There are many reasons why you may need to conduct research. Perhaps you are the owner of a business and want to find ways to improve it, maybe you are a student and are researching for a PhD, maybe you want to create a new and better product and processes, or maybe you are writing a new book. Whatever your reason, research is a great way to add authority and depth to your understanding and how you present your findings. If you have a project that you need to get on with, you may be wondering how best to go about the research phase. To help you out, we have come up with a few suggestions:
Create a Focus, or Topic of Research
If you don’t really know what you are researching, you may find it very difficult to come up with useful insights. You may spend hours or days reading a lot of interesting things, but none of it is useful to your needs. So start by identifying your focus. Perhaps it is a research question or some particular topic that is of interest. It doesn’t matter. Spend some time refining your idea to make it as simple as possible, meaning it needs to be focussed and to the point.
Identify Key Sources of Information
A good topic will mean that you have plenty of sources to choose from. For example, click here to see some comprehensive Internet research data. However, you may well find that you are overwhelmed with information, which can soon make your hunt for insight turn into a nightmare. Instead, look at the sources available and choose up to five to focus on. If you try reading 20 sources at once, you will get nowhere, so you need to be picky and stick with your choice. By focusing on a few sources, you will be able to develop a better and deeper understanding of an alternative perspectives, and it allows you to engage with the material in a deep way. It helps keep you focused, and it can pit towards other useful resources if you need them. Depending on how you want to research and your budget, you could employ someone to conduct a literature review to help you identify some hugely beneficial insights. That could be extremely good for business and scientific research.
Read and Make Notes
Now you have the key sources, you need to actually read them. To help you speed this process up, think about the focus of your question and read the section heading to see if anything is directly related. If not, then you can probably pass that section. Maybe read the first few lines of a paragraph to make that call too. You need to read effectively for your purpose, not thoroughly ready every word of your source. If you have any questions upon reading a section, ensure you write them down. Use a pencil to underline keywords and phrases and have a notebook beside you or write in the margins. Make a summary of what you have learned so that you do not forget anything key to your research thesis.
