TECHNICAL RESEARCH

IFFAT FARZANA ANJUM DEPARTMENT OF BIOINFORMATICS & BIOTECHNOLOGY INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY ISLAMABAD

Technical Research

Goals

Distinguish the difference between researching at school and at work Identify and locate secondary sources Document secondary sources Evaluate sources Take notes from sources Collect primary data

CONDUCTING TECHNICAL RESEARCH

Information is everywhere;

Library where there is a building full of information.

If you want to know something, you only have to look in the right place. The problem that technical researchers face is not a scarcity of information. The problem is in understanding:

What information they need, Where it is, How it is stored, How to retrieve it, and What to do with it after they find it.

RESEARCHING AT WORK

Useful information that is presented effectively can determine whether an enterprise is successful or unsuccessful. Before you can write at work, you may need to conduct research.

In fact, many decisions and actions at work require more information than you have at hand.

Before you conduct the research, you must make sure you know:

Who is involved & Who will use your research? What do these people need to know? Where will you search for informationwithin or outside your organization or both? Why are you researching this topic? How will you collect information, and how will it be used?

RESEARCHING AT WORK

You also need a strategy for:

Finding and evaluating the right material and the best sources. Conducting the research and reading efficiently. Carefully and accurately recording the information you find so that you do not accidentally plagiarize or violate the owners copyright. Documenting where you found the information so that you or someone else can find it again. Secondary sources: are indirect or secondhand reports of information, such as the description of an event the writer or speaker did not witness. Primary sources: are direct or firsthand reports of facts or observations, such as an eyewitness account or a diary.

Employees have two basic sources of information:

The writer or speaker is the one who witnessed the event or developed the idea.

FINDING SECONDARY DATA

To solve most problems, your first step is to explore the available secondary data.

After all, you do not want to reinvent the wheel.

For work-related research, you will probably use one or more of the following sources of secondary data:

Your organizations correspondence & report archives (collections or repositories of documents), A library catalog, Periodicals, & General reference materials.

FINDING SECONDARY DATA

Correspondence and Report Archives:

A logical place to begin looking for an answer to a problem is in the organization where the problem exists. Most organizations keep archives of all correspondence and reports. Employees may use archived documents to learn about the history of the problem or topic. They may find letters, memos, or reports explaining

When problems were first noted, What kinds of investigation were conducted, and Whether a solution was successful.

FINDING SECONDARY DATA

Library Catalog: The researchers next stop is the companys library or a public or academic library.

Company libraries focus specifically on the needs of employees. e.g. A software companys library may contain books and journals specializing in software development and marketing. In a corporate, public, or research library, employees looking for secondary data may start locating materials through the library catalog.

The library catalog helps researchers find books, pamphlets, periodicals, audiovisual materials, and other holdings. Most libraries have computerized catalogs that are searchable by subject, title, and author and sometimes by other categories such as date or keyword.

FINDING SECONDARY DATA

Periodicals: Magazines, journals, newsletters, and newspapers are called periodicals because they are published at specified intervals of time. When you need current information, periodicals whether online or in printare one type of source you should seek. Periodicals are more current than books, but newspapers, especially daily papers, generally provide even more current information than periodicals. Today most periodical searches are conducted electronically. Many web-based databases, available to libraries by subscription, index periodical content. Gale, EBSCOhost, ProQuest, and Elsevier are some of the best-known database providers.

FINDING SECONDARY DATA

General Reference Materials: General reference materials such as encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, almanacs, and fact books are quick ways to get information. Some websites even offer access to reference tools. For example, the Encyclopedia Britannica website provides an encyclopedia, a dictionary, and an atlas.

FINDING SECONDARY DATA

Electronic Resources: Computers connected to the Internet provide a wealth of information on countless topics. Because the Internet is a worldwide collection of computer networks, it is an information highway connecting government, military, educational, and commercial organizations and private citizens to a range of services and resources. Finding Electronic Information:

Search the Web using a search engine such as Yahoo, Google

Use these strategies TO LIMIT A SEARCH: When you connect keywords with AND, the search yields both keywords.

Using + gets the same results.

Yields: Sites that deal with juvenile diabetes only

Ex: juvenile AND diabetes/ Ex: juvenile + diabetes

When you connect keywords with NOT, the search yields the first keyword, not the second.

Using - gets the same results. Ex: diabetes NOT juvenile Ex: diabetes juvenile

When you surround keywords with quotation marks, the search yields the same keywords in the same order beside each other.

Yields: Sites that deal with any type of diabetes except juvenile.

Ex: capital punishment Yields: Sites that include the same term, capital punishment, but not capital alone or punishment alone. When you connect keywords with OR, the search yields either keyword. Ex: diabetes OR juvenile Yields: Sites that contain diabetes and/or juvenile as the topic When you place an asterisk (*) after the word, the search yields words that contain the base or root word. Ex: biblio* Yields: Sites that include bibliography, bibliographer, bibliophile, bibliotheca, and so on.

Use these strategies TO EXPAND A SEARCH:

DOCUMENTING SECONDARY SOURCES

Documentation is a system of giving credit to another person (writer or speaker) for his or her work.

It is using a citation system to note whose ideas or words the writer is using and where he or she found them.

Plagiarism is the act of using another persons words and/or ideas without properly documenting or giving credit.

While plagiarism is a serious academic offense, sometimes causing students to fail a course or to be expelled from school, it is even more serious in the workplace. Theft of another persons work often results in lost jobs, lawsuits, and ruined reputations.

Documentation

Documentation comes in two parts:

The Works Cited (or bibliography), a list of sources at the end of the document, & The internal citations.

