edtechdev/chatbotfiles · Datasets at Hugging Face

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often not documented, and language is not technical. Because they are commercial products packaged for
wide sales, they often use color and have numerous ads.

When you are faced with a research assignment, it is important for you to be able to create successful search
strategies. You need to find sources for specific purposes and audiences and be able to critically evaluate these
sources. When doing research, you also have to incorporate the information you find for specific purposes,
acknowledge the sources, and provide citations. To make this easier to understand, think of scholarly writing
as a simple story told with a particular set of conventions (rules). What are these conventions? They are: a
research question, a hypothesis, a methodology, a review of the literature, an interpretation of your work, and
an analysis of the significance of what you’ve found.
Research Question
First of all, you need a topic. This is often the most difficult part of the whole process. So begin by thinking of
something that is really interesting to you. Let’s take music for an example. You need to ask some questions
about music to start the process. Some examples of questions are:
•
•
•
•
•
•

What does music mean?
What is the function of music?
What is the value of music?
What is the significance of music?
How is music made?
What causes music to happen?

The easiest way to come up with questions regarding whatever topic you choose is to start with basic
questioning words: who, what, why, when, where, how, might, could, can, should, will, must, did, and so forth.
You can ask better questions, and this will help you narrow down your hypothesis. For instance, why does
music change over time? Who will play this music? How did this music come about? Why should we listen to
this music?

ACTIVITY
Pick a topic and try to describe it:

400

A • Conducting and Presenting Research

1. Name your topic: I am studying __________
2. Suggest a question: Because I want to find out who/how/why/whether/when/what _______________
3. State a rationale for the question: In order to understand who/what/where/how/why/
whether___________
Going through this exercise every time you are tasked with writing a research paper will help you clarify
what you want to accomplish and why.

Hypothesis
Scholars use information to answer one or more questions inspired by a topic of interest. Usually, a scholarly
question identifies a problem and a solution. Such questions are usually written in the form of a hypothesis,
which is a statement about the relationship between two things that identifies both a problem and an answer
or solution. An example of a hypothesis would be: Different genres of music have an effect on the mood of the
people listening to them. The questions asked to get to this hypothesis might be: Does music have an effect on
mood? Do people listen to music to make them feel better? What kind of music is used as a way to energize
the listener? Is there one type of music that is better than others for calming someone down?
Your hypothesis must reflect what is known about a research topic in such a way that your research project will
add new knowledge and insight to what is already known. In order to arrive at a hypothesis that achieves this
goal, you must learn as much as possible about your topic so you can narrow down your hypotheses to what
you don’t know. Then your research project will produce new knowledge. Your hypothesis is about what you
don’t know. However, you might find that you can’t prove your hypothesis. You might find evidence that
contradicts it, and you will have to reflect on why your hypothesis might have been wrong.

ACTIVITY
Find two newspaper articles to analyze. Read through them and answer the following:
1. What questions are being answered in the articles?
2. What questions do you think need to be answered?
3. What was the hypothesis that the writer of these articles was working from?
It is important to be able to find the hypothesis that a writer has constructed to tell you a story. You have to
make sure you understand what they are trying to “prove” and what questions they asked in order to do so.

Methodology
Education is about discovery. This means that you need to learn how to question, evaluate, and determine the
worth, credibility, and relevance of what you, as a student, find. Thus, when doing research, you need that
hypothesis to begin the rest of your research.
The next step is to come up with key words or concepts that describe your topic. Start by preparing an outline
for yourself. List the key words (for instance, on the topic of music, some key words might be music,
instruments, genres, musicians, and so on). Then create a list of narrower terms, which are more specific
things that you want to know about your topic, such as time frames, geography, population, and age groups.
Finally, you can list broader terms that are the larger subjects that include your key words. For music these
could be cultural expression, jazz, hip-hop, singers, and so forth. Your methodology will be a compilation of the
sources you decide to review. It is an orderly approach to problem solving and gathering useful data, using
such sources and strategies as interviews, public documents, surveys, experiments, the Internet, and many

Access for free at openstax.org

A • Conducting and Presenting Research

401

more.
The kind of methodology you decide to use depends on the type of research you will be conducting. You could
do exploratory research, which basically answers the question “Does something exist?” This “something” could
be an event, a thing, or an idea, such as a concert or music designed for relaxation. Or perhaps you want to do
descriptive research, which is the kind of study that defines something by describing its characteristics,
behaviors, or actions. For instance, you could describe a genre of music, how it was created, and what
instruments are usually used to compose this type of music. A third type of research you may want to do is
called prediction research, which involves identifying relationships that make it possible for us to speculate
about one thing by knowing about something else. Music has taken many turns over time, and you might
want to suggest that the next phase of music might all be electronically produced. And finally, you could

often not documented, and language is not technical. Because they are commercial products packaged for

wide sales, they often use color and have numerous ads.

