This document provides guidance on how to conduct research for a research paper. It discusses selecting a topic and forming research questions. It emphasizes narrowing the topic and choosing a puzzle to solve. It also covers conducting a literature review to understand what is already known about the topic. The document outlines qualitative and quantitative methods for collecting primary and secondary data. It addresses ethical considerations and the role of theory. It provides tips for data analysis and writing the research paper, including avoiding plagiarism. Scholarly journals in various social science fields are also listed.

1. Why do we conduct research?
We undertake research when we wish to:
• investigate an idea
• look into an issue
• solve a problem
• make an argument in relation to what others
have written.

2. Research in the Social Sciences
• Social science research is concerned with people
and their life contexts and with philosophical
questions relating to the nature of knowledge
and truth, values and being which support human
judgments and activities.
• Social science research differs from research in
the natural sciences as a result of its focus on
people-individuals and groups-and their behavior
within cultures and organizations that vary widely
socially and historically. There is unpredictability
in the behavior of human beings.

3. Research in the Social Sciences
• Social science research cannot develop similar
powerful solutions (as natural sciences) to social
problems since the mind enables individuals and
groups to take decisions that vary with widely
different motives.
• Human experience is characterized by complexity,
and social science researchers need to resist the
temptation to impose unnecessary order through
the application of ‘one size fits all’ theories.

4. Researchers require many life skills such
as:
• personal time management
• enlisting others to work with you
• organizational skills to assemble data and
arrange it for easy retrieval
• fascination with detail during the phase of
immersion in data
• curiosity and creativity to notice the meaning
and patterns that emerge from it

5. Researchers require many life skills
such as:
• synthesizing ideas and constructing and
testing out theories
• reflexive self-awareness to employ your own
impact on the material you are analyzing
• presenting reports both in writing and orally
which have sufficient persuasive power to
command attention.

6. How do we conduct research for our
research papers?
We seek to use materials beyond our personal
resources: a combination of primary research and
secondary research.
• Primary research: the study of a subject through
firsthand investigation, such as analyzing a literary or
historical text, a film, or a performance, conducting a
survey or an interview or carrying out a lab
experiment.
• Secondary research: the examination of studies that
other researchers have made of a subject. Examples:
articles and books about political issues, historical
events, scientific debates or literary works.

7. Main activities that you need to
undertake while writing a research
paper:
• discovering, assessing and assimilating others’
research
• then articulating your own ideas clearly and
persuasively.

8. DON’T FORGET
• -A research paper is a form of written
communication. Like other kinds of nonfiction
writing-letters, memos, reports, essays, articles,
books-it should present info and ideas clearly and
effectively.
• -You should not let the mechanics of gathering
source materials, taking notes and documenting
sources make you forget to apply the knowledge
and skills you have acquired through previous
writing experiences.

9. STEP I: SELECTING YOUR TOPIC
• come across a topic by chance
• begin studying a topic because the data or the
research site are conveniently available.
• Social obligations: to change the status quo,
excitement about data decided on the topic.
• Curiosity: general curiosity as the main reason for
selecting a particular topic. Intrigued by a facet of
social life and want to learn about it.
• Using the self as a starting point: direct personal
experience becomes the starting point of your
research.

10. TIPS for Choosing your Research Topic
• Narrow down your topic
• find a topic that is appropriate to your theory and data
and is workable.
• give yourself plenty of time to think through and
rethink your choice of a topic.
• look for a subject or an issue that will continue to
engage you throughout research and writing.
• consult library materials and other print and electronic
info resources to refine the topic and to see if sufficient
work has been done on the subject to make it a viable
topic for the research paper.

11. Don’t forget:
• It is usually tempting to select a very broad
topic. By including every aspect of a problem
that you can think of you hope the show of
the breadth of knowledge and/or to impress
your professors.
• BUT your aim should be to say a lot about a
little problem; not a little about a lot.
•

12. STEP 2: Finding a puzzle/ forming research
questions
What I am really trying to find out? More
specifically what puzzle I am trying to solve?
• 3 questions that may generate the intellectual
puzzle:
• -how or why did X develop? (a developmental
puzzle)
• -How does X work? (a mechanical puzzle)
• -What causes X or what influence does X have
on Y? (A causal puzzle)

13. STEP 2: Finding a puzzle/ forming
research questions
• It is impossible to solve all these puzzles, so
which puzzle do you choose? The following are
some further questions that are worth asking:
• -which puzzle most interests me?
• -which puzzle most relates to issues on which I
already have some theoretical, substantive, or
practical background?
• -which puzzle would generate questions that
could be answered using my own researches and
with readily available data?

