Defining Research

"Research: Diligent and systematic inquiry or investigation into a subject in order to discover facts or principles." American College Dictionary, 1964

During your years in college, you will be presented with numerous opportunities to investigate ideas and concepts. You will have the opportunity to work full-time learning new things. After four years, your depth and breadth of knowledge will have expanded greatly. Research, the "diligent and systematic inquiry or investigation into a subject," will be crucial to that growth.

The library's resources are essential to that process. Think about it. Libraries, both the traditional and the digital, are a repository of human knowledge and wisdom. Whatever subjects or ideas humans have ever pondered will be found in your academic library. Not only will you find the texts of great thinkers and writers, but you will also find millions of articles and books by scholars who have spent countless hours interpreting and deciphering the vast universe of human knowledge. This storehouse is waiting for you, the researcher. As the Microsoft slogan urges, "Where do you want to go today?" Shelves of books at the library

To understand what research is, it is beneficial to look at the "expert researcher" model. Your professors fall into this category.

There are a number of assumptions that a skilled researcher uses when doing research. Often, they can't even articulate what they are, but they practice them. "The [expert researcher] model requires a long process of acculturation, an in-depth knowledge of the discipline, awareness of important scholars working in particular areas, participation in a system of informal scholarly communication, and a view of research as a non-sequential, nonlinear process with a large degree of ambiguity and serendipity. The expert researcher is relatively independent, and has developed his or her own personal [research] strategies." [1]

A professor spends years—often dozens of them—getting to know a subject. Humility and frustration are common feelings among expert researchers. They discover there is always one more level of detail that eludes them and that the knowledge base they have created represents only an approximation of reality. However, the expert researcher has accumulated a formidable storehouse of knowledge. She knows who the important authors are, what books or articles are considered foundational, and who the current experts are. She has spent countless hours pursuing elusive facts, has gone back to the beginning numerous times to establish a fresh trail, knows which library tools will yield the best results, and understands the pitfalls and obstacles associated with her particular intellectual pursuit. And to make the expert model even more intimidating, a portion of what she knows was discovered by accident!

Admittedly, you are on the other end of the spectrum. You'll know very little about the research topic assigned. You won't be able to identify essential books, articles, or authors in the field. At this point in your career as a researcher, ambiguity and non-linearity, accepted occupational hazards of the expert researcher, are obstacles that seriously threaten your grade. In all honesty, coping strategies will be more important than a diligent and systematic inquiry into your topic!

Every first-year student faces this learning curve. Research is difficult and intimidating. This chapter on research is designed to get you beyond "coping strategies" and on to the fundamentals of research. If you can master the fundamentals discussed in this chapter, you will find research to be a thrilling opportunity for discovery. After all, isn't that why you came to college?

1. Leckie, Gloria J., Desperately Seeking Citations: Uncovering faculty assumptions about the undergraduate research process. The Journal of Academic Librarianship v. 22, May 1996, p.202.