Research methods and resources

This page has links to many sites which cover research methodologies, evaluative techniques, writing skills and presentation of research. It also includes guides on how to keep up to date with research developments.

General sites about research methods

  • Association for University Research & Industry Links - "Today AURIL is a growing network of professionals dedicated to the development of partnerships between higher education and industry to support innovation and competitiveness."
  • British Library Help for Researchers - Information on British Library Collections and Services.
  • Connect Services - provides quick and easy access to information and resources specifically tailored to the needs of the learning and teaching communities.
  • Cyberscience - a collection of internet resources for all issues concerning the use of information and communication technologies in academia. This link collection is part of the Cyberscience project carried out at the Institute of Technology Assessment, Vienna.
  • Digital Curation Centre - The JISC and the eScience Core Programme have entrusted the task of establishing the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) to a consortium comprising four partner institutions: the University of Edinburgh (lead partner) and the University of Glasgow, which together host the NeSC; UKOLN, at the University of Bath; the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (which operate the Rutherford and Daresbury Laboratories).
  • Economic Analysis of Scientific Research Publishing - The full-text of this report published in 2003), commissioned by the Wellcome Trust. Providing an analysis of an industry that generates over £20 billion each year, the report examines how " ... most research findings are published in journals, generally run either by commercial publishers or learned societies." The World Wide Web has dramatically increased opportunities for the dissemination of information but access policies of publishers still prevent its potential being fully exploited. The report aims to stimulate discussion between all key stakeholders in the debate - leading to a model of publishing that satisfies all groups and ensures the promotion of scientific research for the public good.
  • Engage in Research - A new, interactive website for biosciences undergraduates. It covers the basic areas of research, including how and where to search for scientific papers, how to structure a literature review, basic statistics and much more.
  • ESRC Society Today - This major online project has attracted almost a quarter of a million unique visitors in its first six months. Launched in May 2005 by the Economic & Social Research Council, it provides academics, students and researchers with a valuable, free digest of social sciences research available, planned and in progress.
  • Essay Evolves Commentary - This blog is run by Lynn Reynolds, an undergraduate writing mentor at the London Metropolitan Writing Centre, and describes, in a series of posts, the experience of writing a psychology essay. These posts include every aspect of her writing process, including 'freewrites', drafts, and revisions. The site should be most useful to students and teachers.
  • EuroCRIS - EuroCRIS has been established in Europe to be the internationally recognized point of reference for all matters relating to CRIS: Current Research Information Systems.
  • Exploring online research methods in a virtual training environment - an ESRC-funded online training package designed to support researchers using online research methods. The package focuses specifically on the potentials and problems of online research methods and provides:
    • a self-supporting online resource to enhance understanding of both the theoretical and practical aspects of online research methods including online questionnaires, and virtual synchronous and asynchronous interviews
    • access to a wide range of good practice case studies and important resource links
    • discussion of the ethical issues of online research and comprehensive technical guidance
  • Exploring Online Research Methods in a Virtual Training Environment - This project is based at the University of Leicester and is part of the ESRC - Economic and Research Council's Research Methods Programme. It's aim is to "produce and evaluate a high-quality online portal to provide training in online research methods". The portal "will act as a self-supporting online resource to enhance understanding of both the theoretical and practical aspects of online research methods including web-based questionnaires, virtual synchronous interviews and virtual ethnographies"
  • Free Resources for Program Evaluation and Social Research Methods - This page lists FREE resources for methods in program evaluation and social research. The focus is on "how-to" do evaluation research and the methods used: surveys, focus groups, sampling, interviews, and other methods.
  • Government Social Research - provides a point of contact for researchers working in central UK Government Departments. It provides career information and explains the role of social research in government departments, as well as news, training, events and the latest methodological developments for government social researchers. It also contains a directory of researchers for use by government employees, a listing of resources useful to government researchers and details of the government strategy for social research.
  • Grants Online - "The most extensive and up to date information on External Funding Opportunities. The site provides instant access to the latest information on grants from the European Union, UK Government, National Lottery and UK Grant Making Trusts."
  • Guide for Electronic Theses and Dissertations - Published by UNESCO, The Guide is an international, "living" document, written by ETD (electronic thesis and dissertation) scholars throughout the world (see About the Authors). The Guide will be updated regularly based on submissions by ETD authors and NDLTD members.
  • House of Commons Science and Technology Committee Inquiry into Scientific Publications - This page on the BioMedCentral site has grouped together the written submissions and oral evidence of organisations and publishers contributing to the current House of Commons Science and Technology Committee Inquiry into Scientific Publications. The Government response was published on 8 November 2004.
