How to research any topic | Insider tips for easy and fast research
Summary
TLDRThis video teaches effective research techniques for both academic and everyday purposes. The presenter covers how to define a research question, use tools like Google, Wikipedia, and Google Scholar, and emphasizes the importance of organizing research in folders. The video advises patience in filtering quality sources, highlights the value of review papers, and stresses reading primary sources. A key takeaway is knowing when to stop researching and move forward. Additionally, the video promotes a newsletter with tips and resources for enhancing productivity in research.
Takeaways
- đ Research is essential for both academic and personal pursuits, from PhD research to hobbies like sewing.
- đ Organize research materials into folders and use a running document for notes and insights as they come up.
- âł Patience is crucial when researching. Not all information is valuable, and itâs important to filter out low-quality sources.
- đ Use broad resources like Google, Wikipedia, and Google Trends to get an overview of the research field.
- đ Google Scholar is a great tool for accessing peer-reviewed academic research, even for non-academic purposes.
- đ Always verify secondary sources by checking the primary research to avoid misinterpretation.
- đ Review papers are helpful for summarizing a field and can serve as a great starting point for deep research.
- đ§ Organize research findings into relevant categories, and donât be afraid to discard irrelevant information.
- đ Abstracts, titles, and figures of academic papers help quickly assess if they are worth reading in full.
- đ Know when to stop researching once you've gathered enough information to answer your research question.
Q & A
Why is having a well-defined research question important?
-A well-defined research question is crucial because it helps set boundaries for the research, preventing the researcher from gathering too much unnecessary information and ensuring that the research is focused and relevant.
What simple method does the speaker suggest for organizing research materials?
-The speaker suggests starting with a basic folder structure on your computer, creating folders for different categories as you gather information. As you research, you can organize papers and notes into these categories.
How does the speaker recommend handling large amounts of research material?
-The speaker recommends creating a running document for notes, sorting material into categories as it comes in, and reviewing abstracts and figures to quickly decide which papers are relevant without having to read every word.
What tools does the speaker suggest using for starting research?
-The speaker recommends starting with general resources like Google, Wikipedia, and Google Trends to understand the field. For academic research, Google Scholar is highlighted as a valuable tool.
Why is it important to refer to primary sources during research?
-Primary sources provide the original research and are less likely to be misinterpreted. Secondary sources, like journalistic interpretations, can sometimes misrepresent research, so itâs important to verify information by going back to the original work.
What is a 'review paper' and why is it valuable for researchers?
-A review paper is a summary of existing research in a particular field. It is valuable because it consolidates multiple sources and provides a broad overview, often referencing hundreds of papers, making it easier to identify key research and gaps in the literature.
How does the speaker suggest filtering search results effectively in Google?
-The speaker advises using search modifiers such as including the words 'science' or 'research' in the query. This helps refine the search to focus on more credible and research-oriented content.
How can researchers determine when to stop collecting information?
-Researchers should stop collecting information once they feel they have enough to answer their research question and have a clear understanding of the topic. Itâs important to know when to stop to avoid overloading with unnecessary information.
What does the speaker say about reading research effectively?
-The speaker recommends not reading every word but instead focusing on the title, abstract, figures, and captions to get a quick understanding of whether the paper is worth further reading.
Why does the speaker emphasize patience during research?
-Patience is crucial because research can be time-consuming. The process involves filtering through large amounts of information to find credible and relevant sources, and this often takes more time than anticipated.
Outlines
đ Importance of Research in Everyday Life
This paragraph emphasizes the universal need for research skills, whether for academic purposes such as PhDs, masterâs or undergraduate theses, or for personal hobbies. The speaker shares their own experience with hobbies like sewing and lock picking, explaining how research is vital for learning new skills. The video promises to cover research strategies that apply to both academic and personal projects. Additionally, it includes a sponsored message about the speaker's newsletter, offering valuable resources like planning tools and writing tips for subscribers.
đ Preparing for Effective Research
The focus here is on setting the right foundation for research by clearly defining the research question or topic. The speaker explains the importance of having a system for organizing notes, recommending simple folder structures to categorize information as it is gathered. They highlight the value of keeping a running document to capture initial thoughts and notes that will become more detailed over time. Patience is key, as filtering through information, particularly from primary sources, is crucial for ensuring research accuracy and relevance.
đ Starting Broad with Google, Wikipedia, and Trends
This section discusses starting research with broad sources like Google, Wikipedia, and Google Trends. Wikipedia provides evolving, up-to-date information, especially on fast-moving topics, while Google Trends helps track the popularity of topics over time. These tools help give an overview of the research field and offer a sense of the type of information (academic, blogs, opinion pieces) thatâs available. The speaker also notes the importance of sorting information into folders and maintaining a note document to track thoughts and questions as they emerge.
