exclusion criteria will you use to identify eligible participants?
  • How will you contact your sample—by mail, online, by phone, or in person?

If you’re using a probability sampling method , it’s important that everyone who is randomly selected actually participates in the study. How will you ensure a high response rate?

If you’re using a non-probability method , how will you avoid research bias and ensure a representative sample?

Data management

It’s also important to create a data management plan for organizing and storing your data.

Will you need to transcribe interviews or perform data entry for observations? You should anonymize and safeguard any sensitive data, and make sure it’s backed up regularly.

Keeping your data well-organized will save time when it comes to analyzing it. It can also help other researchers validate and add to your findings (high replicability ).

On its own, raw data can’t answer your research question. The last step of designing your research is planning how you’ll analyze the data.

Quantitative data analysis

In quantitative research, you’ll most likely use some form of statistical analysis . With statistics, you can summarize your sample data, make estimates, and test hypotheses.

Using descriptive statistics , you can summarize your sample data in terms of:

  • The distribution of the data (e.g., the frequency of each score on a test)
  • The central tendency of the data (e.g., the mean to describe the average score)
  • The variability of the data (e.g., the standard deviation to describe how spread out the scores are)

The specific calculations you can do depend on the level of measurement of your variables.

Using inferential statistics , you can:

  • Make estimates about the population based on your sample data.
  • Test hypotheses about a relationship between variables.

Regression and correlation tests look for associations between two or more variables, while comparison tests (such as t tests and ANOVAs ) look for differences in the outcomes of different groups.

Your choice of statistical test depends on various aspects of your research design, including the types of variables you’re dealing with and the distribution of your data.

Qualitative data analysis

In qualitative research, your data will usually be very dense with information and ideas. Instead of summing it up in numbers, you’ll need to comb through the data in detail, interpret its meanings, identify patterns, and extract the parts that are most relevant to your research question.

Two of the most common approaches to doing this are thematic analysis and discourse analysis .

There are many other ways of analyzing qualitative data depending on the aims of your research. To get a sense of potential approaches, try reading some qualitative research papers in your field.

If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

  • Simple random sampling
  • Stratified sampling
  • Cluster sampling
  • Likert scales
  • Reproducibility

 Statistics

  • Null hypothesis
  • Statistical power
  • Probability distribution
  • Effect size
  • Poisson distribution

Research bias

  • Optimism bias
  • Cognitive bias
  • Implicit bias
  • Hawthorne effect
  • Anchoring bias
  • Explicit bias

A research design is a strategy for answering your   research question . It defines your overall approach and determines how you will collect and analyze data.

A well-planned research design helps ensure that your methods match your research aims, that you collect high-quality data, and that you use the right kind of analysis to answer your questions, utilizing credible sources . This allows you to draw valid , trustworthy conclusions.

Quantitative research designs can be divided into two main categories:

  • Correlational and descriptive designs are used to investigate characteristics, averages, trends, and associations between variables.
  • Experimental and quasi-experimental designs are used to test causal relationships .

Qualitative research designs tend to be more flexible. Common types of qualitative design include case study , ethnography , and grounded theory designs.

The priorities of a research design can vary depending on the field, but you usually have to specify:

  • Your research questions and/or hypotheses
  • Your overall approach (e.g., qualitative or quantitative )
  • The type of design you’re using (e.g., a survey , experiment , or case study )
  • Your data collection methods (e.g., questionnaires , observations)
  • Your data collection procedures (e.g., operationalization , timing and data management)
  • Your data analysis methods (e.g., statistical tests  or thematic analysis )

A sample is a subset of individuals from a larger population . Sampling means selecting the group that you will actually collect data from in your research. For example, if you are researching the opinions of students in your university, you could survey a sample of 100 students.

In statistics, sampling allows you to test a hypothesis about the characteristics of a population.

Operationalization means turning abstract conceptual ideas into measurable observations.

For example, the concept of social anxiety isn’t directly observable, but it can be operationally defined in terms of self-rating scores, behavioral avoidance of crowded places, or physical anxiety symptoms in social situations.

Before collecting data , it’s important to consider how you will operationalize the variables that you want to measure.

A research project is an academic, scientific, or professional undertaking to answer a research question . Research projects can take many forms, such as qualitative or quantitative , descriptive , longitudinal , experimental , or correlational . What kind of research approach you choose will depend on your topic.

