When performing any type of research project the main key is to document all of your findings. A lot of research projects go wrong due to a lack of organisation and documentation.
This article will provide you with some pointers on how to best document your research data so that it is organised and can be understood easily by yourself and anyone who might want to reuse it.
What Should You Be Documenting?
When conducting any type of research project, it might be difficult to identify what you should be documenting.
As long as the research is organised and can be understood, it is better to write too much instead of not enough.
Some of the most important data which should not be missed out include:
- Methods of data collection
- Involvement of other people- who they are and the role they played
- Data specific information such as variables, definitions, measurements
Using Audio Recordings:
A convenient method of documenting notes, which not many people think of, is to record findings as an audio. This is the quickest method to say everything you need to document and you can organise these audio recordings by date on a computer and back up on a hard drive.
The great thing about using audio as a way of documenting research data, is the fact that you can still get this information as a written document. The best way to do this is by using a transcription service. The reason why using transcription services is important is due to the fact that they can accurately document all of your audio notes as a text document. With this you can, as well as anyone else, analyse specific aspects and make notes next to corresponding data.
A professional transcription provider will manage the process of removing any stutters, broken sentences and filler words, to assure that the text document makes sense.
Not only will this method be less time consuming, once you have the transcribed document you then have multiple backups of your work to store.
How To Keep Your Findings Organised?
There are numerous ways you can organise your findings when conducting a research project. The best way to document your progression, is to assure that you date your findings. This will allow you to track your findings and organise them accordingly.
Once you have a series of dated findings, you should store these in order.
How Can You Be Sure Your Research Will Be Understood By Others?
If you are documenting your research, you need to be sure that everyone else who sees or reads it is going to be able to understand what it is you are doing and how you are doing it.
If you are unsure if what you are documenting will make sense to others, the best thing to do is to give it to someone else to read.
Ideally the person you give it to should have little knowledge of what it is you are doing so that they have an open mind when looking over your research documentation.
Once they have looked over your research data you should get them to relay the information to you. If they show a strong understanding and can explain what you are doing confidently, this means they can understand your documentation. If not, you might be missing something.
Whether they have a strong understanding or not, you should ask if they have any questions. You can then either fill in the gaps, or know which information you should add to make sure that the person who reads it going forward has the best understanding possible.
To Conclude:
To conclude, the key to a successful research project is having data which is organised and easy to understand.
The method in which you choose to store this data is completely up to your preferences, but assuring you have the information in whichever format backed up more than once is going to assure the safety of your research.