đ Using Google Scholar and Other Research Tools
Here, the speaker introduces Google Scholar as an underused but invaluable tool for finding peer-reviewed research papers. The paragraph explains how to use Google Scholar for academic and non-academic purposes, such as writing blogs or conducting business research. It advises filtering search results by date to access the most recent findings. The speaker also suggests searching with the terms 'science' or 'research' in Google to avoid low-quality sources, while secondary sources, like journalistic interpretations, can provide valuable, digestible insights.
đ Finding and Using Review Papers
This paragraph highlights the importance of finding review papers when conducting research, particularly for in-depth academic topics. Review papers are useful because they compile a wide range of primary sources, making it easier for the researcher to organize information and identify gaps in the field. The speaker advises caution in ensuring the relevance and recency of review papers. The importance of always referring to primary sources to verify claims is reiterated, as even well-cited papers can be misrepresented.
đ The Fun and Challenge of Filtering Information
The speaker acknowledges the fun of collecting a large amount of information at the beginning of research but stresses the hard work of categorizing and filtering through it. They recommend focusing on abstracts, titles, and figures to determine whether a paper is worth reading. The process involves creating a 'not yet' folder for undecided papers. This section stresses the need for patience and a careful filtering process to keep the research organized and manageable.
âł Knowing When to Stop Researching
Knowing when to stop researching is presented as one of the hardest aspects of the process. The speaker advises constantly referring back to the initial research question and deciding whether enough relevant and timely information has been gathered. They suggest starting the next step, such as writing or conducting physical research, when a sufficient understanding has been reached. Researchers should be disciplined, as continuing to gather unnecessary information can be a waste of time, especially when there are time constraints.
đ Key Tools and Strategies for Research Success
The final paragraph summarizes the research process, reiterating the use of common tools like Wikipedia, Google Scholar, and Google, and the importance of effective search techniques. The speaker explains the need for organizing research into categories, reviewing primary sources, and reading effectively to filter information quickly. The importance of knowing when to stop researching is again highlighted as a critical skill. The paragraph ends with a promotional message about the speakerâs website, encouraging viewers to explore additional resources on academic writing and mental health.
Mindmap
Keywords
đĄResearch
đĄResearch question
đĄPrimary sources
đĄGoogle Scholar
đĄReview paper
đĄFolder structure
đĄPatience
đĄWikipedia
đĄReview and organize
đĄStop searching
Highlights
Learning to research is crucial not only for academic purposes like PhDs, master's, or undergraduate theses but also for everyday life and hobbies.
Defining a well-structured research question is critical to avoid getting lost in the vast information available.
Starting research with a broad overview using Google, Wikipedia, and Google Scholar helps to get an initial understanding of the topic.
Organizing your research by categorizing findings and maintaining a central document for notes is essential for keeping track of insights.
Patience is key in the research process as not all information is valuable; learning to discern between genuine research and opinion pieces is important.
Going to primary sources will always give more reliable information than relying solely on secondary interpretations of research.
Using tools like Google Trends can help gauge how interest in a topic has evolved over time, aiding in understanding the broader context of the research.
Google Scholar is underused but provides access to a wealth of peer-reviewed academic research, making it a valuable tool even outside academia.
When conducting academic research, review papers are especially useful as they consolidate vast amounts of research into one place and are highly cited.
A solid research process includes reading titles, abstracts, and figure captions to quickly filter relevant papers.
It's important to avoid overwhelming yourself with unnecessary papers by focusing strictly on research that aligns with your topic.
Learning to know when to stop researching is critical, especially if you feel that you already understand the topic or have gathered sufficient information.
Going back to refine your research at different stages is part of the process but always keep the original research question as your anchor.
Always prioritize primary sources to ensure accuracy, as secondary sources can misinterpret or oversimplify research findings.
Knowing when youâve gathered enough information is a valuable skill; once you feel you've covered the necessary ground, itâs time to move on to the next phase.
