How to Read Before You Write?

Secondary research is a very important part of the entire research process, a task which many researchers find tedious and even confusing; selecting the right literatures and documents for secondary research is a prerequisite of a sound research work. Adopting the right approach acts as a guide to make the correct selection, these are some of the aspects that determine the right approach:

Interest in the subject: as a lot of reading has to be done on the subject, researcher must have or develop an interest in the subject, reading without interest would be like reading with an inactive mind incapable of capturing any ideas which is actually the essence of research.

Do not freeze the topic: the topic should not be delimited before completing the secondary research, yet prior to commencing the literature review researcher must have some notion regarding what topic the research would be based, so as to set the direction but at the same time should not hesitate in meandering a little. If there is vast literature available on the preliminary thought of topic, the topic can be narrowed down and made more specific, whereas if the literature available is meagre, the topic can be broadened.

Do not copy: researcher should not attempt to copy the idea of any other researcher as plagiarism is prohibited. The researcher should desire to make an original contribution that can be beneficial for organizations, industries, institutes, society, nation or world. Originality is regarded highly in the research world and also strengthens the view point of the researcher during thesis defense.

Seek further scope: literature review provides an insight into the past, present and future of any topic; it discusses the problems and opportunities in the subject area. Many times researchers may suggest topics for further research in their papers. All such discussions provide research ideas to the researcher.

Review reading: often when there is immense material available on any topic, many researchers may conduct a review on the vast material available and express their findings succinctly by the use of summarization techniques. Such review papers can be read instead of all the papers separately so as to save time. Hence researchers should always look for review based papers for including in secondary research.

Bibliography reading: bibliographies and references given at the end of the research papers and articles provide important suggestions on what to read, annotated bibliographies which also provide a short summary on the source paper are a rich source of information. Several categorized bibliographies are also available online.

Reading through the structure: all research papers are presented in accordance with particular structure and format which helps to locate desired information easily. Hence instead of reading and spelling out each word, reader should understand the objective of the writer and how the information has been placed and what information can be useful for the present topic.

Note the methods applied: already published research paper provide a detailed description on the methods applied for attaining the research objectives. The reader should make a note of these and assess their applicability in his/her own research. For this the similarities and dissimilarities of the situations should be taken into cognition. In other words from the methods applied by other researchers, researcher can get clues to design his/her own research work. Hence at the onset secondary research may seem time consuming but it actually saves time later on.

Never loose knowledge: review of literature requires painstaking efforts and the knowledge gained should not be lost but should be maintained in well categorized repositories for future reference. Such knowledge repositories can be digitalized and be made sharable and accessible to group members and also extremely manageable, due to modern day computing facilities.

Online Access: nowadays, most of the reference material is available on online sources for a minimum subscription free. Students and research scholars of most institutes generally have free access to digital library facilities offered by their institutes. These digital libraries and web sources have features that can enable quick and specified search and save valuable time. The researcher can learn quick browsing skills that will enable him to reach desired destination very swiftly.

Audio Visual Material: reference material available in audio visual form can also be utilized, instead of text as listening and watching is more enjoyable and quick than reading, while skimming for information.

Credibility of sources: the sources selected for literature review should be from credible sources, the credentials and information on writers should be noted before selecting the reading material.

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Jack Joness from his school and college days only had a passion for Mathematics and Statistics. He even used to work as a Data Analysis and Statistics Analysis freelancer during his Post Graduation days. Then after working really hard and gaining lo