What is Research?

At its most basic, research is the process of “finding things out.” You have a question, or a topic you’d like to learn more about, and you go out into the world to find what, or who, can give you the answers to that question. Rather than a thing you discover, it is the activity of brainstorming, searching, evaluating, and synthesizing. You are actively engaging with the world around you – bringing your own ideas and experiences to the table – to build and sometimes share knowledge.

Along the way, you interact with materials (both physical and digital), people, organizations, and larger systems that are steeped in history and impacted by social, economic, and legal norms and expectations. Some of these structures are visible, and some are not. All of them influence how information is created, preserved, organized, and shared. Learning these influences will help you navigate the research process successfully and thoughtfully.

Not only is this “information landscape” deceptively complex, but the act of research is sometimes like an iceberg – simple at the surface, but much larger-scale than your initial expectations as you dive deeper. You may find yourself overwhelmed by the massive amounts of information available. Where do you start? What makes one source better than another? What do you do with all that information once you have it?

Don’t worry. We aren’t expecting you to become advanced researchers in eight weeks. Finding, navigating, evaluating, and even producing information is a skill you’ll be developing your whole life as society and technology changes around us. Plus, some of you may pursue research as a career, in which case you’ll get rigorous training on expectations for your field in later coursework.

Our goal is to focus on the essential skills you need to get started, plus some background knowledge that will help you think critically about the “information landscape” as it exists today. We are focusing on just a few steps of the larger research process.

Steps of the Research Process

Saying that research happens in “steps” is a bit too simple. In reality, you’ll probably bounce between different steps as you discover new knowledge, make new connections, and decide to pursue different paths. However, it is helpful to know what these steps are as a starting point:

1. Choosing a topic. Before you can start searching, you need to know what information you’re looking for! Keep in mind that your starting topic may adjust or change entirely based on what you find once you start searching. You may get new ideas, find a more specific topic you find interesting, or have trouble finding sources on your original idea.
2. Getting background information. If you’re new to a topic, you may need foundational knowledge before doing deeper research. You may use either the Internet or library resources (like encyclopedias) to define new vocabulary, explore historical timelines and contexts for an issue, learn about important people and places, and more.
3. Finding sources. This is the process that most people are referring to when they say “research,” and it’s also going to be a significant focus in this class. Finding sources requires knowing what different source types are, where and how they’re organized, and how to locate them with modern search tools.
4. Evaluating sources. In other words, how do you decide whether a source is trustworthy and relevant to your research? We’ll also cover evaluation basics in this class.
5. Synthesizing information. This stage – where you make connections between sources and use those ideas to support your own argument and voice – is closely linked to the writing process, or whichever other medium you use to share your findings.
6. Citing sources. This stage is often forgotten by beginner researchers, but it is VERY IMPORTANT. Research builds on the work of scholars who came before us and involves sharing our own findings with our peers. To do so, it’s crucial to correctly share which sources we used to create our own work.

Again, for this class we’re focusing on just some of these stages – finding, evaluating, and citing sources – plus taking a broader look at why the “information landscape” works the way it does. We hope these new skills and knowledge base will provide a helpful support for you as a beginner researcher!