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Research Process

Originality

One way to think about originality in research is to think about how many times someone else has analyzed information. These can be described as primary, secondary, and tertiary information, and often instructors want you to use primary sources so they can see what you have to say about the information you find. The gallery provides information about and examples of primary, secondary, and tertiary resources:

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Primary

First-hand accounts or documents related to the topic from people who had a direct connection with it, such as speeches, diaries, letters, interviews, photographs, original research, and dataset. They can be found in archives, historic newspaper databases, scholarly journal articles, image databases, and data resources.

Example: An original handwritten poem by Frederick Douglass, held in the Xavier archives.

More about Original Research

As you participate in the scholarly conversation, it is important to understand what kinds of original research are being done by academics and how that fits with the research you are doing. Most original research is done as either qualitative or quantitative:

Characteristics of Qualitative and Quantitative Research
Qualitative Quantitative
  • interprets non-numerical data, such as interviews, documents, or case studies.
  • allows for exploration within a focused area
  • draws conclusions from what was discovered
  • interprets numerical data, such as experiment results or surveys
  • tests relationship between variables
  • uses data to answers an established question (hypothesis)

From Research to Publication: The Life of a Journal Article

1. Conduct Original Research

Original research is done when the researchers are responsible for the entire process of coming up with a hypothesis, a means for testing the hypothesis, defending their hypothesis based on prior research, and gathering and analyzing the data, and explaining their findings. This is often done by scientists, doctors, college professors, or people working within a field of study.