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IM February 2024 – Drilling metrics rebound for a strong start to 2024

A Green Lender Adopts a Robust Approach for Assessing Project Finance Credit Risks

MediaTalk | Season 2 Ep.1: Broadcast's Big Year

Global M&A by the Numbers Q4 2023

Investment Banking Essentials: February 21

  • 22 Feb, 2024
  • Author Tony Lenoir Adam Wilson
  • Tags Metals & Mining

After a slow end to 2023, January started 2024 with a bang, seeing a significant boost across all drilling metrics. Drilling increased among all project stages in January, with late-stage increasing 44% to 121 projects, minesite up 40% to 49 and early-stage up 10% to 110. Both projects drilled and drillholes also saw month-over-month increases in January, but those metrics were down year over year, falling 29% and 51%, respectively, compared to January 2023.

SNL Image

Access January drill results data in the accompanying Excel spreadsheet.

Projects reporting drilling jumped 28% in January after two consecutive months of declines at the end of 2023. Increases were seen in gold, copper, nickel, lead-zinc, silver and specialty metals, with only small declines in platinum group metals and minor base metals projects. Drillholes reported in January soared, up 52% after a 45-month low in December 2023. All metals saw increases in holes drilled, with the exception of the platinum group metals, which dropped slightly.

SNL Image

Canada overtook Australia in project count for the first time since January 2023, jumping a staggering 51% to 83 projects. Australia kept steady with 75 projects reporting, and the US saw a substantial increase month over month, up 48% to 34 projects reporting.

SNL Image

January's top result came from Australian Securities Exchange-listed BHP Group Ltd.'s Olympic Dam copper mine in South Australia, which reported an intersect of 580 meters grading 2.22% copper. Results from recent exploration activity at the mine show that mineralization above 1% copper grade continues 2 km along strike and more than 1 km in depth. The extent of mineralization has not yet been discovered, and further drilling will be required for an updated estimate of mineral resources.

TSX Venture Exchange-listed Fireweed Metals Corp.'s Macmillan Pass zinc project in the Yukon turned in January's second-best result. The company reported its best results to date from the Boundary Zone area of the project, with the highlight being an intercept of 477 meters grading 5.65% zinc. Step-out holes continue to increase the extent of known mineralization and support the interpretation of a continuous high-grade feeder zone. Assays are pending for 19 more drillholes from the Boundary Zone, the Tom deposit and the Jason deposit.

Rounding out the top three results is TSX Venture Exchange-listed Lumina Gold Corp.'s Cangrejos gold project in Ecuador. The company announced results from its 2023 drilling campaign in support of the ongoing feasibility study, including an intersect of 50 meters grading 23.48 grams per metric ton of gold.

SNL Image

TSX-listed Aya Gold & Silver Inc. reported the most drillholes in January, with 156 holes between its Zgounder mine and Boumadine project, both in Morocco. Aya — the only TSX-listed pure silver mining company — is based in Canada and operates solely in Morocco, where its Zgounder mine is under expansion and its Boumadine project is in the prefeasibility stage of development.

SNL Image

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This article was published by S&P Global Market Intelligence and not by S&P Global Ratings, which is a separately managed division of S&P Global.

Gain access to our full news & research coverage and the industry-specific data that informs our insights.

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  1. A Beginner's Guide to Starting the Research Process

    Step 4: Create a research design. The research design is a practical framework for answering your research questions. It involves making decisions about the type of data you need, the methods you'll use to collect and analyze it, and the location and timescale of your research. There are often many possible paths you can take to answering ...

  2. How to Write a Research Paper

    Choose a research paper topic. Conduct preliminary research. Develop a thesis statement. Create a research paper outline. Write a first draft of the research paper. Write the introduction. Write a compelling body of text. Write the conclusion. The second draft.

  3. How to Get Started With a Research Project: 12 Steps

    Just be careful that you don't end up stuck with an idea you want to do, but are afraid to do because you know someone else did it before. 4. Think from all angles. If you have at least a little direction based on the project guidelines, take that basic direction and start turning it over and over in your mind.

  4. Writing a Research Paper Introduction

    Table of contents. Step 1: Introduce your topic. Step 2: Describe the background. Step 3: Establish your research problem. Step 4: Specify your objective (s) Step 5: Map out your paper. Research paper introduction examples. Frequently asked questions about the research paper introduction.

  5. The Ultimate Guide to Writing a Research Paper

    Few things strike more fear in academics than the accursed research paper, a term synonymous with long hours and hard work.Luckily there's a secret to help you get through them. As long as you know how to write a research paper properly, you'll find they're not so bad . . . or at least less painful.. In this guide we concisely explain how to write an academic research paper step by step.

  6. Basic Steps in the Research Process

    Step 1: Identify and develop your topic. Selecting a topic can be the most challenging part of a research assignment. Since this is the very first step in writing a paper, it is vital that it be done correctly. Here are some tips for selecting a topic: Select a topic within the parameters set by the assignment.

  7. How to Write a Research Proposal

    Introduces your topic. States your problem statement and the questions your research aims to answer. Provides context for your research. In a research proposal, an introduction can be a few paragraphs long. It should be concise, but don't feel like you need to cram all of your information into one paragraph.

