7.2: Starting and Narrowing Research
Learning Objectives
- Determine how to start your research
- Identify the purpose of using a research question
How Should You Start Your Research?
If you are not sure where to start in your research, you can get some preliminary ideas through a basic internet search, looking for things that seem interesting and relevant and then letting one thing lead to another as you keep reading and thinking. At this stage, Wikipedia is one source you could use. You should not use Wikipedia as one of your research sources because it’s not considered a credible source. However, you can use the references on a Wikipedia page to help start your research. Those references may be citable scholarly sources that you could eventually decide to use.
This initial reading could cause you to narrow your topic further, which is highly advisable because narrower topics lead to greater specificity and a more in-depth perspective. As a general rule, always do some more reading about that narrower topic once you have it, so you can learn more about it and assimilate some terms used by experts who have studied your narrower topic. Those terms will prove helpful when you start looking for research sources later. For instance, if you were going to do research about the treatment for humans with bird flu, this background reading would teach you that professionals and scholars usually use the term avian influenza instead of bird flu when they write about it. (They also often use H1N1 or H1N9 to identify the strain.) If you didn’t learn that, you may miss the kinds of sources you’d eventually need for your report.
After this preliminary work, you are ready to start developing the research question(s) you will try to answer. In the workplace, you may have varying degrees of control over your research question. As you progress in your career, you may spend less time hunting for background information because you are more familiar with the industry and because you know where to look for relevant information.
Why Use a Research Question?
Whether you’re writing a report for ENGL 250 or doing workplace research, you’ll be more efficient if you begin with a clear research question. By defining exactly what you are trying to find out, research questions influence the steps of the research process. For instance, if you’re seeking background information about a recent development in the field of artificial intelligence, a research question will make it possible for you to more effectively find credible sources that are relevant to the topic.
Most of us look for answers to questions every day (e.g., how can I treat the pain in my left foot), and we often act on the answers to those questions (e.g, frequent application of ice and rest/avoidance of behaviour that is causing the pain). Are research questions any different from most of the questions for which we seek information? Yes. Research questions cannot be answered by a quick web search. Answering them involves critical thinking. Research questions require more sources of information to answer and, consequently, take more time to answer. That’s why research questions are so key to workplace research.
Here is an example of using a research question:
Example: Using a Research Question
Ravneet, a college student, is doing an internship at a small press in Toronto. Authors and agents submit children’s books for potential publication, and Ravneet is responsible for reading them all and passing on the most promising ones to the editorial team. One day, the head editor says that she is frustrated by the lack of diversity in the children’s book manuscripts that she is receiving. She asks Ravneet to do some research on this issue. Ravneet isn’t sure where to start. The topic of diversity in children’s book publishing is broad. She begins by doing some background research. A Toronto Star articles includes survey results that found 45% of main characters in middle-grade children’s books are white, 24% are POC characters, 2.8% are LGBTQ, and 2.8% are visibly disabled (Dundas, 2020, para. 6). Then, she looks at the submission history for her press for the last few months and realizes that the breakdown is pretty similar. Ravneet narrows her research scope from “diversity in publishing” to this question: “How can our small Toronto-based press encourage more diverse submissions?” If she had found that the press received diverse submissions but only accepted books with white main characters, her research focus would have been different. Her question is now both more manageable (which will save her time) and more useful given her company’s situation. From there, Ravneet does the following:
- Identifies keywords to use in her search: “small press” AND “Toronto” AND “diverse submissions.”
- Reads articles about how other presses have managed to get more diverse applications.
- Follows some popular BIPOC authors on Twitter, learns about some of the challenges they’ve faced in the publishing industry, and interviews several of them to gather even more information.
- Discovers that authors with a disability face additional barriers.
- Interviews a few agents to get their perspective.
- Looks at the website copy for different presses and realizes that her company’s website copy could be more inclusive.
- Writes a short report outlining her findings.
Identification of a specific research question allowed Ravneet to focus her research on relevant and informative findings. Ravneet also kept an open mind throughout the process. She didn’t start with a preconceived idea of her own that she wanted to prove; instead, she went where the evidence took her. As a result, her editor was able to use her research to make positive changes within the press.
As is the case in this example, keywords capture the main idea of what is being researched. You should use keywords to search for the most relevant information on your topic when searching Google or Centennial’s library database.
When searching for information,
-
- refine keywords after your first search;
- refine again after subsequent searches;
- look at credible sources to find more possible keywords;
- begin with a set of three keywords to ensure your search is not too broad or too narrow;
- keep an open mind, as some search results might be different than what you originally expected.
TRY IT
Exercise 7.2.A: Research Questions & Keywords
Develop a research question and three or more keywords for each of the following scenarios:
- You need to find research on security issues with mobile networks for the background section of your formal report.
- You are writing a short report on the possible future designs of pediatric wheelchairs and need to find research to include in the background and analysis sections of the report.
- You’re writing a proposal on the antimicrobial effects of vinegar on the shelf-life of fresh fruits and need to know what work has been done on this topic previously.
References & Attributions
References
Dundas, D. (2020, December 17). Who do we see in Canadian children’s books? Toronto Star. https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/2020/12/17/who-do-we-see-in-canadian-childrens-books-the-stars-second-annual-diversity-survey-tells-the-story.html
Attributions
Content 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 is adapted from Communication Commons, which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
