10.3 Primary and Secondary Research

Research can also be categorized as primary and secondary research. Like formal vs. informal research, primary vs. secondary has much to do with the level of rigour.

Primary Research

Primary research generates new knowledge and secondary research applies it. In the above case, the authors of the Consumer Reports article conducted primary research because they came up with the assessment criteria, arranged for access to all the printers, tested and scored each according to how well they performed against each criterion, analyzed the data, determined the ranking of best to worst printer on the market, and reported it in a published article. Other forms of primary research include surveys of randomly sampled people to gauge general attitudes on certain subjects and lab experiments that follow the scientific method. Primary research is labour-intensive, typically expensive, and may include aspects of secondary research if referring to previous primary research. Whether for business or academic writing, primary research can help to strengthen your topic. Interviews, surveys and observation are some common types of primary research.

Interviews

Speaking to experts or individuals directly connected to your topic of research can provide valuable insight.  Prepare well before conducting an interview. Find out as much as you can about the person or persons if possible so that you can craft effective questions. Open-ended questions are better than closed-ended questions as the interviewee can choose how to respond to the questions. During the interview be courteous, stay on topic and be sure to end the interview on time.

Surveys

Surveys collect information from larger groups of people. Unlike interviews, the types of questions on surveys tend to be close-ended and quantifiable. If you plan on creating a survey, clearly define your research question and identify your target audience. Doing so will help you design appropriate questions and choose the best way to gather data- face-to-face, over the phone or self-administered online. Nowadays it is easy to create online surveys that quickly compile the results automatically. Several free survey tools such as Survey Monkey and Google Forms are available online to design surveys and interpret the data.

Observation

Another way of collecting information is through careful observation and note-taking. Depending on the type of data you wish to collect, you may decide to simply watch or listen and take notes or perhaps become an active participant. Observation can be subjective; therefore, it is important to first, understand that your feelings and opinions may affect your observations and second, take detailed notes about what you see.

Whichever primary research method you use, make sure you are aware of the drawbacks. People may not always be truthful when answering questions they think cast them in a negative light and the way people normally behave can change significantly when they know they are being observed.

Secondary Research

Secondary research is what most people do when they have academic or professional tasks because it involves finding and using primary research. To use the printer example above, accessing the Consumer Reports article and using its recommendation to make a case for office printer selection was secondary research. Depending on whether that secondary research is informal or formal, it may or may not cite and reference sources. Common secondary sources include print sources and electronic sources.

Books

Books are an excellent source for in-depth data but may contain more out-of-date information compared to other sources because of the time it takes for a book to be published. Whenever you use a book as a source, always check to make sure the information is still relevant.

Periodicals

Periodicals can provide up-to-date information in a specific research area as they are published at regular intervals. Periodicals include scholarly or peer-reviewed journals, trade journals, newspapers and popular magazines. Unlike newspapers and popular magazines which are written for a more general audience, peer-reviewed and trade journals often contain technical jargon which can make them difficult to understand.

Online Sources

Increasingly, it had become rare to start the research process by going to the library to access printed resources (many books and periodicals are available in digital form). Most students and business professionals start online. With the vast amount of information available online through websites, social media, multimedia and blogs, it is easy to find almost any kind of information. Online sources pose special challenges to students and professionals conducting research since most will expediently conduct research entirely online, and with the vast amount of information online, credibility becomes an issue. The most credible information is may not always be the first to appear in your internet search. In fact, with sponsored links common on most search engines, it is likely that the first link(s) will be advertisements that may or may not contain information related to your topic.

Once a source has been located online, other issues arise. Sometimes the author isn’t revealed on a webpage, perhaps because it’s a company or organization’s website, in which case your scrutiny shifts to the organization, its potential biases, and its agenda. A research project on electronic surveillance, for instance, might turn up the websites of companies selling monitoring systems, in which case you must be wary of any facts or statistics (especially uncited ones, but even cited sources) they use because they will likely be selected to help sell products and services. And instead of checking the publisher as you would for a print source, you could consider the domain name; websites with .edu or .gov URL endings usually have higher standards of credibility for the information they publish than sites ending with .com or .org, which are typically the province of commercial enterprises and special interest groups with unique agendas.

Wikipedia is sometimes one of the first sources students and professionals turn to when conducting research online. Although successful in being a comprehensive repository of knowledge, Wikipedia.org, for instance, is not generally considered credible and should therefore not appear as a source in a research document unless it’s for a topic so new or niche that no other credible sources for it exist. By the organization’s own admission, “Wikipedia cannot guarantee the validity of the information found [on their site].” The Web 2.0, user-generated nature of Wikipedia means that its articles are susceptible to vandalism or content changes inconsistent with expert opinion, and they aren’t improved by any formal peer-review process (Wikipedia, 2020). A Wikipedia article can be a good place to start in a research task, however. If you’re approaching a topic for the first time, use Wikipedia for a general introduction and a sense of the topic’s scope and key subtopics. But if you’re going to cite any sources, don’t stop there; use the credible ones that the Wikipedia article cites by scrolling down to the References section- check them out, and assess them for their credibility using the criteria outlined below.