  8. Start Your Research

    Develop a Research Question. Somewhere in between your initial idea and settling on a research question, you'll need to do background research on how scholars in a particular subject area have discussed your topic. You may find background research in your textbook or class readings, academic books in the library's collection, or reference sources.

  9. How Do I Get Started in Research?

    Generally speaking, there are two ways Stanford students can engage in research: You can assist a faculty member with their research project. You can pursue your own independent research project (guided by a faculty mentor), where the research question and methodology are determined by you. Some students just assist in faculty research and then ...

  10. How to Start Your Research: A DIY Guide

    Understanding your assignment is the first step in producing a successful research paper or project. The tools in the side column will help you understand and plan out how to complete a research paper/project assignment. Below is a checklist of questions to consider before choosing a topic. Read your assignment as soon as you get it.

  11. Research Design

    Step 2: Choose a type of research design. Step 3: Identify your population and sampling method. Step 4: Choose your data collection methods. Step 5: Plan your data collection procedures. Step 6: Decide on your data analysis strategies. Frequently asked questions. Introduction. Step 1. Step 2.

  12. PDF How to write a research project

    Making your research S.M.A.R.T. Before looking at the small print of doing a research project, it's worth taking a moment to try to get a picture of what the ideal research project looks like. The best word to describe it is S.M.A.R.T. It stands for Specific, Measurable, Advantageous, Realistic, Time-framed. These themes will come up over and ...

  13. How to do a research project for your academic study

    Methodology - the methods you will use for your primary research. Findings and results - presenting the data from your primary research. Discussion - summarising and analysing your research and what you have found out. Conclusion - how the project went (successes and failures), areas for future study.

  14. LibGuides: How to Start a Research Project: Home

    Step 3: Develop a Research Question. After you've identified and narrowed a research topic, you should re-state it in the form of a research question. Phrasing your topic in the form of a question helps to direct your research process. Asking whether a fact or statistic directly answers your research question can help you find the most relevant ...

  15. A Beginner's Guide to Starting the Research Process

    This describes who the problem affects, why research is needed, and how your research project will contribute to solving it. >>Read more about defining a research problem. Step 3: Formulate research questions. Next, based on the problem statement, you need to write one or more research questions. These target exactly what you want to find out.

  16. How to plan a research project

    Step 3: Review previous research. In academic research, from articles to books, it's common to find a section called a 'literature review'. The purpose of that section is to describe the state of the art in knowledge on the research question that a project has posed.

  17. PDF Strategies for Essay Writing

    When you read the assignment prompt, you should do the following: • Look for action verbs. Verbs like analyze, compare, discuss, explain, make an argument, propose a solution, trace, or research can help you understand what you're being asked to do with an assignment. Unless the instructor has specified otherwise, most of your paper ...

  18. How to undertake a research project and write a scientific paper

    Here are some simple steps that may contribute to an organised start on the project. You need a protocol but first you must be clear about what the project will involve. Undertake a literature search on the suggested topic. Read all the papers from the last ten years and summarise them on a single page of A4.

  19. How to begin your research from scratch

    🔥Join my LIVE course on Research Writing & Presentation starting 10th Feb, 2024: https://wiseupcommunications.com/course/research-live/If you are nervous ab...

  20. How To Write A Research Proposal

    Here is an explanation of each step: 1. Title and Abstract. Choose a concise and descriptive title that reflects the essence of your research. Write an abstract summarizing your research question, objectives, methodology, and expected outcomes. It should provide a brief overview of your proposal. 2.

  21. Basic Steps to Building a Research Program

    Planning From Within. Taking an entrepreneurial approach is a successful mechanism when developing a clinical research program. Maintaining a sustainable program requires fiscal planning, much like a business. When developing the financial infrastructure, it is helpful to consider budgeting from both broad and narrow perspectives.

  22. Martians Wanted: NASA Opens Call for Simulated Yearlong Mars Mission

    With the first CHAPEA crew more than halfway through their yearlong mission, NASA is using research gained through the simulated missions to help inform crew health and performance support during Mars expeditions. Under NASA's Artemis campaign, ...

  23. What Is a Research Design

    A research design is a strategy for answering your research question using empirical data. Creating a research design means making decisions about: Your overall research objectives and approach. Whether you'll rely on primary research or secondary research. Your sampling methods or criteria for selecting subjects. Your data collection methods.

  24. IM February 2024

    After a slow end to 2023, January started 2024 with a bang, seeing a significant boost across all drilling metrics. Drilling increased among all project stages in January, with late-stage increasing 44% to 121 projects, minesite up 40% to 49 and early-stage up 10% to 110.