7.1: Using Research
Learning Objectives
- Identify the uses of research in the workplace
- Explore the role of research in technical communications
- Identify possible challenges of research
How Will You Use Research in the Workplace?
Research in the workplace ranges from basic searches for information to writing reports of several hundred pages that require both extensive primary and secondary research. Being able to find the most useful sources quickly will help you streamline your work. To find the most useful sources, you should ask yourself why you are using sources in the first place: What do you need to know? What do your readers need to know? How can research help?
Possible Uses of Research in the Workplace
- Provide a deep look into a narrow topic.
- Provide a broad overview of a new topic.
- Obtain up-to-date information on a topic that changes quickly.
- Save time by using (with acknowledgement) someone else’s work.
- Offer a new perspective on a topic.
- Test ideas to see if they’re sound.
- Help solve a problem by showing how someone else solved it.
- Bring together different perspectives to consider a problem from all sides.
- Allow analysis of the opinions of many different people.
- Show how someone in a different industry, company or location solved a problem.
When Should You Use Research in Your Technical Reports?
Using research in your reports increases their persuasiveness. The more important the decision to be made, the more substantial the research component will be. Providing evidence from a variety of credible research sources (including academic studies) increases your chances of presenting a persuasive argument.
In some situations, you’ll have a limited amount of time for your research. In these cases, prior knowledge of where to look for certain types of information allows you to work efficiently. In other situations, some of the information you need might not be readily available, and you might have to use your critical thinking skills to find research that is relevant in similar contexts, allowing you to use that information to make projections for your own context. It’s also possible that, in some cases, you’ll start with an idea and then find evidence that seems to go against your initial intuition/hypothesis. This can be discouraging, but there is value to this experience, too: your research might prevent you from pursuing a dead end and put you on the right track instead.
What Are Some Challenges with Research?
As far as student research projects are concerned, some common research challenges may include the following:
- Choosing a topic that is too broad for a relatively short research report and cannot be discussed effectively in the scope of the report.
- Using the first 5-10 results found through a Google search.
- Choosing sources that are not credible or off-topic.
- Citing research incorrectly or omitting citations.
- Spending many hours on research without a clear focus/goal.
- Finding too many possible sources due to a broad research focus/question.
- Getting overwhelmed with the complexity of searching in a library database.
If you experience one of these or another challenge, be sure to consult a Centennial College librarian for support. You can access the librarians and other library resources here.
TRY IT
Exercise 7.1.A: Reflecting on Research
What do you know about research already? Review the following questions to refresh your prior learning on this topic.
- Think about the last time that you did research. What kind of research did you do? Were you able to find all the sources you needed? If not, what kind of sources did you struggle to find?
- How do you use the internet when you research? What kind of sites do you visit? Why?
- What does academic integrity mean to you? How does it impact how you use sources?
- How do you determine what sources to trust online? What questions should you ask about sources?
References and Attributions
Attributions
Content on this page is adapted from Advanced Professional Communication by Melissa Ashman; Arley Cruthers; eCampusOntario; Ontario Business Faculty; and University of Minnesota, which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
Content in the original OER is adapted from Business Writing For Everyone by Arley Cruthers, which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
