5.1 Research Methods
Jackie Hendricks; Amy Lueck; Loring Pfeiffer; and Maura Tarnoff
Research Methods
In the first chapter, “What are Research Methods” [PDF], of their book, Try This: Research Methods for Writers [Website], Jennifer Clary-Lemon, Derek Mueller, and Kate Pantelides introduce the concepts of research and research methods in the following way:
Research is the systematic asking of questions and congruent use of methods to learn answers to interesting, important questions. Whether or not your research has been purposeful in the past, you do research all the time.
When you try to decide which deodorant is most effective by trying different brands, you’re doing research. When you ask friends for recommendations about where to go to dinner, you’re doing research. When you experiment with different routes to find the best way to get to work, you’re doing research. And why? Because you want to know. Because you want to try to know. But such information-gathering often takes particular routes, requires specific tools, and is measured very differently. That’s where research methods come in. If you buy deodorant, you test it on yourself, a human subject. If you ask friends for dinner reservations, you might send a group text that acts as a survey, see who weighs in, and find out if their opinions match. When you drive a particular route, you are engaging with a particular site and measuring time. Each of these ways of using particular tools to answer a question you have are different kinds of research methods.
Research methods are the tools, instruments, practices, processes—insert whatever making metaphor you prefer—that allow you to answer questions of interest and contribute to a critical conversation, or a grouping of recognized ideas about that interest. The critical conversation comes out of our preliminary discovery about a particular question or set of questions—discovery work known as rhetorical invention, or a starting place for thinking, researching, and writing. Just as an entrepreneur might invent an as-seen-on-TV product that comes out of months of consumer observations and materials testing, writers invent their ideas through gathering data in particular and diverse ways.
As you can tell just from this definition, there are a number of different ways to perform research. The following table lays out some of the tools commonly used by researchers:
| Research Method | Description | Disciplines Used |
|---|---|---|
| Interview-Based | Conversations held with individuals about a topic | Anthropology and sociology |
| Lab-Based | Experiments performed | Biology, chemistry, engineering, and physics |
| Quantitative | Statistical analyses performed on datasets | Biology, business, psychology, and political science |
| Survey-Based | Groups of people | Communication, psychology, and political science |
| Textual (including archival) | Historical and contemporary texts identified and interpreted | Art history, communication, English, and history |
These research methods are often combined. For example, a biologist might perform a series of experiments in a lab and then use statistical tools to analyze the results. Alternatively, a communication researcher might analyze a set of texts in a particular medium and then survey users of that medium about their experiences.
Apply It
Think about how your research experiences align with the scholarly research methods listed above (based on Gomes, Dozier, Tarnoff, “Have you ever?” [PowerPoint] activity).
Have you ever…
- asked about your family’s history or traditions?
- learned to cook a new dish?
- spent time trying to pick out the “right” movie or show to stream?
- attended a cultural or spiritual event in your community?
- gathered information to solve a problem or make a decision?
Attribution
“Research Methods” by Jackie Hendricks, Amy Lueck, Loring Pfeiffer, and Maura Tarnoff is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
