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Top 10 Mistakes in Research 10. Not Giving Yourself Enough Time to Research

In a connected world where a single Google search returns 15,382 hits in a matter of seconds, students frequently underestimate how long it takes to complete good-quality research and/or expect a library search to function the same as a Google search. When we research for personal or professional reasons, a couple of quick Internet searches can usually get us the bit of information we need.

However, academic research sets higher standards and expectations. Academic indexes must be searched differently than the basic Internet search engine and the kinds of resources you need for quality academic writing and thinking require precise searches in many different databases.

A good rule of thumb is to designate one to two hours of research per page of text. A three-page essay would reasonably require about three to five hours of research.

9. Using Unacceptable Websites or Other Problematic Sources

Academic writing requires academic-quality resources. That means you should be using sources that are catalogued in libraries, such as Purdue Global's Online Library or a local library. Remember that anyone can post anything to the Internet. Just because it is on a website does not mean that it is accurate or that the source is reliable. In fact, most websites are either selling a product or an agenda.

Avoid websites unless they are government or professional organization sites, such as the American Diabetes Association, the American Lung Association, the American Bar Association, etc. These organizations have professionals in the field who review and approve the content. In order for your research to be credible and convincing, it must draw from the best resources available. Your best alternative is to simply learn how to efficiently use the Purdue Global Online Library.

8. Expecting to Find Sources That Say Everything You Want

Do not expect one, two, or even three sources to have all the information you need or to say exactly what you want. Sometimes, none of the available sources will have the information you want. In this situation, you have two choices: build your argument based on the available evidence and logic, or revise the thesis. It may be that you are trying to argue an indefensible position or that there is no research on the specific point you wish to make.

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7. Assuming You Can Find Everything in One or Two Searches in One Database

Each database is unique and rarely do they overlap. Each database has its own method of indexing that is best for the types of sources it lists. If you want to do effective research, you will need to get in the habit of going to multiple databases and conducting multiple searches in each database. If you expect to go to one database and find all the sources you need, you will be disappointed—and frustrated.

6. Not Using Sources to Find Other Sources

If you are using academic-quality sources, then those sources are going to be well documented and include a reference list. Use those lists! First, look to see where the authors found their information. Look at the titles of the sources and the journals that those sources were published in. You may want to find one of these specific articles, or, if one journal seems to be publishing a number of articles on the topic, you may want to find what database the journal is indexed in and search that database.

Pay particular attention to names that reoccur: The more a source is quoted by other sources, the more likely they are to be the experts that other professionals in the field look to.

5. Not Taking the Time to Learn About the Databases

Not all databases are the same! No database can or should index everything. Each one has a specific list of publications that it tracks, and it indexes the articles published in those specific publications. Some databases are devoted to newspaper articles, others to criminal justice or nursing. Some are more general. You can conduct more comprehensive searches when you understand what kinds of resources are available in each database.

Each time you research a new topic, rethink which databases might be helpful and do not automatically return to the ones you have previously used.

4. Thinking Too Narrowly About the Topic

Many students have too narrow of a topic focus, and thus ignore databases that could provide a wealth of information on their topics. For example, suppose your topic is the problems and costs of obesity. Here are the database possibilities in the Purdue Global Library:

Health Source—Consumer Edition: Offers articles for the general public and overviews, and is generally a good starting place. Academic Search Elite: Offers articles from professional journals, rather than those for the general public. Business Source Elite: Offers a business perspective on what obesity is costing companies and how some companies are responding. ERIC: Offers an educational perspective on how obesity affects the classroom. LexisNexis: Offers newspaper articles that discuss how the popular press is handling the topic. Health Source—Nursing: Offers the professional nursing perspective PubMed: Offers the most specific and technical research available on the topic—the articles doctors use and refer to.

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You would probably not use information from all of these databases, but you want to look in all of them to find the best information. You might find some gems in unexpected places!

3. Taking Sources at Face Value, Especially If You Agree

Always be a skeptic! That makes for the best research. Question who wrote the book or article, and question where they got their information. Question whether the data really proves the point they want to make. Always, always, always question statistics. Percentages can be particularly misleading. Someone can claim a 100 percent increase in crime, but if the actual crime rate went from two crimes to four per year, we can question the statement’s significance.

2. Using the First Sources You Find on the Topic

Simply finding articles on your topic is not sufficient. You want to find the best quality sources you can because it makes your writing more credible and the writing task a bit easier in the long run.

Using the example introduced above in number four, if you search the seven databases on the problems and costs of obesity, you might find dozens of articles in each database. You want to select the ones written by the most credible sources, probably physicians.

You also want to select sources that have the clearest explanations and that are the most closely related to your topic. For most topics, you will want to pay particular attention to the publication date as well. Knowledge changes very quickly and you do not want to use sources with outdated information. With a topic like obesity, sources older than 3 years will probably be out of date because rates of the disease and subsequent costs have changed dramatically in recent years.

1. Choosing Poor Key Words and/or Search Strategies

Do not get into the habit of searching using the same words! Determining which key words provide the best results is often a process of trial and error that uses previous searches to help narrow subsequent ones. Look through the titles of the sources retrieved for terms that will narrow the topic and for terms to exclude from the search.

Learn to effectively use multiple terms, as well as advanced searches and limits to searches. For example, for most topics you will want to narrow your search by limiting the publication dates. This will reduce the number of articles returned and will immediately provide you with the newest information. (The exception to this is if you need background information, i.e. the rates of obesity from the 1980s as a comparison example).

If you search in PubMed using the keyword “obesity” it will return nearly 4,000 articles. If you search using “health risk obesity” it drops to 215. The reduced number of hits will allow you to browse the articles that were returned and decide how to further narrow the topic. After viewing the information, maybe you decide to focus on female adolescents.

In this example, if you search using the phrase “obesity causes and prevention,” then limit the search to adolescent females, human studies only, entries with full abstracts or articles, publication dates since 2000, and only in English, that will reduce the number of articles to 132. You can browse through these articles very quickly by reading the titles and determining which might be helpful. Out of the first

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twenty, probably only one or two will be helpful. You can also limit the search further to Hispanic females, and it will return only five articles on the topic.