Research

 

How to do internet research fast and easy

1. Eliminate advertising by excluding commercial sites. Exclude terms by putting a minus sign in front of them.  For example:  -.com   -.co
2. Find documents by including this term: .pdf
3. Find government approved materials by including this term: .gov
4. Find professional academic information by including these terms: .edu    .ac
5. Filter just for Images, just for News, or just for Shopping.

Note how many pages are returned for each of these Google searches:

• Ice Fishing Shack Hut Design Plans (About 72,500,000 results)
• Ice Fishing Shack Hut Design Plans .pdf (About 221,000 results)
• Ice Fishing Shack Hut Design Plans .pdf .gov (About 28,800 results)
• Ice Fishing Shack Hut Design Plans .pdf -.com -.co (About 1,400 results)

You ain’t going to live long enough to view 72,500,000 results about anything, no matter how much you care about it.  If you looked at 1000 internet pages every day, it would take you 198 years to view all of the results on this topic available today.

Get smart about how you do internet searches.  This will save you a lot of time in finding good information.

*

Key Terms for Inquiry

Start with a Topic and combine this with one or more of these Key Terms.  Substitute Key Terms to find different perspectives.  Generally speaking, half a dozen combinations of Topic + Key Terms will suffice. 

-.co, -.com, .ac, .edu, .gov, .pdf, .ppt, Abstract, Annotated, Annual, Archive, Article, Association, Bibliography, Catalogue, Chart, Citation, Clearing House, Collection, Comparison, Concise, Critique, Data, Database, Debate, Diagram, Directory, Forum, Graph, Guide, Handbook, History, Index, Institute, International, List, Manuscript, Non-profit, Open, Portal, Proceedings, Record, Reference, Repository, Research, Resource, Review, Society, Statistic, Summary , Survey, Syllabus, Table, Text

*

It’s Time to Get Serious About Research Fraud

The fight against fake-paper factories that churn out sham science

Why Most Published Research Findings Are False (Ioannidis)

*

Internet Research:  How to Look & How to Judge

• Advanced Search
• Grasswire
• izitru?
• Logic & Perception (The Skeptic’s Dictionary)
• Ó Dochartaigh, Niall (2012) Internet Research Skills, 3rd Edition. London: Sage. 
• Poynter Institute   
• Pyrrhonian Skepticism
• Reverse Image Search
• Scepticism on the Web (Peter J. King)
• Search Tips and Options
• Verification Handbook (Craig Silverman, editor)
•  

*

Resources & Examples

• Abduction, Deduction and Induction in Qualitative Research (Jo Reichertz)
• American Association for Public Opinion Research
• American Community Survey Research and Evaluation report
• arXiv.org (Cornell U)
• Assessment of organisational culture (Reiman & Oedewald)
• Case-Control Studies (Tobias Gerhard)
• China sees dip in research-grant misconduct
• Comparative effectiveness of technology-enhanced simulation
• Conducting Surveys (Auditor General of Canada)
• Cross-Cultural Survey Guidelines (CCSG)
• Current Population Survey Methodology (US Census)
• Decomposition Methods in Economics (Fortin, Lemieux, & Firpo)
• Design & Emotion:  The Kansei Engineering Methodology (Lokman)
• Designing Household Survey Samples (UN)
• Designing Surveys (World Bank)
• Do’s and Don’ts of Questionnaire Design
• Duke Initiative on Survey Methodology
• Encyclopedia of Research Design
• Evaluation Handbook (W.K. Kellogg Foundation)
• Financial and Economic Research Methods (Harrison & Herbohn)
• Fundamentals of Survey Research Methodology (Glasgow)
• Global surveys or multi-national surveys? On sampling for global surveys (Katz)
• Good Practices in Survey Design Step-by-Step (OECD)
• Program on Survey Research (Harvard)
• Index of /ebooks/Research Methods
• Information Collection Tools:  Advantages and Disadvantages
• Information Research and Analysis (IRA) Lab
• Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
• Introduction to Effective Survey Design and Administration (Johnson)
• Introduction to Qualitative Research Methodology Training Manual
  
• National Council on Public Polls (NCPP)
• Online Survey Design Guide (U Maryland) 
• Optimizing Survey Questionnnaire Design in Political Science (Pasek & Krosnick)
• Overview of Qualitative Methods  and Analytic Techniques
• Pew Research Center
• Performance Audit Manual (Auditor General of Canada)
• Practitioner’s Guide to Perception Surveys
• Pyramid Principle (Minto)
• Quality Assessment of the 5th European Working Conditions Survey
• Questions and Answers in Surveys
• Questionnaire Design for Social Surveys
• Questionnaire Design Research Laboratory (QDRL)
• Research Skills (Glasgow Caledonian U)
• Questionnaire Design for Survey Research:  Employing Weighting Method (Sato)
• Questionnaire Design Research Laboratory (QDRL)
• REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture)
• Research Connections:  Child Care & Early Education
• Research Process Steps (Baltimore County Public Schools)
• Research Questions Guiding Selection of an Appropriate Research Method (Jarvinen)
• Roper Center:  Public Opinion Archives
• Sage Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods (Given)
• Statistics Canada
• Sensitive Questions in Surveys (Tourangeau & Yan)
• Social Science Data Archive (UCLA)
• Survey Methods in Technology and Physical Sciences (Cambridge U)
• Survey Research Methods (ESRA)
• Tracing the Steps of Survey Design (MaGee, Rickards, Byars & Artino)
• UK Data Service
• User-Friendly Handbook for Mixed Method Evaluations (Frechtling & Sharp) 
  
• Why Policymakers Should Ignore Public Opinion Polls (Weissberg)

*

“Maybe what I am looking for is in this one.”

*