The Research Process An Introduction
Dec 29, 2015
Remember the writing process?It’s recursive
Plan Get ideas
Draft Get them on paper
Revise Make them better
Publish Share with others
Kuhlthau’s Model of Research
Stage
Initiation
Selection
Exploration
Formulation
Collection
Presentation
Task
what do I do?
what’s my topic?
what’s out there?
what do I think?
what will I use?
how will I sharewhat I learn?
Feelings
uncertainty
optimism
confusion
clarity
confidence
satisfaction (or not)
Another model: Conversation
Selye (1978): stress has both positive
and negative effects
Benson (2000): The Relaxation
Response
Cousins (1995): Anatomy of an Illness
as Perceivedby the Patient
Cannon (1915): mind-body connection
Another model: Conversation
Simons & Chabris(1999):
“Gorillas in Our Midst”
Spinney (2008): “Lineups on Trial”
Loftus (1996): leading questions
can influence witness
Innocence Project (1992):
uses DNA to clearmistaken identifications
I say
“Those who attend class 95% of the time are significantly more likely to earn an A or B grade.”
Any bias there?
They say
A study by Snell and Meikes (1995), found that “those who attended class 95% of the time were significantly more likely to earn an A or B grade.”
Snell, J., & Meikes, S. (1995). Student attendance and academic achievement: A research note. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 22(2). Retrieved from Academic Search Elite database.
in-text citation
reference list entry
I say: CSI
Real-life crimes are solved using blood spatter and lots of other reliable forensic evidence,just like the ones on CSI.
They say: CSI
Joseph Peterson, acting director of the Dept. of Criminal Justice at the University of Illinois-Chicago, says DNA is rarely culled from crime scenes and analyzed.
Crime scenes today are much like they were in the 1970s, Peterson says, when his studies found that fingerprints and tool marks were the most common types of evidence left at crime scenes.
Blood was found only 5 percent of the time, usually at murder scenes. (Roane, 2005)
Conversation: CSI effect
Prosecutors Say:Juries expect
too much evidence
I say:Thesis
Defenders Say:Juries understand
our case better
Research: Conversation
Which is best? Can these ideas be combined? Why do things
happen this way? How could things
be made better?
A research paper is a record of intelligent reading in several sources on a particular subject.
Who cares what they know?
In academic writing, your opinion is only as good as your evidence.
Personal Experience Community of Experts
Parents: Home movies show no autism symptoms before vaccination
Doctors detected signs of autism in the movies.
Schwetter: These dinosaur bones smell.
Huh? DNA was recovered.
Why read what they know?
You’ll be up-to-date.
“Ninety percent of what we know about Alzheimer’s has been discovered in the last 15 years.” (A. Riesenberg, as cited in “Health Questions,” 2007)
Why read what they know?
You’ll have a complete picture.
“An estimated 5 to 15 percent of people with anorexia or bulimia are male.” (National Institutes of Mental Health, 2007)
“In certain overachieving circles, breast-feeding…is the ultimate badge of responsible parenting. Yet the actual health benefits of breast feeding are…far thinner than the popular literature indicates.” (Rosin, 2009)
Why read what they know?
You may be surprised.
Does Prison Harden Inmates?Chen and Shapiro’s 2003 findings “cast grave doubt on at least one model of deterrence, which holds that a few years of grim prison conditions will spook criminals back onto the straight and narrow. Whatever the deterrent effects of hard prison conditions, the authors conclude, they may often be outweighted by the increased criminal propensities of the prisoners subject to them” (p. 33).
Why read what they know?
You need to be well-informed to be credible.
“Lancaster, England,…is arguably the capital of survivor studies. This is where John Leach teaches and writes papers cited in almost every important study of survival” (Sherwood, 2009, p. 45).
Who cares what they know?
In academic writing, your opinion is only as good as your evidence.
Advantages of Personal Opinion
Limitsof Personal Opinion
Anecdotal evidence is not enough.
