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Universe is research driven and research leads to an expansion of knowledge and discoveries of new spheres of the life like medical treatments and cures, agriculture etc. Research Tools are the vehicles that broadly facilitate research and related activities. “Research Tools” consists of a hierarchical set of nodes that includes searching the literature, writing a paper, targeting suitable journals and enhancing visibility and impact of the research. For more information.

 What is Research?

Research may be very broadly defined as systematic gathering of data and information and its analysis for advancement of knowledge in any subject. Research attempts to answer intellectual and practical questions through application of systematic methods. It is a systematic inquiry that investigates hypotheses, suggests new interpretations of data or texts, and poses new questions for future research to explore.

Research consists of:

  • Asking a question that nobody has asked before;
  • Doing the necessary work to find the answer; and
  • Communicating the knowledge you have acquired to a larger audience.

Why is research experience valuable?

Undergraduate research helps to foster faculty-student collaboration within and outside the university. You have the opportunity to share in a professional researcher’s work, to learn how he or she formulates a significant question, develops a procedure to investigate it, obtains research funding and other resources, gathers and examines evidence, follows hunches, and evaluates and shares results with the scientific community.

Getting involved in research allows you to draw together classroom learning and particular interests to contribute to the design and execution of a research project.

Explore this website to learn about workshops, funding, and other support available.

What are the different types of research?

The types of research methodologies vary and are often classified into five categories. Specific academic fields tend to apply certain methodologies more than others:

  • Qualitative: Involves describing in details specific situations using research tools like interviews, surveys, and observation. Qualitative researchers are more concerned with understanding what is happening as viewed by the participants.
  • Quantitative: Requires quantifiable data involving numerical and statistical explanations. Quantitative researchers seek to explain the causes of change primarily through objective measurement and quantitative analysis (statistics).
  • Correlation/Regression Analysis: Involves determining the strength of the relationship between two or more variables. Correlation / regression researchers determine whether correlations exist between two quantitative variables.
  • Experimental: Relies on controlled experiments that compare the outcome for an experimental and a control group that differ in a defined way. Experiments have a control group, subjects  are randomly assigned between the groups, and researchers tests the effects of one or more variables on the outcome.
  • Meta-Analysis: Designed to analyze multiple studies to determine if there is a consensus regarding the correctness of a hypothesis. Meta analysis researchers combine the findings from independent studies.

What activities are involved in research?

In practice, research methods vary widely, depending upon the academic disciplines’ accepted standards, the individual researcher’s preferences, or a particular study’s needs. Research in science and engineering often involves conducting experiments in the lab or in the field. Research in the arts, humanities, and social sciences may include archival work in the library or on the internet, conducting surveys or in-depth interviews, and a wide range of creative and artistic projects- from costume design to playwriting to curating a fine arts exhibit.

Research is not a solitary activity –but an act of community. As a member of the research community, you build on the knowledge that others have acquired and provide a road map for those who follow. You add to a body of work that will never be complete. Research is an ongoing, collaborative process with no finish line in sight.

Is research right for me?

To determine if research is right for you, consider the following:

  • Are you interested in a more thorough exploration of a subject you are already familiar with?
  • Are you interested in being introduced to a new subject?
  • What motivates you? Trying what others have never done? Getting to know faculty better? Exploring the real-world by undertaking research with an external organization?
  • What do you hope to gain from the research experience? Do you want to help create new information and knowledge? Practice or develop new skills?
  • Do you want to test your skill sets in a professional setting to determine your likes and dislikes?
  • Are you hoping this experience will help you decide whether to attend graduate or professional school?
  • Do you have time for a 10-15 hour/week commitment? Can you commit during the quarter, multiple quarters, or summer?
  • Do you wish to receive academic credit?
  • Do you want/need a salary/stipend/scholarship?
  • Are you willing to do volunteer work?

What is Research paper?

A research paper is an expanded essay that presents your own interpretation or evaluation or argument. When you write an essay, you use everything that you personally know and have thought about a subject. When you write a research paper you build upon what you know about the subject and make a deliberate attempt to find out what experts know. A research paper involves surveying a field of knowledge in order to find the best possible information in that field. And that survey can be orderly and focused, if you know how to approach it.

Types of research paper are as under:

Argumentative research paper:

The argumentative research paper consists of an introduction in which the writer clearly introduces the topic and informs his audience exactly which stance he intends to take; this stance is often identified as the thesis statement. An important goal of the argumentative research paper is persuasion, which means the topic chosen should be debatable or controversial.

For example, it would be difficult for a student to successfully argue in favor of the following stance.

‘Cigarette smoking poses medical dangers and may lead to cancer for both the smoker and those who experience secondhand smoke.’

Perhaps 25 years ago this topic would have been debatable; however, today, it is assumed that smoking cigarettes is, indeed, harmful to one’s health.

Analytical research paper:

The analytical research paper often begins with the student asking a question (a.k.a. a research question) on which he has taken no stance. Such a paper is often an exercise in exploration and evaluation.

How to Write a Research Paper

The Basics

Research papers are generally longer pieces of written work than essays. Writing a research paper involves all of the steps for writing an essay plus some additional ones.

To write a research paper you must first do some research, that is, investigate your topic by reading about it in many different sources, including books, magazines, newspapers, and the Internet. In some cases you may also conduct interviews. The information you gather from these sources is then used to support the points you make in your paper.

Writing a research paper also involves documenting your sources of information in footnotes or endnotes. This way the reader knows where you got your information and can judge whether it is reliable.

Here are the steps to follow when writing a research paper.

