How to Choose Research Questions

Secondary Research is an important part of writing a dissertation and it is the easiest type of research that can turn your ordinality written cheap dissertation into an acceptable research work. As compared to the secondary research, the primary research may cost you a lot as well as a lot of time for conducting qualitative or quantitative primary research. Regardless of which type of research method you choose, you have to answer a few research questions set before to address a specific issue.

Secondary Research includes the use of data collected by somebody else in the past, so, it is the past data. The researcher on a topic conducted the research to answer the specific research questions and left his findings for the next generations. The secondary research do not directly address the researcher’s area of the interest. The student is not involved in the secondary data as he merely uses other’s findings for the generalizations of his hypothesis. Secondary data can be collected and analyzed in a shorter time and it doesn’t require to spend money and even if there is a need for money, it will be very low.

Although secondary research is easy in many ways, it has some limitations as well. The secondary research cannot be appropriate for many students who want to address their certain research questions. Sometimes, the hypotheses would not match your research topic and sometimes you would face difficulty in the experimental results. Your research question may not be answered correctly by the secondary data. The previous researchers might have different ideas in their mind while researching a topic. So, the information from their studies may not be appropriate for your topic. The quality of the secondary data can also be different. It may be lacking trustworthiness and authority. Further, you can’t have control over changing the format of the secondary data. There might be some flaws in the research notes of the previous researchers. They may not have enough information on a topic. So, their research may be lacking substantial academic evidence.

Considering all these limitations of the secondary research, you would have to prefer primary research. Even though it can be rather difficult but it can be valid and trustworthy. But be mindful while choosing the primary research as your data collection method. Primary research may yield results quite different than your expectations. The results may not be according to your expectations and it would be a waste of time and money. Sometimes, you won’t be able to write even an introductory paragraph and your deadline for the dissertation submission ends.

So, you have to consider secondary research in any case. Secondary research won’t be a waste of your time and money. In this article, we are going to discuss some important steps that can help you to conduct secondary research that is valid and reliable.

Create your research questions

All types of research require the same thing: create a research questions. So, secondary research also demands the same thing.
When you are an undergraduate, the instructors and supervisors can often provide you the specific research questions. It will be your first step to write a research paper, so they might give you some instructions as well.
But, when you are in the process of completing a masters dissertation, the students have to be creative by themselves. They have to come up with a research question on their own. It is mainly the process where the creativity and the inspiration of the student are assessed. So, your supervisor can just ask you to write a research paper on a topic of your own choice.

It can be sometimes devastating assignment due to the lack of research and writing skills. The students can also face dilemma of choosing a certain topic when they have so many ideas. When you have so many mixed ideas, you may loose focus and, when you have no idea, you will feel the tension of being empty mindedness.

Choose the Right Dissertation Topic

So, the first thing that you should do while conducting the secondary research is the choice of your topic. You will have to understand completely the area of study on which you are going to write a research paper.
There are many viable topics and there are some topics that require further research to contribute the body of knowledge.

The choice of dissertation topic mainly depends on the personal interest of the research. If you are in the business field, you may be interested in the administration, advertising and marketing of your business. If you are in the field of sociology, you may be interested to explore human rights, norms, and interpersonal communications in the society. If you are in the field of criminology, you can be attracted to write a research paper on the methods of eliminating crimes and the reasons for the cause of a crime. Similarly, if you are in the department of computer science, you may be interested to explore further regarding computer crimes and security.

In fact, there are many topics on which you can research and write an interesting paper. Sometimes, the professors can give you some hints as well during the lectures. You might also have read some previous research papers to have better ideas of topic selection. Now, when you are going to research, you should become the one person, research on the topic, and write on it. So, you can choose these topics and write on them.

Conduct a Preliminary Research

Now, when you have got a hold of your wide-ranging topic, you must be ready to do some research on it. You should not start doing complete research on a topic. But, you should prefer to read some previous articles and short books on the topic. Of course, you won’t be able to read a whole book in one day. So, you should not waste time on the selection of a big book, instead, you should search for articles written as reviews on research or you should tend to read the research papers of the previous students.
The big advantage of it will be the knowledge you will gain and some hints as well. The previous researchers couldn’t be able to complete the research or they may have left some plot holes in the research. You have to look for those mistakes and try to note them down. You can use these mistakes as a hypothesis in your research paper. Moreover, you can try to notice the gaps in the literature that can be filled by your research.
Right now, you can do some research on the topics that were left incomplete by the researchers.
The previous researchers may have left some information on the use of bitcoins as a source of trading. They might have not mentioned the development of market relations and advertise the business.
If the previous researchers were in the late centuries, they may not have mentioned the use of modern technology that causes the privacy of a person to go to the lowest point.
You can tend to write on the topic that causes the crime rate to go up and down in various eras of mankind.
This is the century of technology. Writing a research paper regarding the technology can give you some attractive audiences. Cybercrimes have been at the top these days. So, you can tend to write some things on this topic that can’t be written by other people.
Therefore, you don’t have to waste your time in deciding the hard topics that can attract people but, you will not be able to explain your thoughts on them.
Now, when you have decided on a topic, the other thing that you will have to do is to create a question for the people that can attract the audience toward your research paper.
You can develop the question or questions according to your topics and you have to take good care of the main points of a topic while doing so.

Examples of Research Questions

Why advertising and marketing are the most important tools to start and grow a business?
How the privacy of humans is not private in this modern era?
What are the ways to reduce crimes using the past criminal records?
Can the computer crimes stop?