Transcripts
learning to research is a very important
skill now it doesn't matter if it's for
academia like a phd master's
undergraduate research thesis or it's
just for general life i've got loads of
hobbies sewing lock picking check out
this i made this on the weekend i love
it it's got dashones on it but all of
these things have required me to do some
research about how to do things um and
in this video i'm going to share with
you all of the steps i go through
whether or not i'm doing a phd or
learning how to sew a hoodie all of
these things are super valuable go
through the steps and i assure you you
will know how to research more
effectively at the end of this video
this video is sponsored by my newsletter
go check it out at
andrewsstation.com.edu forward slash
newsletter i'll put a link in the
description and when you sign up you'll
get five emails straight away over two
weeks about
podcasts that i've been on with loads of
valuable information
daily planner tools how to write an
awesome abstract and more so go sign up
and i'll see you over there
preparing for research on any topic just
means you kind of have to just lay the
foundations as in what are you actually
trying to research where are the
boundaries of where you want to research
all of these are important because you
can research forever as academics it's
really hard just to stop and go okay
i've got enough i'm going to move on
with what i know we always want more
information so having a well-defined
research question or topic is very
important and then you need a place to
store your notes store the things that
you find and a little kind of cheeky
place where you can put notes on
different papers now there are plenty of
software options out there for you but
just starting simply just a folder
structure on your computer with the
topic and then a few sort of like blank
sort of folders underneath that just are
ready for you to start kind of
identifying the categories and
organizing research as it pops up into
certain categories you won't know it
just yet but as you start to research
and you get a sixth sense of all of the
things that are involved in this topic
you'll start to be able to go well that
that paper fits here or that bit of
information fits here and having a just
running document of notes that sits in
the sort of highest level folder is very
important just sort of like spill out
all that information into your that
comes out of your head into the file and
it's just a quick scanning file
initially you'll start to get more and
more detailed as we go through but
initially it's just about the broad
level strokes the last thing you'll need
is a bunch of patients researching a
topic you know the google
wikipedia
all of these tools make it incredibly
easy to get research and information at
your sort of like disposal but the
problem is is that not all research is
created equal so having the patience to
go through turn up your filter
and just try to understand a little bit
of whether or not what you're reading is
sort of uh genuine research or it's
someone's interpretation of that
research going to the primary sources
will win out every single time and so
just trying to
get in the mindset that it's going to
take a little bit of time but your
efforts will be rewarded because you lay
the proper foundations of researching a
topic it will accelerate your um your
your feedback and your productivity
towards the end of your uh project okay
here we go
when you are researching a topic you
start with the broadest possible strokes
possible now i'm talking about wikipedia
google those places are just a brilliant
place to start because they just give
you an ability to get an idea of the
sort of information that's out there is
it mainly academic is it opinion pieces
is it blogs all of these places will
help you kind of understand what the
topic has to offer now um a place that i
like to go through and go to right away
is google trends just head to google
trends and what that has done for me in
the past it gives me a
sense of what the field is doing and the
topic is doing over time and it helps me
sort of like calibrate my
barometer because i'm looking at and i'm
going okay well a majority of topics
happened in 2009 so if i see something
from 2009 i know that that was kind of
the peak interest area of this field and
therefore you know it may i can expect
to see a lot of information around there
and then it dies off but whatever you
know you see just gives you an ability
to kind of just understand the field and
how it's moved over time and i find that
very very useful
another place is wikipedia wikipedia is
great because it's always evolving and
it tends to have the most up-to-date
information particularly if it's like a
hot moving topic so solar cells was my
phd background and there was always
useful information people are always
updating it and i think that is a really
great place to go
another place and if this is an academic
research question like if you're doing
your phd your master's your
undergraduate google scholar google
scholar is a really great place to go
and i don't see enough people using it
you know even outside of the research
field if you're writing a blog if you're
trying to understand a business if
you're trying to do some marketing
whatever it is google scholar has got
all of this research that you can scan
quickly and yeah sure you know it takes
you to academic papers which can be a
massive pain in the ass to read but that
is peer-reviewed science and research so
all of that you know you can really
trust as long as it's from a reputable
journal
and you also get an idea of the patents
and the you know the up-to-date
information about where the field is and
you can sort by date all of it's very
important so there we are google scholar
wikipedia and also google search with
google search you have to be a bit
careful i tend to put the topic and then
the word science or research or you know
just to kind of hone in on where
journalists have taken a bit of research
and now you're looking at the secondary
source you're looking at when a
journalist has taken a primary paper or
a research finding and they've gone
brilliant i need to tell the world this
and they've done kind of the hard part
which is translating the research into
the real world language you know
everyday language for the general
audience and general population so those
are the places i'll start and i'll start
collecting information i'll start
putting it into folders that i think
kind of makes sense as i go along if i'm
not sure i'll just dump it all into one
folder but having the note document is
very important and i will put in
questions like oh that's interesting i
found this but what you know where else
is there a gap or what of what questions
are popping into my mind as i'm
researching um and always referring back
to that research question is super
important because if a bit of research
doesn't match your research question you
can just ignore it you know even if it's
a little bit on the edge of the research
question just get rid of it there's
plenty of research out there there's
plenty of information around a topic
that it will be related to your research
question directly and it just takes a
