Session 1: Basic Concept of Research

Session 2: Know Thyself

Session 3: Research Approaches
Session 4: Literature Review
Session 5: Exercises
“Research is a systematic process of collecting and
analyzing information to increase our understanding
about a problem” (Leedy and Ormond, 2010).
1. Research is not merely information gathering.

2. Research is not merely transportation of facts from one place

to another.

3. Research is not merely rummaging for information.

4. Research is not a catchword to get an attention only.

 Research originates with a question or problem
 Research requires a clear articulation of a goal.
 Research follows a specific plan of procedure.
 Research usually divides the principal problem into
more manageable sub-problems.
Research usually divides the principal problem into more manageable sub-problems.

Main Problem:
Town Town How do I get from Town A to

A B Town B?

Sub Problems:

1. What is the most direct route?

2. How far do I travel on the highway?
3. Which exit should I take to leave the highway?
5. Research is guided by the specific research problem, question or hypothesis.

The hypotheses are-

1. The bulb has burned out.
2. The lamp is not plugged into the wall outlet.
3. A late afternoon thunderstorm has interrupted the electrical line.
4. The wire from the lamp to the wall outlet is defective.
5. You forgot to pay your electricity bill.

Fortunately, Hypothesis 4 solved the problem.

 What Research Is ?? (Cont…)

6. Research accepts certain critical assumptions.

7. Research requires the collection and interpretation of

data in an attempt to resolve the problem that initiated the

research.
8. Research is, by its nature, cyclical or helical.
 1. Research
begins with
6. It interprets data a problem
which leads to the
resolution of the
problem. Thus 2. It needs a
confirming or clear
rejecting the statement of
hypotheses. At this the problem
point, one or more
new problems may
emerge.

5. It looks for
data directed by
3. It divides
the hypotheses the main
and guided by the problem into
problem. Then appropriate
data are collected
sub-problems
and guided. 4. It posits
tentative
solutions to
the problems
through
reasonable
hypotheses

Figure: Research is, by its nature, cyclical or helical.

  Please write down the answer of the following 3
QUESTIONS on three different pieces of paper.
1. What is your beauty?
2. What beauty do you want to see?
3. What is your ‘NEGATIVE ADJECTIVE’ that you
don’t want / wish to be removed of?
Revisiting Research Processes…
A Reflexive Approach to Research
Research as a Conversation
 - Research is a human enterprise, done by human. So, it
is very hard not to be biased or prejudiced.

- Research involves:
a) The relationship between Researcher and Topic.
b) The culture and practices of researcher himself.
 Research as a Conversation

 Was given to you by someone else

 You would like to do for the benefit of someone
else
 You think will be acceptable by others
 You are passionate about
 You are familiar with
 Reflects who you are as a person
 Will be useful to you and your career
or to a particular cause that you feel strongly about
 A Middle Key Insult….!

How you will feel when you go to your supervisor after completing
your Research and he says – “There is literature on that” ?

It means that the topic has already thoroughly been studied by a

large number of people and you have failed to discover this. You
have just wasted a chunk of your life re-inventing the wheel…!

Again, If you go through all the literatures it will be a square peg in

a round hole. The process will be like eating soup with a knife.
 To be able to make an original contribution within your
thesis
 To be able to identify research gaps and questions that
could be addressed
 To be able to provide a critique of prior research in the
literature review sections of each paper
 To be able to demonstrate the building of theory from
data
1. Preparation
2. Searching
3. Reading
4. Taking notes
5. Writing
6. Revision
Topic / Title Importance of Ethical Public Relations in Non-profit
Organizations

Author, • Nurcin Coskun

Publication year, • School of Communication Studies (2015) 1-91
& Journal • https://openrepository.aut.ac.nz/handle/10292/406

Aim To get an understanding of exploring PR success in small non-

profit organizations

Methodology, • Qualitative approach

Tool of Data Collection, • semi-structured interview data
Method of analysis, • excellence model.
Sample

Results / main Findings • Organizations with excellent public relations programs have
been found to be successful in achieving their goals.
• small nonprofit organizations are faced with limited
resources and budgets for setting and reaching their goals.
Disagreement, Limitations
By and large Yosemite has been preserved as though it were a painting. The
boundaries of the park are the gilt frame around a masterpiece, and within the
frame we are urged to take only pictures, leave only footprints. There are
enormously important reasons to do so—there are too many people coming to
the park to do it any other way—and yet I cannot help feeling something is
sadly missing from this experience of nature. Looking is a fine thing to do to
pictures, but hardly an adequate way to live in the world. It is nature as a
place in which we do not belong, a place in which we do not live, in which
we are intruders. A tourist is by definition an outsider, a person who does not
belong, a stranger in paradise.

Solnit, Rebecca. Savage Dreams: A Journey into the Landscape Wars of the
American West. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Print).
 SUMMARY PARAPHRASE
Solnit argues that because
Conservation efforts conservation efforts have
traditionally have conceived of Yosemite as a work of
represented Yosemite art, the park is represented as
as a work of art nature appropriately experienced
marked by distinct as one might experience a
borders. While Solnit painting: through sight only. While
acknowledges that this this representation makes sense in
representation may light of the throngs of people
serve to protect the flocking to Yosemite, it limits the
park, she also ways in which an individual might
suggests that it limits experience the park’s landscape,
the individual’s since it implies that that nature is
relationship to the to be viewed and not altered, that
landscape. it is to be visited and not lived in.