Research Basics

Writing the Research Paper (or Proposal)

Data and Methods

This section of the paper summarizes to the reader the method by which you collected your data and how you proceeded to analyze the data. It tells them “who, what, where, when, why, and how” of your observations (i.e. your empirical evidence).

• What is the study design? Did you administer a survey? Did you use existing statistics or a public-use dataset? Did you use historical documents? Did you conduct interviews? Did you conduct participant observation? Did you use visual images?
• What is your population sample? Identify the population that are you addressing in your research study. But then, identify which individuals or certain social artifacts (e.g. documents, photos, lyrics, films, etc.) to be included in your study. Be sure to state the type of sampling technique that you utilized for this step as it will affect the types of conclusions you can make.
• What measurement techniques were used? For those using quantitative methods, you’ll need to state the type of statistical analysis to be used to explore the relationship between your variables. For those using qualitative methods, a description of your coding process will be useful to establish what?

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