14. The role of research questions:
• 1. they organize the project and give it
direction and coherence.
• 2. they limit the project showing its
boundaries.
• 3. they keep the researcher focused.
• 4. they provide a framework when you write
up your research.
• 5.they point to the methods and data that will
be needed.

15. STEP 3: Literature Review
Contents of a literature review
• What do we already know about the topic?
• What do you have to say critically about what is
already known?
• Has anyone else ever done anything exactly the same?
• Has anyone else done anything that is related?
• Where does your work fit in with what has gone
before?
• Why is your research worth doing in the light of what
has already been done?

16. STEP 3: Literature Review
Preparing a literature search
• What discipline(s) relate to my main topic?
• How can I focus my topic to make my search
more precise?
• What are the main indexes and abstracts
relevant to my topic?
• What meand of recording will be most
efficient for many tasks such as cross
referencing?

17. STEP 3: Literature Review
Where will I find the literature?
• Bibliographies in the literature you read
• Online searches on the Web
• The social sciences citation index

18. STEP 3: Literature Review
TIPS for reviewing the literature
• Show respect for the literature: Your single-
minded pursuit of your narrow research
should not disrespect for earlier research or
disconnect your work from the wider debate.
• Be focused and critical: after some initial
research know what you are looking for.

19. STEP 3: Literature Review
• Avoid mere description (!): You need to focus
on those studies that are relevant to your
research question. By the end of the literature
review, the reader should think “this is the
exact study that needs to be done to move
knowledge in the field a little further.’
Background literature can be described in a
sentence, but by contrast most relevant
studies need to be critiqued rather than
reported.

20. STEP 4: Collecting Your Data
Resources (primary and secondary)
-Books
-Articles in periodicals
-Sound or video recordings
-Databases
-Indexes and bibliographies
-newspapers
-statistical data

21. STEP 4: Collecting Your Data
How to collect your data? (Qualitative and
Quantitative Methods)
Quantitative and statistical methods as
positivist aspired to realism, objectivity, causal
explanation and universal truth
VS.
Qualitative interpretative, value-laden,
contextual.

22. STEP 4: Collecting Your Data
Qualitative Research:
• The qualitative tradition was initially
characterized by its opposition to the strict
research designs demanded in most
quantitative work.
• -The hope was that somehow meaning would
emerge by itself from such in-depth exposure
to the field.

23. STEP 4: Collecting Your Data
Ethical Issues while collecting your data:
• As a result of its focus on people, ethical issues
are centrally important in social science research.
Knowledge confers power, so in collecting data
researchers need to be guided by principles of
respect for persons and obtaining informed
consent. The publication of outcomes confronts
social science researchers with the need to
consider the possible impact of their reports on
the people who have been part of it.

24. STEP 4: Collecting Your Data
• Field research: is essentially a matter of
immersing oneself in a naturally occurring set of
events to gain firsthand knowledge of the
situation.
• First any researcher (no matter how unstructured
or inductive) comes to fieldwork with some
orienting ideas.
• The beauty of qualitative research is that its rich
data can offer the opportunity to change focus as
the ongoing analysis suggests.

25. STEP 4: Collecting Your Data
Different Methods in Qualitative Research:
• participant observation
• in-depth interviews
• focus groups

26. STEP 4: Collecting Your Data
Ethical Issues while collecting your data:
The logic and necessity of protecting the dignity
and safety of the research participants is widely
accepted among social scientists today
• Ex: Nazi used concentration camp victims as
guinea pigs in medical experiments.
• 399 African-American men infected by syphilis
unknowingly became participants in a medical
experiment that lasted nearly 40 years until
finally exposed in early 70s.

27. STEP 4: Collecting Your Data
• The role of theory in your research and in
collecting your data:
• Theory refers to analytic relevance of your
empirical work to more general questions being
debated in your field.
• Theoretical choices may be influenced by reading
of what other academics have published (quite
effective if you do not want to reinvent the wheel
again) certain ideas may be normatively accepted
in the field and your research could build on the
existing knowledge.

