My research skills are appallingly bad

[Catmatic Leftist]

I keep getting frustrated by all the nonsense bullshit and I keep spending hours and hours and nothing fruitful comes out of searching for truthful information... I've posted numerous threads on trying to get the right information on here, but it seems like I still can't find the right answers; it looks like I'm going to have to learn how to do this on my own. (Not that I don't appreciate it, I just hope you understand my frustration.)

I know some basic analysis (i.e. knowing whether a scientific experiment has faulty methodology/design, basic knowledge of fallacious reasoning, etc.) but that's about it.

I think I've identified my problem: poor research skills. Also, note that I've been out of the loop of academia for quite a while now after high school (I haven't gotten the opportunity for higher education yet) and I'm kind of rusty... Any advice on how to better conduct research and narrow down queries and ask accurate questions? Any articles that will point me in the right direction?

[xub3rn00dlex]

I keep getting frustrated by all the nonsense bullshit and I keep spending hours and hours and nothing fruitful comes out of searching for truthful information...

I think I've identified my problem; poor research skills. Also, I've been out of the loop of academia for quite a while now after high school (I haven't gotten the opportunity for higher education yet) and I'm kind of rusty... Any advice on how to better conduct research? Any articles that will point me in the right direction?

I don't really know what to tell you as I'm extremely horrible myself! A good archive they recommend to us in CUNY is JSTOR. Have you tried you luck there?

[Ocean Seal]

I keep getting frustrated by all the nonsense bullshit and I keep spending hours and hours and nothing fruitful comes out of searching for truthful information... I've posted numerous threads on trying to get the right information on here, but it seems like I still can't find the right answers; it looks like I'm going to have to learn how to do this on my own. (Not that I don't appreciate it, I just hope you understand my frustration.)

I know some basic analysis (i.e. knowing whether a scientific experiment has faulty methodology/design, basic knowledge of fallacious reasoning, etc.) but that's about it.

I think I've identified my problem: poor research skills. Also, note that I've been out of the loop of academia for quite a while now after high school (I haven't gotten the opportunity for higher education yet) and I'm kind of rusty... Any advice on how to better conduct research and narrow down queries and ask accurate questions? Any articles that will point me in the right direction?
Depends on what you're looking for. I doubt that your research skills are as bad as you say they are, but I think your problem is that you just want answers too quickly. Sometimes things are difficult to understand. It took me a long time to fully understand dialectical materialism despite constantly reading through Rosa's block posts but then I finally found some useful things on it and I think I'm finally able to grasp the basics of it. Its not that you're conducting research poorly, its just that things take time to learn. At first go for toned down analyses (a la wikipedia) if you're trying to learn about something. Then go around clicking the links and learn about surrounding subjects. When you're done with that and you think that you have sufficient background try looking at your specific problem and trying to find information on it.
scholar.google.com tends to give out good information across a wide range of subjects and may lead you to a more reliable database on your topic.
So there's my two cents I guess.

[Catmatic Leftist]

I don't really know what to tell you as I'm extremely horrible myself! A good archive they recommend to us in CUNY is JSTOR. Have you tried you luck there?

That website is awesome! Thanks. :)

[Catmatic Leftist]

Depends on what you're looking for. I doubt that your research skills are as bad as you say they are, but I think your problem is that you just want answers too quickly. Sometimes things are difficult to understand. It took me a long time to fully understand dialectical materialism despite constantly reading through Rosa's block posts but then I finally found some useful things on it and I think I'm finally able to grasp the basics of it. Its not that you're conducting research poorly, its just that things take time to learn. At first go for toned down analyses (a la wikipedia) if you're trying to learn about something. Then go around clicking the links and learn about surrounding subjects. When you're done with that and you think that you have sufficient background try looking at your specific problem and trying to find information on it.
scholar.google.com tends to give out good information across a wide range of subjects and may lead you to a more reliable database on your topic.
So there's my two cents I guess.

Yea, probably. I was always used to things coming naturally to me because they used to come intuitively, but now as things get really difficult it's like a shock to my ego.

Thanks for the honest assessment.

[praxis1966]

Are you currently in college/uni? You should have free access through them to Lexis Nexis which is an awesome research tool.

[Catmatic Leftist]

Are you currently in college/uni? You should have free access through them to Lexis Nexis which is an awesome research tool.

Not at the moment. I'm taking classes at a community college this fall, though.

[praxis1966]

Not at the moment. I'm taking classes at a community college this fall, though.

First of all, that's actually great news for a multitude of reasons and I say with sincerity congrats!

Second of all, I think you're getting a little anxious for nothing. Community colleges were built for students like you. I attended one actually, and they actually had an elective course called "Personal Development." As huggy and touchy feely as that sounds, what most of the course entailed was helping students like you with study and research skills. I'm sure your school will have something similar and you'll be needing elective credits anyway, so it might behoove you to ask your academic adviser about such a course. That's the great thing about ju-co, they specialize in people who are returning to academia after a lapse in enrollment so most of the people there actually really want to help.

