a guide to doing research

Why should you do research?

Before we go into HOW to conduct research, I want you to be convinced of two things. To seek knowledge and information is a human right and research can be a way to wield power and change things.

First, I believe research is a human right.

I am guessing research in your life is more often an assignment, a project, a requirement, or a resumé builder. [If you have other words that you associate with research, put them in here for me to read!] Maybe, you’ve heard that research is a key skill for college admissions or for career development. But I believe that research is a human right. To understand why, let’s break down the word research a bit.

Search (v): try to find something by looking or otherwise seeking carefully and thoroughly

Search comes from the Latin word to go around, which comes from the Latin circus which meant circle. When you add the prefix “re—”, you suggest that you are doing this seeking or looking repeatedly. Google also defines it as “a SYSTEMATIC investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions”.

I, personally, am much more drawn to the idea of research  re + search. Instead of looking for a lost friendship bracelet or a beloved old sweatshirt, research is the act of seeking knowledge or truth, about your worlds, again and again.

Researchers have surveyed LGBTQ students about what schools do to support and/or harm them during high school. Other researchers have looked at a single president and read every letter and interviewed folks in his life to tell a story about that era of American history. Another researcher wrote a book about writers and their marriages in Victorian England. Recently, there has been a lot of research on social media algorithms and the ways in which they can be biased in ways we cannot see. Research, as you can see, can be about anything.

Second, research can do a lot!

Let’s talk a little more about what research can do. Research on Indian mythology has disrupted the idea that gender nonconforming identities are a Western import. Research on menstruation allows us to believe that extreme restrictions on menstruating folks are unnecessary while accommodations such as period leave can help. Research on sexual harassment in Delhi provides quantitative data that supports women who describe it as a largely challenging palace to live. Research on education interventions help teachers identify what is a fad and what’s real. Research on baseball players help illustrate weird unexpected some kids can have advantages over others.

Okay, great! But where do I start? How do I actually do research?

This quick-start guide is meant to help you get started with research without, hopefully, getting too overwhelmed. You will see some links to further reading if you want to explore more. Remember that all good research involves a little bit of frustration and a lot of time, so make sure to be patient and ask for help!

First of all, choose a topic.

• A good topic is one that you care about and that you could, with time, become an expert in, and that will teach you useful skills. Read more about why starting with a strong topic is essential here.
• This worksheet is designed to help you identify topics that are interesting, feasible, and useful for you. Work through it carefully and with as much detail as possible.
• A note on feasibility: There are ways to make a topic that you are interested more feasible than it is or might seem right now. Mostly, this involves gaining access. Email labs or university professors for research assistant roles or internships, find ways to volunteer at schools or hospitals or nonprofits, or explore ways to download reports or data sets you need.

Second, learn as much as you can.

• A literature review is a summary of all of the research that has happened/been written up to now, and is the most common kind of research paper that high school students write. Even though reviews are common assignments in high school, there are a couple of key things to keep in mind when you’re trying to write a great one.
  • Your literature review should have a point.
  • If part of a paper that includes primary research, your review should help the reader understand where your primary research fits into a broader body of knowledge.
  • Your literature review must take seriously issues of credibility and validity.
• Conduct a literature review of everything people before you have found out about your chosen topic.
• Find a mentor who can challenge you to think differently and think deeper.
• Further Reading on Researching on the Internet

Third, figure out what exactly you want to still discover about the topic.

• Your literature review might have already answered your research question. If so, that’s great! You can move to Step #7.
• If your literature review didn’t totally answer your question, you now have a much clearer idea of what researchers already know and how your question fits into that or tries to uncover something new. Articulate this.  Try sentences like “We already know ___ from reading this person, and this other person has already written about ____, but my idea/research question hasn’t yet been investigated. Or, try something like “While so-and-so has done work on this area and so-and-so-number-2 has written widely about this other area, my area of interests is more around research topic, for which the sources are more limited.”
• Formulate a research question based on this paragraph that you have written, but do a double check to make sure that what you have decided on is still both personally meaningful and feasible given your access, time, and resources.
• Learn about all of the possible research methods you can use.
• Identify methods that you want to use. My recommendation is to pick one method for every six months that you have to give to this project. Want to work on it intensively for a year? Don’t use more than two methods.
• Further Reading on Writing a Literature Review (If you decide you’re done at the secondary research stage)
• Further Reading on deciding primary research methods

Fourth, plan for data collection.

