What is research?

It is quite possible to take a practical approach to research that is both effective and attracts high marks, despite the philosophical basis of the field. Many books on research manage to overlook the definition of 'research', so we have produced our own definition based on several texts and dictionaries.

Research is the term applied to any form of systematic and organised investigation to establish facts or collect information, and is usually related to a problem that needs to be solved.

As a dissertation student the first research problem is to find something to research (which we call 'the research question'), that will be robust and provide an opportunity to score a high mark. There is typically a cycle to research, and this is described in the diagram below (or see the text version):

	Identify a good research question
	Formulate some questions (or hypotheses) that can be researched
	Design the research investigation
	Select the most appropriate materials or sample to study and the tools to use
	Gather the data
	Analyse these data using pre-defined criteria (eg statistics)
	Draw conclusions
	Report on the results in the dissertation

In this section we will look more closely at the top levels in this diagram, namely the identification of a good research question, sources of good questions, formulating your own research question, and research methods.