Thirdly and lastly, all schools have access electronic research databases that would otherwise cost thousands of dollars to subscribe to... I mentioned Lexis Nexis, whose site boasts access to over 6000 academic journals and publications, because that's what my school used. My partner's school had Academic Search Premier which she still uses from time to time. Now academic journals may not sound all that appealing, but you have to remember that some of them are sociological journals which tend to have openly Marxist authors contributing to them.

I know this doesn't do you any good in the meantime, but basically what I'm saying is shit will get a whole lot easier once you have a college library that'll give you access to these kinds of databases as well as interlibrary book exchange programs...

[Yazman]

That Annoying Commie, in the Research board on this site, you might want to check out the list of users with expertise:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/revleft-experts-find-t152764/index.html

At least 1-2 users should be able to help you. I believe JazzRemington is listed in particular with Research skills, so maybe give him a PM!

[Kenco Smooth]

Not sure what kind of access to journals your college library will have but most have physical copies available of recent big publications and of even more use usually access to a vast selection of past electronic journals as mentioned above.

I find google scholar to be a great help in finding relevant articles however what you are able to access through here will be limited without subscriptions/library access. But there is still a great amount of work up that is freely available. A great feature of google scholar is that you can see all versions of a piece of work uploaded. This means if it is not available for free on one site it may well be on another that's right at your fingertips.

I know some people on this site also make use of google books but I've always been bothered by it's habit of cutting a lot out of previews.

Access to proper journals helps a lot to build a mental picture of an issue and the stringent referencing in academia also means a single paper can lead you straight to 10 others on a different aspect of the same issue.

[Catmatic Leftist]

Thanks for all of the informations, comrades.

Now is there an article that goes into detail about the Boolean logic of the search engine and its inner workings and how to properly format your query to get the most optimum results in plain English?

[xub3rn00dlex]

That website is awesome! Thanks. :)

You are very welcome. Do you have free access to it? If you are attending community college I'd imaging that your school would give you access to it through them!

[Catmatic Leftist]

You are very welcome. Do you have free access to it? If you are attending community college I'd imaging that your school would give you access to it through them!

Unfortunately, no. :( I'm not in school quite yet. I'll be attending in the fall, thankfully. I'm just glad to be back.

[praxis1966]

Thanks for all of the informations, comrades.

You're quite welcome. Mutual aid and all that...:)


Now is there an article that goes into detail about the Boolean logic of the search engine and its inner workings and how to properly format your query to get the most optimum results in plain English?

Yes. Here you go: http://www.csa.com/help/Search_Tools/boolean_operators.html It's not "in depth" per se, but it'll teach you all the operations you'll never need to know.

[xub3rn00dlex]

Unfortunately, no. :( I'm not in school quite yet. I'll be attending in the fall, thankfully. I'm just glad to be back.

Is this research you're doing for yourself or for some bigger project?

[Catmatic Leftist]

Is this research you're doing for yourself or for some bigger project?

I don't really have any structured aim or "project" in mind, I just hate sifting through garbage nonsense.

[xub3rn00dlex]

I don't really have any structured aim or "project" in mind, I just hate sifting through garbage nonsense.

Haha yeah that garbage becomes beyond annoying when you have deadlines! I can help you research if you need. Send me a PM of what exactly you are trying to find and I would do my best =D

[¿Que?]

Thanks for all of the informations, comrades.

Now is there an article that goes into detail about the Boolean logic of the search engine and its inner workings and how to properly format your query to get the most optimum results in plain English?
That's I think is the wall you're hitting. Do you plan on doing research on search algorithms? If not, why do you need to know the inner workings off the search engine. I think you're getting distracted because there is so much to know, and you're having trouble because to focus means to narrow down your research and limit what constitutes as a relevant article. It's tough, and I deal with the same thing. You have to sort of decide on how broad or specific you want your project to be.

Protip: Don't be afraid or lazy and follow citations. Some articles may not be completely relevant to your research question, but may have important information that is cited from other publications. This is the best way to do research imo, better than search queries that may turn up insignificant results based on language ambiguities or produce relevant articles that are poor quality. If you familiarize yourself with the prominent people in your research area, then you read them, and then read what they read, and so on and so on. Particularly if you see something that is really interesting or useful, if the author cites it, it's not a bad idea to go and get that article as well.

[Kenco Smooth]

Also, in a non-internet vein, I've always found a good intro to an area of study is to get a good reader on it. You get these both for subjects and individual authors. They're usually designed so that with some work even a complete beginner in the field can make heads and tails of it. Although this would be more expensive but again a decent library will have these kinds of collections falling out of their less savoury orifices.