College students are faced with two problems when conducting research: having enough time to research a topic and figuring out how to approach it. As with any task at hand, it's best to have a plan. Here are some time saving research techniques that will help you with both. The key successful research is to have a research plan and sticking to it as you learn.
A research plan begins to take shape once the subject of your research has been clearly identified. Generally, research is a preliminary process that occurs before writing a paper, but the process presented here can be applied anywhere. However, before tackling the plan, a few words about resources are in order.
College students will quickly discover that there are ample, if not overwhelming, resources available from the library, the Internet, periodicals, and from personal collections that may not be available to everyone. A good paper will include as many resources as possible, but they should be both recent and relevant in order to justify using them as an authoritative source that supports your conclusions. Use them wisely, but don't allow these resources to dictate your thinking. Whatever you are writing about should be from your point of view, not which of someone else, even if they are recognized experts in their field.
Your research strategy can take the form of asking four questions and then providing explanatory answers. In this approach, Question 1 requires a constructing a problem statement that presents a real world assessment or a reality check, if you prefer. You can structure by writing a problem statement as follows:
Problem Statement: What's wrong about this subject in the real world? In other words, why are you writing about it? Then go on to describe the current symptoms of the problem, what are the facts surrounding the problem, and what is the preferred situation. Once you understand the problem and the facts about it, you can begin to focus on what are the underlying causes and the events that may have led to it.
Problem Analysis: The next step in our research plan is to conduct an analysis of the problem, from a theoretical point of view. You know what the problem is, but what factor or factors caused it? Your objective here is to diagnose the problem by identifying its symptoms and sorting them into categories. Then suggest what some causes of the symptoms might be, note what is absent from the real world situation, and identify the barriers to resolving the problem. These are important considerations and your resources will help you to identify the symptoms, possible causes, theoretical answers and barriers toward a successful conclusion.
Brainstorming the Solution: Step three in the research plan requires that you identify what might be accomplished, from a theoretical standpoint, in order to resolve the problem. Here, the resources will help fill in the blanks. Your resources should help you to identify possible strategies or remedies to the problem, what steps could be taken to change the situation, and to get you thinking about what solutions you can come up with to resolve the situation. It is important at this point to stay theoretical in your thinking, as there are likely to be many solutions to the problem you are working on.
Developing Your Ideas: Finally, step four calls forth your creative energy. You have identified the problem and stated in clearly in step 1. In step 2, you analyzed the problem from a theoretical point of view, and in step 3 you identified theoretical actions that could be taken to resolve the problem. In steps 2 and three, you have relied upon your resources to help you arrive at a conclusion. Having done so, it's time to put forth your ideas for solving the problem in real world terms. Explain to the reader, what might be done, or what actions lie ahead in order to create change to the situation. Explain, in some detail, what are the specific steps that could be taken to deal with the problem. This is your point of view, and at this point your original thinking will shine through and your research paper is nearly complete.
Now, wrap it all up with a final paragraph or two that call for action. You've done all the research and arrived at a conclusion and a remedy. You should now boldly inform the reader that someone has to take action to implement your recommendations. You should briefly restate the problem presented in step 1 and reiterate the conclusions of step 4. If necessary, you can provide additional support for your conclusions by referring back to your analysis and research conducted in steps 2 and 3.
There are many studying tips for college students to pick up on. Unlike studying, however, research is a time-consuming process that is best approached with a plan. I hope that the time saving research techniques presented here will prove useful to you.