Research is the process of investigating a question or hypothesis. This can be done in a variety of ways, including gathering and analyzing data, and testing and documenting the results. It is used across a wide range of academic and professional fields.
The purpose of research is to advance knowledge by identifying and solving problems. Research can be exploratory or constructive in nature, with each type producing different types of observations and insights that need to be explained. Research is also iterative, with one research project producing data that creates new hypotheses to test, and so on.
When conducting research, students should start with reliable sources. This means avoiding general web content like Wikipedia, which is often edited and may contain inaccurate information. Instead, begin with resources such as professional standards organizations, which offer reliable definitions of terms and specifications. You can also search for the articles of scholars whose work you admire. These sources are generally easy to find; many have an abstract and index that make them readily available, and their websites include a link for contacting the scholar.
There are two main forms of research: qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative research involves observing and listening to people in order to understand how they feel about something. It can be used to answer questions about what causes something, or to gain insight into the experience of a group of people. Quantitative research organizes data into numbers and patterns to answer specific questions. It can be used to test a theory or hypothesis, and the statistical methods that it employs are typically experimental, correlational, or survey.