  • CERUK - The CERUK database covers on-going research and research completed since 2000 in education and related disciplines. It covers a wide range of studies including commissioned research and PhD theses, across all phases of education from early years to adults.
  • ICIS 2002 - The International Conference on Improving Surveys, held at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark in 2002. Organised by the Danish National Institute of Social Research, and supported by SAS (a software company) and Eurostat, the conference focused on all aspects of data collection using surveys.
  • Introduction to Qualitative Research - This useful guide was designed as an introductory text for teachers, health professionals and business consultants studying master's level courses. Its purpose is "to begin the process of people thinking about doing their own research for their own purposes". Topics that are covered in the guide include a comparison of qualitative and quantitative research, action research and evaluation research.
  • Introductory Social Research Methods - Written in 1997 by Dr David Abrahams of Cornell University, and part of Bill Trochim's Web Center for Social Research Methods, this full text tutorial covers random assignment, design notations, notation designs and their meaning, preexperimental designs, true experimental design and social researchers. It ends with a bibliography and links to related pages.
  • KU Writing Center - Provided by the University of Kansas for its students. The website offers advice on essay writing, avoiding plagiarism, critical thinking, writing up research and referencing of documents. The advice is tailored for undergraduates and postgraduates, with a special section on writing up original research, which is of particular relevance to social scientists. In addition to its own guides (which are available as web pages or PDF documents), the website provides links to other sites on related topics.
  • Learn Higher - Learn Higher provides a range of information about academic referencing in Britain. The site is aimed primarily at students studying for UK higher education awards at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. It will also be of interest to members of staff or researchers at institutions of higher education, as it contains a discussion and research section on referencing issues.
  • Open Research Society: ORS - The Open Research Society (ORS) is a non-profit international organization dedicated to the promotion of the "open research" paradigm in scholarly publishing, research cooperation and dissemination of research results in the field of Information Technology in a broad sense.
  • Quantitative & Qualitative Research - Part of the series Writing Guides, these nine pamphlets were written by 'graduate students enrolled in the Colorado State University Department of English research methods seminar'. They function as both useful generally applicable introductions to methodological issues, as well as being in themselves examples of good learning outcomes. They look at a range of subjects, including introduction to statistics, experimental method and design, ethnography, observational research and narrative enquiry, survey research and content analysis.
  • ReDReSS Project - the Resource Discovery for Researchers in e-Social Science project. The project aims to "raise awareness and accelerate the development of a new kind of computing and data infrastructure to support the increasingly national and global collaborations emerging in many areas of social science." The project also focuses on promoting e-Social Science methodologies and technologies and a new kind of data management infrastructure for the social sciences. The project is building a Web-based resource discovery portal which aims to bring together all resources that are of value to e-social scientists. The ReDReSS project is funded by JISC, the ESRC, Lancaster University and CCLRC Daresbury.
  • Research Councils UK - (RCUK) is a strategic partnership set up to champion science, engineering and technology supported by the seven UK Research Councils. Through RCUK, the Research Councils are working together to create a common framework for research, training and knowledge transfer. In doing this RCUK will work alongside OST to further support for the UK's best academic researchers and deliver the best investment for society.
  • Research Methods in the Social Sciences: An Internet Resource List - From the University of Miami Libraries. Includes sections on tests and measures, survey methods, quantitative and qualitative research, writing, and software.
  • Social Research Methods - This website is aimed at users involved in applied social research and evaluation. Including resources and links to other locations on the Web that deal in applied social research methods the main themes covered include: concept mapping, statistics, computer simulations and research design.
  • Survey Methods Newsletter - is a new service from the National Centre for Social Research. The aim is to "promote good practice in survey methodology, disseminate relevant research findings and encourage discussion and debate about all aspects of survey methodology." The newsletter is published two or three times a year, and it is possible to receive it by email. Surveys cover a wide range of social issues, including family life, employment, health and sexual attitudes.
  • The Association For Qualitative Research - Founded in the early 1980s, the Association for Qualitative Research has over a thousand members. The web site includes a directory of qualitative research practitioners and suppliers of services.
    The categories include market research, advertising organisations, marketing/direct mail and overseas associations. In addition, the site has a library of articles which are free to read, and a glossary of terms used in market and qualitative research.
  • The Research Information Network - The Research Information Network was established in 2005 "to lead and co-ordinate new developments in the collaborative provision of research information for the benefit of researchers in the UK".
    The website has been redesigned recently and includes a Team Blog, which is frequently updated, and an RSS newsfeed so that you can receive the latest news on the RIN's activities.
  • Using Primary Sources on the Web - Written by the Instruction & Research Services Committee of the Reference and User Service Association History Section in the American Library Association.

