Make sure to support your messages with solid research. The worst thing you can do is plagiarize. If you get caught plagiarizing as a student that will go on your record and will make it hard to get a degree anywhere after. If you get caught and you work for a company then you might get sued and fired from your job. Always make sure to give credit where credit is due, your source. A company may even ask for their money back because since its not your work then its not your money.
The research process: (pg. 315)
1. Plan: Maintain research ethic and etiquette. Familiarize yourself with the subject; develop problem statement. Identify information gaps. Prioritize research.
2. Locate data and information: evaluate sources. Collect secondary information at the library, online, or elsewhere. Document your sources. Collect primary information through surveys and interviews.
3. Process data and information: Quote, paraphrase, or summarize textual information. Analyze numerical information.
4. Apply your findings: summarize findings. Draw conclusions. Make recommendations.
5. Manage information: make research results available to other via your company’s knowledge management system.
Surveys: If you can’t find information online, a good tip is creating a survey. Just make sure that if you do create a survey that you get enough people to fill it out or else it will be useless. You cant have 10 people fill out a survey because then the margin error will be huge if there are 100s of people out there. Small numbers are not very representative. One thing about surveys is you can manipulate the outcome of the survey with leading questions. Basically, with your questions you can get people to say what you want. Not that this is what you should do but you can. However I would say not to do this because in the end it won’t help in your research.
Conducting a Survey: (pg. 328)
· Provide clear instructions.
· Keep the questionnaire short and easy to answer.
· Whenever possible, formulate questions to provide answer that are easy to analyze.
· Avoid leading questions
· Avoid ambiguous questions.
· Ask only one question at a time
· Make the survey adaptive
Examples: Types of Surveys (pg.329)
Multiple Choice: Use a multiple-choice question when you want your respondents to choose the best possible answer among all options presented.
Example
What is your current marital status? (Select one.)
Single
Married
Divorced
Separated
Widowed
What is your current marital status? (Select one.)
Single
Married
Divorced
Separated
Widowed
Likert-Scale: Use a Likert-scale question when you are trying to determine respondents’ attitudes or feelings about something.
Example
How important do you think SAT scores are to a college student’s success? (select one):
How important do you think SAT scores are to a college student’s success? (select one):
Not very important 1 2 3 4 5 Extremely important
Focus Groups:
They don’t work! Normally during a focus group they give people free stuff and this makes people feel like they need to say something good even if it’s a lie. This is a technique they use to make you bend what you really think to not look bad. When in a focus group they tend to buy you in. they do this so when you do say something bad you look like a jerk after they just gave you a free gift.
Helpful Links: Learn how to make your own survey.
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