How do you find experts?
They cite sources.
They are cited as sources.
They are described as• experts• pioneers• founder of the field of….
Their writings are found in the scholarly literature:• EBSCO• Scholar Google• FindArticles.com
Can you trust Paula Begoun?
Check out www.cosmeticscop.com What are her sources?
Two ingredients almost universally added to cosmetics, fragrance and preservatives are often thought to be the major culprits when our skin has an allergic or sensitizing reaction to a cosmetic (Source: Contact Dermatitis, June 1999, pages 310–315).
Credibility = Quality sources
Professional literature Peer-reviewed journals Professional associations
Respected sources Harvard Business Review National Institutes of Health
Expert opinion Professional training Reputation
Seminal thinkers H. Gardner—multiple intelligences M. Seligman—happiness, learned helplessness J. M. Burns—leadership Gosling—animal psychologoy
“Alpha roosters”Groopman
How Doctors Think (2007)
Popular or scholarly?
GoogleStaley pertype
Go to “Is It a Magazine or a Journal?”www.millikin.edu/staley/research/pertype.asp
Conversation: Assignments
Explore professional literature.Form a tentative thesis.Find evidence to support your thesis.Refine your thesis.Write your paper.
THEY
SAY
I
SAY
Other sites to check out
Save the Pacific Tree Octopuszapatopi.net/treeoctopus.html
Primate Programmingwww.newtechusa.com/ppi/main.asp
British Stick Insect Foundationhttp://www.brookview.karoo.net/Stick_Insects/
Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Divisionhttp://www.dhmo.org/
Museum of Hoaxeswww.museumofhoaxes.com/hoaxsites.html
Snopes.comwww.snopes.com
Conversation: What can I add?
• Answer a question—Do shows like CSI affect the way jurors react
to evidence?—Is the CSI effect good or bad?—Is the CSI effect real?—What is the best treatment for ADHD?
• Sort out conflicting opinions• Suggest a new approach • Update information
Then there’s serendipity…
Look up schedule for Criminal Minds. Find profiler quiz.
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/criminal_minds/games.shtml
Wonder: can profilers be as fast and accurate as Gideon’s team?
Do some reading. Stumble over CSI effect….
How do I get started?
1. Find a topic.
2. Read about it.
3. Ask—Can I find enough information?—Will this hold my interest?
4. Explore other topics.
5. Choose the best.
Conversation: Ideas from Ideas
Michael Karin discovered a link between inflammation and cancer.
“This result, Karin notes, may explain the puzzling observation that cutting into tumors…sometimes seems to encourage metastasis.”
If he is correct, the inflammation generated by the [surgery] could be at fault.
Findings by other researchers suggest that inflammation does play a role in cancer.
(G. Stix, “A Malignant Flame,” 2002, p. 65)
Credibility = “Top rooster”
Although one should not necessarily judge an article by where it appears, there is a pecking order in clinical medicine. The New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) are the alpha roosters…
Credibility = “Top rooster”
In my own specialties, the Annals of Internal Medicine, Blood, and the Journal of Clinical Oncology are the most prestigious. When researchers have rigorous, ground-breaking data to announce, they try to publish in one of the top-tier journals; by the same token, these journals seek out epochal reports to add to their luster (Groopman, 2007, p. 215).
Know seminal authors
Anderson and Mather (1993) documented personality in octopuses
Same species, but• Achilles—aggressive• Emily Dickinson—shy• Lucretia McEvil—tore tank apart
Led to new field: animal psychology
•
Know key authors: animal psych
Previously, scientists wanted to avoid anthropomorphism
Gosling reframed question:“[Behaviorists] said,‘Let's get rid of the fuzzy, sentimental…descriptions.’ And they did. They went to great efforts to record…things like how many times a chimpanzee scratched its head.…If I need to know whether I can go into that cage to clean it, it's not useful to tell me the chimp scratched its nose 50,000 times in [a] year. Just tell me, Is it aggressive or not?"