Conducting Research

Taylor Newcomb

Of course, before anything else is mentioned, quite possibly the greatest tool in conducting scholarly research is Google Scholar. This tool opens us up to hundreds, maybe even thousands, of relevant articles and books by the scholar we prefer. It is our shortcut to the body of knowledge, in that it helps us do it from home and at our leisure instead of dealing with the time and material constraints of libraries. For those of us who want to go beyond Google Scholar into the body of knowledge, there is Journal Storage which stores articles past five years ago. This site has been most helpful in tracking down books and articles by Bernays, whom is one of the foundations of my project. 

Once, there is that connection to the sites, the body of knowledge is just a click away. Knowing what has been done before is very important to research, because if we don't take the time to learn what others have said, then we are just wasting the time of others who will come after. The literature review, which is the manifestation of the body of knowledge, is key to showing others we have connected. It shows we have conducted the research by going through journals and articles to find that one article which explains it all. The body of knowledge is the foundation upon which the rest of our project/thesis rests, in the same manner as houses and buildings. 

The pros to conducting research into the body of knowledge could be wide ranging, but I will only stick to a few. The most important pro is that it might give us new avenues through which to peer. We may be pigeonholing ourselves to one item, but then one day, bam, we find an article that switches the light on for our project and lets us go a new, better way. This would have been impossible if we failed to conduct the research. Another pro is that we know the information. By researching the reading everything we can find, then we have a step up on people who fail to do it. A third, and for this section, final pro is that it gives us guidelines for conducting future research. We read what has been done and then from that figure out what needs to be researched next and how best it could be found. 

As for the cons, it is very time consuming. One can expect to lose hours conducting this research. We have outside lives, well most of us, that can't be pushed aside for the long time needed for research. Another con is that we may hit the end of our research trail. If we run out of items to find but still need more, then we may either have to change the point of our project or go insane. I faced this last semester when I ran out of items for sports crisis communication. There was just enough for that paper, but anything beyond that was impossible. A final, for this section, con is that the research may be leading us down the wrong path. We might not know it until too late, but we may have been following the wrong avenues and guidelines and ended up with a incomplete project and a defense deadline coming sooner than we want. 

Overall, the body of knowledge is something that is important to all. It gives us foundations and avenues with which to find our route. Without that research and body of knowledge, we would just be floating aimlessly in the ocean.