Pick Your Topic

Writing will be easier if the subject matter is of interest to you, and try to be as specific as possible.

Find Your Sources

Books, magazines, internet articles–there are a wealth of places to find information about your topic; make sure your sources are reliable and diverse.

Take Notes

Paper rules when organizing your ideas; use index cards to keep track of your thoughts and sources.

Organize!

Use your handy index cards to create an outline for your paper.

The First Draft

Following your outline, now you get to write! All papers include an introduction, body, and conclusion.

Documentation

If you don’t keep track of—and report—your sources, it is plagiarism!

The Bibliography

The sources you used to get ideas and write your paper are listed here.

Revise, Rewrite

Look at your research paper with fresh eyes; try to imagine you are reading it for the first time: What is it missing? How can it be better?

The Final Reading

Again, paper rules. . .print out your research paper and inspect for grammar and careless errors. Be proud, enjoy a job well done!

Research process:

Scientific research involves a systematic process that focuses on being objective and gathering a multitude of information for analysis so that the researcher can come to a conclusion. The scientific research process is a multiple-step process where the steps are interlinked with the other steps in the process.

Consult:

Citation tools:

Citation tools (also called bibliographic management tools or citation managers) such as Endnote, Mendeley, RefWorks, and Zotero help you organize manage and format citations for your research.

EndNote Web:

a Web-based service designed to help students and researchers through the process of writing a research paper. Undergraduate students can organize their references for citing in papers. Professional researchers and graduate students can use EndNote Web as the perfect complement to EndNote and other desktop writing tools, as well as storing references between ISI Web of Knowledge search sessions.

RefWorks:

It is a web-based bibliography and database manager that allows you to create your own personal database by importing references from text files or online databases and other various sources. You can use these references in writing papers and automatically format the paper and the bibliography in seconds

Mendeley:

It is a desktop and web program produced by Elsevier for managing and sharing research papers, discovering research data and collaborating online. It combines Mendeley Desktop, a PDF and reference management application (available for Windows, OS X and Linux) and Mendeley for Android and iOS, with Mendeley Web, an online social network for researchers.

Mendeley requires the user to store all basic citation data on its servers—storing copies of documents is at the user’s discretion. Upon registration, Mendeley provides the user with 2 GB of free web storage space.

Zotero:

An easy-to-use yet powerful research tool that helps you gather, organize, and analyze sources (citations, full texts, web pages, images, and other objects), and lets you share the results of your research in a variety of ways. It has the ability to store author, title, and publication fields and to export that information as formatted references and the best parts of modern software and web applications (like iTunes and del.icio.us), such as the ability to interact, tag, and search in advanced ways. Zotero integrates tightly with online resources; it can sense when users are viewing a book, article, or other object on the web, and on many major research and library sites find and automatically save the full reference information for the item in the correct fields.

refDot:

An extension for your Google Chrome browser, RefDot makes citation easy; it allows you to cite and store books or journal references, as well as add books automatically from Amazon book pages, which comes in handy.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/refdot/hdhekmbccpnbffkkdoinkjmggbcpcflo?utm_campaign=elearningindustry.com&utm_source=/12-best-free-online-bibliography-and-citation-tools&utm_medium=link

An open source reference manager that is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and offers PDF metadata retrieval, free online backup of your mind maps, a monitoring function for new files (PDFs, images, etc.), and an MS-Word add on. Oh, and it also allows you to have full control over your data (no registration required).

http://www.docear.org/?utm_campaign=elearningindustry.com&utm_source=%2F12-best-free-online-bibliography-and-citation-tools&utm_medium=link

citeulike:

A free service for managing and discovering scholarly references. It can easily store references you find online, discover new articles and resources, automated article recommendations, share references with your peers, find out who’s reading what you’re reading, and store and search your PDFs.

EasyBib (Write Smart):

The free version of EasyBib formats citations in the latest edition of the MLA format (currently the 7th edition). To use EasyBib’s APA formatting services, sign up for MyBib Pro by clicking here: https://www-secure.easybib.com/products/easybibpro.

KnightCite:

An online citation generator service provided by the Hekman Library of Calvin College. This service simplifies the often tedious task of compiling an accurate bibliography in the appropriate style by formatting the given data on a source into a reliable citation, eliminating the need to memorize minute details of style for multiple kinds of sources. The service is provided free of charge by the college, and is available to members both within and outside of the Calvin community.

JabRef:

An open source bibliography reference manager. The native file format used by JabRef is BibTeX, the standard LaTeX bibliography format. JabRef runs on the Java VM (version 1.5 or newer), and should work equally well on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

Son of Citation Machine:

Professional researchers to properly credit the information that they use. Its primary goal is to make it so easy for student researchers to cite their information sources, that there is virtually no reason not to — because SOMEDAY THE INFORMATION THAT SOMEONE ELSE WANTS TO USE — WILL BE YOURS!

refbase:

This web database lets you manage your academic references online, and share them with your colleagues. Using this free web service you can upload your references and see what others are reading, the database currently features 24047 records, organize and group your references, and assign keywords to them, so it’s easy to get back to a reference, generate a formatted list of citations for your academic paper or CV (as HTML, RTF, PDF, or LaTeX), export references to desktop reference managers (such as Endnote, or Reference Manager) or BibTeX, and import records from common bibliographic formats and online databases.

You may contact 

Riphah Research Repository : Stats

Research Stats

  • Faculty of Computing
  • Faculty of Engineering and Applied Sciences
  • Faculty of Management Sciences
  • Faculty of Social Sciences
  • Islamic International Dental College
  • Riphah College of Rehabilitation Sciences