28. STEP 4: Collecting Your Data
• Find a settled theoretical orientation:
Research is never only about methods. Find a
theoretical approach that makes sense to you
and could provide a basis for inference and
data analysis.

29. STEP 4: Collecting Your Data
Depending on your theory, your data possibilities
vary:
• e.g.: Livingston (1987) social research on city
streets.
• Viewing a street: Data possibilities
• 1-official statistics(traffic flow, accidents)
• 2.interviews (how people cope with rush hours)
• 3.observation from a tower (viewing geometric
shapes)
• 4.observation/video at street level (how people
organize their movements)

30. STEP 4: Collecting Your Data
Each of different ways of looking involves basic
theoretical as well as methodological decisions.
• If we are attached to social theories that see the world
in terms of correlations between social facts we are
most likely to consider gathering official statistics.
• By contrast if we think that social meaning or
perceptions are important, we may be tempted by the
interview study.
• Point is that none of this data more true than others
all depends on our research question and are
theoretically informed.

31. STEP 5: Data Analysis and Writing
• Anyone who has done qualitative data analysis
will tell you that writing and analysis coexist.
• Analysis of data provides a method for organizing
and eventually writing the dissertation again
writing and analysis not spate and sequential but
are intertwined and simultaneous.
• To do effective data analysis you must know your
data, good social science writing embedded in
the data. To ensure that data grows out of the
data become intimately familiar with every bit of
info that your research generates.

32. STEP 5: Data Analysis and Writing
• Data analysis can be enjoyable. Sitting down and
piecing together the different bits and pieces of
interviews and observations into a coherent work
can be an exhilarating creative process.
• Begin data analysis early-don’t be deflected away
from early data analysis by literature reviews and
the exigencies of data gathering. If you haven’t
got any data yourself at an early stage try
analyzing someone else’s data

33. STEP 5: Data Analysis and Writing
Originality:
• An original contribution to knowledge is a very shaded
term-it does not mean an enormous breakthrough
shift in your discipline. Instead it demonstrates that
you have a good grasp of how research is normally
done in your field that you can do what Kuhn calls
normal science.
• that you have something to say which your peers will
want to listen
• that you are aware of what is being discovered argued
about written and published by your academic
community across the world.

34. STEP 5: Data Analysis and Writing
• Definition of Plagiarism
• Derived from the Latin word plagiaries
(“kidnapper”), to plagiarize means “to commit
literary theft” and to “present as new and original
and idea or product derived from an existing
source”
• Using another person’s ideas, info, or expressions
as your own to get a better grade or gain some
other advantage constitutes fraud.

35. STEP 5: Data Analysis and Writing
Unintentional plagiarism
• The purpose of a research paper is to synthesize
previous research with your ideas on the subject,
so you should feel free to use other person’s
words, facts, and thoughts in your research paper
but the material you borrow must not be
presented as if it were your own creation.
• Presenting an author’s exact wording without
marking it as a quotation is plagiarism, even if
you cite the source.

36. Response Paper
• The aim of writing a response paper is to
make you consider carefully what you think or
feel about something you've read.
• A response paper demonstrates your
comprehension of the material and your
ability to think critically about it.
• Good response papers will help you become a
better reader and writer, and they will also
help make discussions lively and focused

37. Response Paper
• What did you think of these readings? What
did you find interesting, wrong-headed,
surprising, or thought-provoking about the
readings?
• Be specific!
• Ask questions!
• Situate author’s opinions in the scientific or
critical context from which they are derived.
Relate his or her opinions to that context.

38. Response Paper
• Agree and disagree by providing explanations,
arguments and examples.
• Even though response essays are based on
opinion-making all arguments should be
elaborate and somehow justified.
• Provide objective and critical information rather
than a set of personal impressions.
• Express your own opinion and support it by any
evidence.

39. Scholarly Journals
• World politics
• World Politics Review
• Comparative politics
• Social politics
• Cultural politics
• National minority politics
• Nationalism & ethnic politics

40. Scholarly Journals
• Nations and Nationalism
• Nationalities Papers
• Nationalism & ethnic politics
• Studies in ethnicity and nationalism
• Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
• International Migration
• International Migration Review
• Diaspora

41. Scholarly Journals
• Cultural anthropology
• Social anthropology
• American journal of sociology
• Canadian review of sociology and anthropology
• Economic sociology
• International journal of comparative sociology
• Cultural studies