When you are faced with a research assignment, it is important for you to be able to create successful search

strategies. You need to find sources for specific purposes and audiences and be able to critically evaluate these

sources. When doing research, you also have to incorporate the information you find for specific purposes,

acknowledge the sources, and provide citations. To make this easier to understand, think of scholarly writing

as a simple story told with a particular set of conventions (rules). What are these conventions? They are: a

research question, a hypothesis, a methodology, a review of the literature, an interpretation of your work, and

an analysis of the significance of what you’ve found.

Research Question

First of all, you need a topic. This is often the most difficult part of the whole process. So begin by thinking of

something that is really interesting to you. Let’s take music for an example. You need to ask some questions

about music to start the process. Some examples of questions are:

•

What does music mean?

What is the function of music?

What is the value of music?

What is the significance of music?

How is music made?

What causes music to happen?

The easiest way to come up with questions regarding whatever topic you choose is to start with basic

questioning words: who, what, why, when, where, how, might, could, can, should, will, must, did, and so forth.

You can ask better questions, and this will help you narrow down your hypothesis. For instance, why does

music change over time? Who will play this music? How did this music come about? Why should we listen to

this music?

ACTIVITY

Pick a topic and try to describe it:

400

A • Conducting and Presenting Research

1. Name your topic: I am studying __________

2. Suggest a question: Because I want to find out who/how/why/whether/when/what _______________

3. State a rationale for the question: In order to understand who/what/where/how/why/

whether___________

Going through this exercise every time you are tasked with writing a research paper will help you clarify

what you want to accomplish and why.

Hypothesis

Scholars use information to answer one or more questions inspired by a topic of interest. Usually, a scholarly

question identifies a problem and a solution. Such questions are usually written in the form of a hypothesis,

which is a statement about the relationship between two things that identifies both a problem and an answer

or solution. An example of a hypothesis would be: Different genres of music have an effect on the mood of the

people listening to them. The questions asked to get to this hypothesis might be: Does music have an effect on

mood? Do people listen to music to make them feel better? What kind of music is used as a way to energize

the listener? Is there one type of music that is better than others for calming someone down?

Your hypothesis must reflect what is known about a research topic in such a way that your research project will

add new knowledge and insight to what is already known. In order to arrive at a hypothesis that achieves this

goal, you must learn as much as possible about your topic so you can narrow down your hypotheses to what

you don’t know. Then your research project will produce new knowledge. Your hypothesis is about what you

don’t know. However, you might find that you can’t prove your hypothesis. You might find evidence that

contradicts it, and you will have to reflect on why your hypothesis might have been wrong.

ACTIVITY

Find two newspaper articles to analyze. Read through them and answer the following:

1. What questions are being answered in the articles?

2. What questions do you think need to be answered?

3. What was the hypothesis that the writer of these articles was working from?

It is important to be able to find the hypothesis that a writer has constructed to tell you a story. You have to

make sure you understand what they are trying to “prove” and what questions they asked in order to do so.

Methodology

Education is about discovery. This means that you need to learn how to question, evaluate, and determine the

worth, credibility, and relevance of what you, as a student, find. Thus, when doing research, you need that

hypothesis to begin the rest of your research.

The next step is to come up with key words or concepts that describe your topic. Start by preparing an outline

for yourself. List the key words (for instance, on the topic of music, some key words might be music,

instruments, genres, musicians, and so on). Then create a list of narrower terms, which are more specific

things that you want to know about your topic, such as time frames, geography, population, and age groups.

Finally, you can list broader terms that are the larger subjects that include your key words. For music these

could be cultural expression, jazz, hip-hop, singers, and so forth. Your methodology will be a compilation of the

sources you decide to review. It is an orderly approach to problem solving and gathering useful data, using

such sources and strategies as interviews, public documents, surveys, experiments, the Internet, and many

Access for free at openstax.org

A • Conducting and Presenting Research

401

more.

The kind of methodology you decide to use depends on the type of research you will be conducting. You could

do exploratory research, which basically answers the question “Does something exist?” This “something” could

be an event, a thing, or an idea, such as a concert or music designed for relaxation. Or perhaps you want to do

descriptive research, which is the kind of study that defines something by describing its characteristics,

behaviors, or actions. For instance, you could describe a genre of music, how it was created, and what

instruments are usually used to compose this type of music. A third type of research you may want to do is

called prediction research, which involves identifying relationships that make it possible for us to speculate

about one thing by knowing about something else. Music has taken many turns over time, and you might

want to suggest that the next phase of music might all be electronically produced. And finally, you could