What RESEARCH is not

[Woodenskye (Bryan)]

Thread transferred from previous forum - Original Post by Puka

Original Post:

This is a For You Information type of thing. I find it annoying when people say certain things without really knowing what they are actually saying. So this is going to be a quick and dirty because i have things to do, its stinking hot here as the air con has switched off for the day and I need to get my plan S&^T sorted for my building project next week.

 

So without further ado. . .

 

Like everyone I used to say "I did some research and came up with this"

 

After I did a bachelors degree at University [way back in the dim dark past] I now no longer say that because its an untrue statement, what I in fact did and what you do was information gather. You didn't research jack shite, you used other peoples information to answer your question. THAT is not research! Also If you use this other work and don't correctly acknowledge it then you are plagiarizing which is stealing so to speak. 

 

Research is where you form a hypothesis about something then set out to prove or disprove it. There are a number of steps you have to go through to do this, one of these steps is in fact information gathering, which is where you have to see if anyone else has asked this question or a question(s) like it. If they have then you have to read through their work which will state their hypothesis, their methods, their research. . .the whole sha bang, pretty much the same thing you are doing to answer your own hypothesis.

 

The next step is develop a methodology to prove or disprove you hypothesis.

Then there is the RESEARCH. This is where you through your methodology create something from nothing. Because that's what researching is, your working a question that no one else has asked, or if they have then your either helping to prove their work or your disproving their work. But either way your coming up with your own results from either their methodologies or your own.

 

You now have results so you have to present them in a way that others can understand and check if they so wish. This is where you have to lay it all out, tell everyone how you did it. Reference any other peoples work, did you use any of their work? Prove it. . .disprove it? Did you build on it or go off on a completely different path? Is it all your own etc... and so on and so forth.

 

So now when you have a burning question about some tool, some wood building process or what have you are you going to say. "I just spent a couple hours on the net researching whether or not this is a dumb question but can you guys tell me what the best hammer is for hitting nails into balsa wood, so i can build a work bench out of it?"