[Back to the top]

Keeping up to date with research

  • Conference information and the Internet - The Internet can provide a wealth of information in relation to conferences. Whether you are planning a conference, looking for a future event in order to submit a paper, or need to retrieve information about the papers presented at a past conference, the resources in this guide can assist in all of these activities. By Alison McNab of JISC.
  • Electronic resources for information research methods - Includes a vast range of resources, from statistical methods to the ethics of research. Maintained by Prof. T.D. Wilson, University of Sheffield, UK.
  • QuickStudy library research guide - from the University of Minnesota Libraries. Comprises modules on: the process of choosing a topic; designing a research strategy; finding different kinds of sources such as articles, books and internet sites; evaluating sources; essential citation information for sources used in a bibliography. In addition to the modules, there are supplementary resources to use when you are doing your research.
  • Regard - Regard is the free online research service of the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), detailing research projects and publications, and holding full text reports. Includes a monthly email newswire Also "Every day, Regard features a major news story on the front page, and links from it to relevant ESRC research."
  • Research QuickStart - also from the University of Minnesota. "Provides you with a list of resources (books, indexes, websites, libraries and more) on the topic you select."
  • Research Together - White Rose universities now have free access to Research Together, a website aimed at all researchers from part time graduate students doing Masters and PhD degrees, to professors in academia and commercial research workers. "We have hundreds of forums, covering topics from engineering, medical and computer research to philosophy, law and linguistics... You can post up your work and add an abstract and keywords for other users to search through. You can in turn download others' research."

[Back to the top]

Evaluating information resources

There are several websites that give guidelines for evaluating information resources, both traditional and Internet-based.

[Back to the top]

Guides to grammar and writing

  • Guide to grammar and writing - Hosted by Capital Community College; Hartford, Connecticut. NB: This uses American grammar and spelling.
  • The elements of style - The on-line version of William Strunk, Jr.'s classic stylebook. Covers grammar, composition, and basics of form. American.
  • The Internet Grammar of English - An online course in English grammar written primarily for university undergraduates. From the University of Central London. British.
  • Psychology with Style: A Hypertext Writing Guide - by M. Plonsky, at the University of Wisconsin. It summarizes a lot of the material available in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (4-th edition) (1995) and is oriented toward undergraduate students.

[Back to the top]

Citing print and electronic publications

As yet, there is no international standard for the citation of electronic resources (information from CD-ROMs and other databases, websites, e-journals, mailing lists, discussion groups etc). The following links to existing guides are provided with no guarantee of their contents' accuracy. See also the following books:

X. Li and N.B. Crane (1996) Electronic styles: a handbook for citing electronic information. 2nd ed. [Reference Collection 010.78 LI]

Kate L. Turabian (1996) A manual for writers of term papers, theses and dissertations. 6th ed. [029.6 TUR]

[Back to the top]

Managing references

[Back to the top]

Ethical guidelines for researchers

For details of the ethical guidelines produced for researchers by professional organisations, see the Societies and other organisations section of each subject page in York Information Connections.

  • Internet Detective - part of the JISC-funded Virtual Training Suite of materials for teaching academic users about the Internet. Includes "Keep the right side of the law" a multiple-choice question section which tests your understanding of what plagiarism is and is not.
  • JISC Plagiarism Advisory Service - this service aims to raise awareness of plagiarism in the academic community by providing: Generic advice for institutions, academic staff and students; Educational tools for students in the area of plagiarism; A portal to external online resources on the issue of plagiarism; Guidance on copyright and data protection issues relating to plagiarism; A link to the electronic detection service and training on its use.
  • Mistakes: Plagiarism - from the University of Teesside. Includes some excellent examples of text illustrating the subtle differences between what is and what is not plagiarism.

[Back to the top]

University of York resources