while sometimes to dig through the
rubbish to find out exactly uh where you
need to be playing in order to answer
and research your topic
if you want to start really strong and
accelerate your research into a topic
exponentially i highly recommend that
you look for a review paper a review
paper is essentially when someone has
done all the work for you but you do
have to be careful you have to make sure
it's relevant and recent but a lot of
these papers exist because in the phd
world they get a lot of citations and it
really helps your career later on so
you can take these review papers and
have a look at how they split up the
research field this will give you an
idea of the sort of categories that you
can break down in your folder structure
when you're dragging and dropping
papers into it but a research
paper and a review paper sorry is
incredibly powerful because they have
done all the hard work for you they've
pulled in a whole load of research into
one paper they've referenced it all like
these review papers will often have two
to 300 references that you can then go
oh well that's interesting i'll go check
out the primary source checking out the
primary source is very important never
take anyone's word for something until
you've read it in the original research
paper because uh it you know people
misrepresent stuff all the time even my
papers when they get cited i'm like
that's not what that paper said but a
citation is a citation um so yes looking
for a review paper is very very
powerful and it can give you that
ability to kind of then use that as a
way to branch off into other papers so
check out your research field or your
research topic and type in review paper
into google scholar with your topic and
you may be surprised of what you can
find
researching any topic is actually quite
fun in this stage when you're just like
grabbing articles and be like oh this is
good this looks interesting but the real
hard work comes to when you actually
have to read the information and start
categorizing it so go check out my other
video i believe it was my last video
about how to read research effectively
and quickly now this isn't about
scanning the whole page even if it's a
web page for example you know you don't
have to read it or you can you can
control f and find
bits that you think would be you know
use keywords to search in that web
article um if you've got something like
a research paper if this is much more
academic and you're downloading research
papers from a place like scihub um a lot
of people don't agree with scihub but
it's there nonetheless it's a tool you
can use it
go and read
the
title the abstract look at the figures
and the figure captions and that will
give you an idea of whether or not you
want to invest time in actually reading
this paper or this bit of research if
you don't don't delete it just use a
little folder that's like not yet like a
not yet folder drag and drop it across
and it will just kind of tidy up and
reduce the amount of murkiness and
muddiness as you're going through so
we've been through the massive kind of
hall we've trawled the internet with our
with our uh with our big net and we've
caught everything we can and now it's
about going through and sorting out okay
well this is interesting this is not and
unfortunately there's no shortcut just
go through read title abstract figure
captions and then start to sort out yes
i want to read this more no i don't want
to read this and you'll start to kind of
get a sixth sense of whether or not
something is interesting just from the
abstract
and knowing when to stop is actually one
of the hardest things
so when you're researching a topic
you've got to this stage and you're like
i've got all these papers i'm starting
to sort of like formulate my own ideas
i'm starting to find gaps and you can go
back to any stage and just be like okay
well i need more information on this
certain category or sub topic okay i'll
go back
but knowing when to stop is probably one
of the most important things in this
especially if you're in a sort of like
time constraint like you're doing it for
an undergraduate review paper or
whatever it is um always be referring
back to that that first question that
research topic or question why are you
actually doing this have you been able
to answer the question with relevant
timely information have you been able to
formulate your own conclusions or notice
any gaps in the research all of this is
going to be important for you to say
okay i've had enough and i feel like we
always go too far so if you feel like i
just do a little bit more searching stop
you've probably got enough if you're if
you're still in a position where you
like i have no idea what's going on with
this research continue that search
continue that filtering process
but
if you feel like okay i kind of get this
it's time to start you know normally
you're researching for a purpose so just
start on that next step start on the
research so the physical research in a
lab or
doing your own unique research if you're
doing a phd or your master's
or if you're formulating an essay start
writing that essay you know you'll
you'll start to find the smaller gaps
and you can always go back through the
process to answer questions but knowing
when to stop is super vital because
remember this is a very important part
but normally you're researching for
something else so once you get that
inkling you've got enough move on
so there we have it that's how i
research everything i guess it starts
with a massive broad over stroke using
those kind of tools that we all use no
matter what the topic wikipedia google
scholar and google and then make sure
you understand how to search effectively
in google using the search modifiers
and then i collect that all together and
then i start sort of
reaching out more so i look for a review
paper i look for
research i look for journalist
interpretation of
research or some new findings or some
new information i start bringing that
all together always going back to the
primary source if possible and then i
start reading it and reading it
effectively like i said go check out my
other video that's really important for
speeding up this process not all the
information you find is going to be
correct relevant or even interesting to
your research topic and then knowing
exactly when to stop is going to be your
super power in this once you go okay i
kind of get this i'm starting to
formulate my own ideas or i'm starting
to understand how all this uh all these
moving parts come together that is when
you go okay what's the next step how do
i move on and you have to stop there
sometimes it doesn't feel right you know
you can always get more information but
be strict with yourself and move on
if this video has been useful to you
please remember to check out
academiainsider.com that is where i have
my ebook the ultimate academic writing
toolkit as well as my insider academia
forum so that is a bunch of people
helping each other become better
academics and
mental health stuff along the way as
well it's a great bunch of people so go
check it out and i'll see you over there
until the next video
look after yourself
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