With my years of experience doing and assisting student researchers with their project, thesis and dissertation works, I have come to realise that many people actually carry out a ‘read-search’ in place of a ‘research’ and to make matters worse, they just do even ‘re-write’ not a ‘project’ and expect to get the best grades or marks for their works. Evidently, lots of them don’t even know what a research project is and what is not, so I would like to explain in great depth these concepts…..
With my years of experience doing and assisting student researchers with their project, thesis and dissertation works, I have come to realise that many people actually carry out a ‘read-search’ in place of a ‘research’ and to make matters worse, they just do even ‘re-write’ not a ‘project’ and expect to get the best grades or marks for their works. Evidently, lots of them don’t even know what a research project is and what is not, so I would like to explain in great depth these concepts.
All what research project is and not!
Firstly, let’s explain the etymology of the word – research. The word ‘research’ is a French word rechercher “to look for again.” The word is composed of re “again” and chercher “to look for.” From this historic explanation, we can deduce literarily that ‘research’ is not the same thing as ‘read-search’ which is composed of read ‘to interpret the meaning of something’ and search ‘to look for’.To buttress my point, research goes beyond just searching and then reading some other works and then re-writing all what was formerly discovered by the authors. Though, there are many definitions of the concept of research but i would like to just limit this article to three (3) well structured definitions that I am pleased with.According to the Department of Education and Training, Western Sydney University (2019), Research is defined as the creation of new knowledge and/or the use of existing knowledge in a new and creative way so as to generate new concepts, methodologies and understandings. this could include synthesis and analysis of previous research to the extent that it leads to new and creative outcomes.This settles the question you may already have in relation to the concept of read-search which mostly involves copying old new researches. It is not that you should not always use past knowledge or researches, the only thing is that you must use it or them in a way that it leads you to getting new and exceptional solutions to the problem areas you are working on. That takes us to the next definition;In the words of Odediran (2001), research is “a science of knowledge through investigation that is concerned with systematic way of finding information on an issue, subject or object.” Hence, you carry out research in order to search for and find some interesting facts about a person, a thing be it abstract or physical, a place, a phenomenon from the past, present or even future or pairs or groups of entities.Furthermore, research is a process of solving problems and finding facts in an organised way. Sometimes, research is used for challenging or making contribution to generalizable knowledge. Research is done by applying what is known (if anything), and building on it. Research should be systematic, organized and objective (Bung, 1967). In a nutshell, research needs to be ordered in a way that any other person who is to undergo that research and do so and arrive at a similar or exact result like yours, without that assurance with your work, then you just did a ‘read-search’ or worse still a ‘re-write’. You really have to know that the act of getting a past project, thesis or other forms of research work and just copying the ideas, opinions and arguments of the writer without adding your own just shows that you are not really researching.
Instances of Researches
I would like to make these blog posts are very clear as possible. So, I would be givig some practical examples from works I have done, assisted students on or perhaps ones I am currently working on. Today, I would like to relate our topic of discussion to some project topics and how such researches are expected to be carried out by supervisors and professors.In the department of Linguistics Studies and Nigerian Languages for instance, a research topic like this; ‘Language and Styles of Fundraising in Selected Churches in Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria’ is evidently a researchable topic that requires you, the researcher to understand the precept of the research project and then follow up by drafting a plan of action that you and other researchers can use to work on it.If I am to work on such topic and I have come across similar project topics and other online materials from other authors that focused on;1. 9 Principles for Successful Church Fundraising2. ‘Language and Styles of Fundraising in Selected Churches in Oyo State’3. Understanding and Improving the Language of Fundraising: New Directions for Philanthropic FundraisingI can read through their works, see some ideas that I can add into my own research but would not limit myself to theirs alone but also add mine. Take for instance, if in the first material, I read that one principle of fundraising is “Show, don’t tell.” Don’t just talk about the need, show what you need the money to be donated for.” Instead of me stopping my writeup there, I would add that; “In the process of showing and not telling what one needs the money for, one can also make people see what previous monies donated by members were used for by also showing video testimonials of satisfied congregations at Sunday service using the amenities bought.”Thus, I have added to the principles, given my own idea and advanced the knowledge without looking as a copycat of the previous works. More of such can be done by you when researching a subject area. Do you understand that?Project Writing Systematic Process
Project Writing just like conducting a research are very different but related things. In fact, in this blogspot we are still going to be learning how to differentiate them and make the best out of the two of them. The reason why I am referring to this here is because in your quest to conducting your research, you need to follow a laid down viable process which is often a continuum of steps from problem identification down to problem solving and then solution documentation which in short involves project writing.Using our initial project topic example, working on ‘Language and Styles of Fundraising in Selected Churches in Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria’ will require that I make use of some laid down guidelines or outline like this;1. Introduction to Language2. Introduction to Style and/or stylistics3. Introducing the concept of Fundraising4. Explaining the worship center called Church5. Listing out Selected Churches for the Research6. Explaining the notion of Language in Stylistics7. Relating Stylistics with Fundraising8. Principles to be adopted during Fundraising9. Studied Instances of Fundraising Activities in Redeemed Church, Christ Embassy, Anglican Church, or other selected churches10. Similarities and Differences noticed in the approaches used during Fundraising in such selected churchesYou will agree with me that the above guidelines would for a fact assist any serious-minded researcher who wishes to conduct a similar research to either validate my own discoveries or even conduct a similar research to expand on my own results. I hope you now understand what a ‘research project’ is and the ‘read-search’ + ‘re-write’ concepts which it is not. Thanks once again for reading this week’s blog post. Talk to you soon!