• Identify your population. Who does your research question apply to? The more specific your definition of your population, the more pragmatic your research will be.
• Once you have defined your population, revise your research question to make sure that it reflects your population.
• Decide a sampling strategy. Random sampling, snowball sampling, and selective sampling are three different ways to sample. Research all three and choose an approach based on your research question and what makes sense.
• Design your protocols. Draft interview questions, figure out what your observations will focus on, create a survey template, or write a paragraph summarising your approach to primary source analysis.
• Pilot your data collection tools. Find a couple of friends or teachers to fill out your survey or interview someone.
• Ask yourself reflection questions to check your draft protocols – was your survey too long? Was your interview too off-topic? Did you feel unsure during your observation? Edit your data collection tools based on your reflections.
• Decide on a timeline for your primary research.
• Identify folks to collect data from and write a script for yourself to ask them to give you your time, either in person or over email.
• Further Reading on Sampling Techniques
• Further Reading on Designing Surveys and Interview Questions

Fifth, begin collecting your data!

• Send out your emails. Make sure to use a planner and/or a digital tool such as Google Calendar to keep track of any commitments you make to people.
• Make sure to follow standard research ethical guidelines including ensuring informed consent, anonymity, recording/transcription/faithful notetaking, and noncoercion as you begin collecting data.
• Try to be realistic about the data you can process or analyse successfully – while the more data the better, I’ve seen students often get stuck when there is too much data to analyse effectively. 15 interviews of 50 surveys should be your maximum unless you have a team of researchers or an unusually strong mentor relationship. Know when to stop!
• Further Reading on Basic Ethical Guidelines

Sixth, analyse your data.

• There are a lot of approaches to data analyses, especially with research in the humanities and social sciences. Before drowning in theories or resources online, reacquaint yourself with your why. Then, try to journal about how to explore your data in service of that purpose.
• Read/listen to all of your data multiple times. You want to be as familiar with it as possible. Transcribe recordings yourself if you can – it ensures that you know your data very intricately before you even begin your analysis. Play around with different filters, graphs, and other ways of visualising your survey data, without an explicit agenda, just to see what you discover. The better you know your information, the better you will be able to protect against oversimplification.
• Decide your data analytic approach. How to do data analysis is difficult to summarise in a quick guide – here is where mentors, reading, and other resources are likely to be the most helpful.
• Write data-analytic memos as you go, so that you are constantly reflecting and pushing yourself to think big picture.
• Know that you might feel stuck, and that is normal and totally valid.
• Further Reading on Data Analytic Memos, a common tool used during analysis

Seventh, draft your research report.

• Hopefully one of the reasons you cared enough to embark on this project was to share the answers you have found with a wider audience. Write yourself a note before you begin drafting, reminding yourself of why this research is something you would like to share with others.
• Start drafting! You have already read some/many research papers as part of your literature review, so you should know what introductions generally sound like. Start with drafting your introduction, which should include why your topic is important and how your research fits into an existing conversation.
• Outline the rest of your paper.
• Use the outline as a rough checklist so that you can keep track of your progress.
• Once your introduction and outline are done and refined to a point where you feel good about them, there is nothing left but to complete a first draft. You can do this!
• Further Reading on Writing a Research Paper

Eighth, add in your references.

• If you are in high school and you would like to be considered an expert, or at least be taken seriously, you will have to cite a lot. You want to be sure that you convince your audience that you have done the reading and are familiar with the experts in the field.
• Review the appropriate citation system (MLA for the humanities, APA for the sciences and social sciences, Chicago style footnotes for pieces where the narrative flow is crucial), and find a citation tool to help with accuracy.
• Cite as you go – you will find it a lot less frustrating and a lot more time-saving than doing all the references at the end of the writing process. Free tools like Zotero that can be added as extensions to Word or Google Docs make this much easier to do, and are an introduction to college-level research tools.
• Further Reading on APA Style Citations

Ninth, revise and proofread.

• Check your draft to ensure that the structure is logical, that you successfully answer your research question at the end, and that you clearly explain the significance and implications of your work.
• Remember that your research paper should be intended to bring someone into a dialogue on your chosen topic – you want folks to understand your ideas well enough to be able to reach out to ask further questions, disagree, or share additional resources or readings that you may find interesting.
• You want to make sure that your sentences are clear and that your writing is accessible.
• Check spelling and grammar! They are important for fluency and for credibility.
• Check and recheck your references to ensure that everything that needs to be in quotation marks is in quotation marks and everything that needs to be cited is cited. Check to ensure your reference list is alphabetized and appropriately formatted.
• Further reading on how to revise and another useful resource

Tenth, publish!

• Submit your research to journals such as the Concord Review, which accepts submissions from high school students.
• Reach out to different groups that might be interested in your research topic and offer to conduct workshops or share a presentation.
• Synthesize the findings of your research into an executive summary that you can attach in emails to folks whose areas of interest may overlap with your work.
• Write an editorial based on your research and submit it to local newspapers.
• Brainstorm ideas of action or community engagement that arise from your findings and take them forward.
• Alternatives to Publishing: Strategizing for Action