Week 4 : Own research 2

Question 1

What is the research literature?

Answer 1

• all the published research in a field
• consists almost entirely of 2 types of sources…
  (1) articles in professional journals… articles are either empirical research reports or review articles, dbl blind peer review
  (2) Scholarly books… monograph (written by few authors), edited volumes (diff authors for diff parts)

Question 2

Wrong way to do a literature review

Answer 2

1. exhaustively finding + reading ALL research done on a topic
2. make sure it reads like a list of previous works, not a narrative
3. Just slap ur own research idea on top of that, do not integrate

Question 3

Why conduct a literature review?

Answer 3

1. figuring out what has all been done and what hasn’t
2. inform hypothesis
3. inform design

Question 4

What is a literature review?

Answer 4

• an organized summary of the most relevant work that has been published on the specific topic of interest
• NOT exhaustive list
• it has to be relevant your new project

Question 5

Where is research?

Answer 5

EVERYWHERE
- journals, books, articles, blogs
Differ in target audience…
- scientific vs lay audience
Differ in terms of originality…
- primary source vs secondary source

Question 6

Primary vs secondary sources

Answer 6

PRIMARY…
- where research originally published, for experts, preferred cuz include full methodologies + cite claims made
SECONDARY…
- summarizes info from primary sources, for non-experts, less preferred cuz incomplete/inaccurate

Question 7

Predatory + low quality journals

Answer 7

• predatory journals… look peer-reviewed but aren’t, pay to publish in them by page
• spotting a low quality journal… impact factor under 1 or journals w super specific titles

Question 8

How to find good sources?

Answer 8

• Locate couple major contributions first (influential + classic)
• papers w/ many citations, in high-quality journals
• PsycINFO + Google Scholar

Question 9

Steps

Answer 9

1. basic keyword search
2. find few relevant papers in good journal3. get key ‘classic’ papers they cite
3. do a new search with better terms

Question 10

Selectivity

Answer 10

Focus on sources that help you do 4 basic things…
(1) refine your research question
(2) identify appropriate research methods
(3) place your research in the context of previous research
(4) write an effective research paper

Question 11

Research questions

Answer 11

a good research question…
(1) is important
(2) is specific enough to be testable
(3) hasn’t already been answered
(4) builds on existing literature