Bibliography and Works Cited: While collecting data, researchers develop a working bibliography. When the research is finished, writers use the lists final form to prepare a bibliography. A bibliography has three purposes:

It establishes credibility by showing readers what sources you consulted; It allows others to find your information path so they can continue or evaluate the study; & It gives credit to other peoples thoughts, words, and sentences that you used.

Documentation

Internal Citations People will assume that ideas are yours unless they see a citation in the text. Citations are written indications of the source of borrowed materials. Enter internal documentation immediately after each summary, paraphrase, and direct quotation to tell your reader where you found the information.

EVALUATING SOURCES

Not everything that appears in print (or on your computer, radio, or TV) is true. In fact, many mistakes, untruths, and half-truths that you would not want to repeat are published. These guidelines for evaluating sources will help you get started.

Publication Date: Authors Credentials: Depth and Coverage: What is the electronic address? What are the references and/or links? What do design and presentation suggest?

Special Considerations for Electronic Sources

TAKING NOTES FROM SOURCES

Employees doing research note information they collect, just as you do when writing a paper in school. When you discover data you believe will be helpful, write complete, careful notes. You can use borrowed information in your notes three ways:

1. Summary:

To summarize is to condense longer material, keeping essential or main ideas and omitting unnecessary parts such as examples and illustrations. Be consistent with the sources idea, but use your words.

2. Paraphrase 3. Direct quotation

TAKING NOTES FROM SOURCES

Paraphrase: To paraphrase is to present someone elses idea in ones own words, phrases, and sentence structure.

While a summary should be shorter than the original material, a paraphrase generally is about the same length or even a bit longer than the original.

Read the original carefully. Put it aside. Write the idea in your own way. Compare your version with the original. Make certain you have used your own words and sentence structure and have accurately conveyed the authors idea.

Example:

The original passage: Students frequently overuse direct quotation in taking notes, and as a result they overuse quotations in the final [research] paper. Probably only about 10% of your final manuscript should appear as directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit the amount of exact transcribing of source materials while taking notes. Lester, James D. Writing Research Papers. 2nd ed. (1976): 46-47. A legitimate paraphrase: In research papers students often quote excessively, failing to keep quoted material down to a desirable level. Since the problem usually originates during note taking, it is essential to minimize the material recorded verbatim (Lester 46-47). An acceptable summary: Students should take just a few notes in direct quotation from sources to help minimize the amount of quoted material in a research paper (Lester 46-47).

TAKING NOTES FROM SOURCES

Direct Quotation: The third way writers incorporate material into their documents, is the use of borrowed ideas, words, phrases, and sentences exactly as they appear in the original document. Introduce Quotations: Writers introduce quotations to make the writing smooth. Do not let quoted sentences stand alone. You can integrate quotations into your text with words such as according to one expert or with complete sentences such as the following: Benjamin Franklin gave this advice in Poor Richards Almanac: Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

TAKING NOTES FROM SOURCES

Indicate Added or Omitted Material: When you need to add to or edit a direct quotation for clarity or conciseness, use brackets to set your changes apart from the quoted words, as in the sentences below. Original: After the board meeting in which a 2 percent fine was approved, she signed her resignation letter. Addition for clarity: After the board meeting in which a 2 percent fine was approved, [Maureen OKeefe] signed her resignation letter.

COLLECTING PRIMARY DATA

To solve some work-related concerns, primary data may be more help. Primary data is gathered through field research: surveys, interviews, observation, and experimentation. Some field research is conducted in person, some by telephone, and some online. Surveys: gather facts, beliefs, attitudes, and opinions from people.

A survey works only when you know what you want to learn before you begin. Once you decide what you want to learn, you should

carefully select your audience or respondents, decide how you will administer your survey, and carefully plan your questions.

Survey

When you choose an audience, you must select a sample broad enough to represent that audience. A population is the target group from which a person wants to gather data. A sample is a subgroup with the same characteristics as the entire population. Once you know your audience, the next step is to decide how to administer the survey.

You can administer questionnaires in person, by mail, by telephone, or by e-mail. This decision is based on the kind of data you seek, how much time you have, & what your budget is.

Survey

Some suggestions as you prepare for survey:

Explain why you need the information and how it will be used. Convince your audience to participate. Logically order questions beginning with easy-to-answer items. Ask only necessary questions. Write clear and nonleading questions. Make the purpose of the question clear. Stick to one topic per question. Plan for tabulation.

Interviews

Interviews give you access to experts facts, opinions, and attitudes that you might not find any other way. However, interviewing can be time-consuming and costly. To make the process as successful as possible, use the following guidelines:

Define your purpose. Make an appointment. Plan and write your questions. Conduct the interview in a competent and courteous manner.

Observation

Professionals frequently rely on observation to solve problems in their jobs. Medical professionals observe patients to diagnose illnesses. Crop scientists observe the numbers and types of weeds and insects in a field to decide whether the crop should be sprayed. However, you need to be careful when gathering data by observation.

Observers may be biased, or subjects may act differently if they know they are being studied. Further, you should strive to interpret data objectively. Do not begin with preconceived ideas.

Observation

To collect credible data by observation, use the following guidelines:

Train observers in what to look for, what to record, and how to record. Make systematic observations. Observe only external actions. Quantify findings whenever possible. Support your observations. Consider the time, equipment, and cost.

Experimentation

Validity and Reliability

Experimentation is the act of causing an event so that an observer can test an assumption or a hypothesis. Experiments test whether a change in one factor will cause another factor to change. Valid data are data that provide an accurate measurement of what an individual intends to measure. Reliable data are data that provide results that can be duplicated under similar circumstances.