MSc Project
Secondary Research
Prof Mark Girolami
Contents Page
1.1 The Need for Secondary Research
1.1.1 Identifies what other people have done
1.1.3 Give ideas and resources for work
1.2 Value of Secondary Research
1.3 Sources for Secondary Research
Secondary research is where you use information that other people have gathered through primary research. Tertiary research is where you use others' secondary research. It is generally a good idea to avoid tertiary research. This document discusses some sources of secondary research.
The natural question to be asked is ‘For what do I need to perform secondary research?’ The student should be clear at what stage of the project and for what reason should secondary research (SR) be undertaken. Below are listed some important points regarding the reasons for SR.
Arguably one of the most difficult phases of the MSc project is defining the detailed project specification. It is at this point that SR is most valuable in identifying to the student areas of possible investigation which would be interesting and valuable. The student at this stage should ask the question ‘what have other people done previously within my domain of interest’. By finding out what has previously been carried out via, for example, existing MSc projects, and other reliable sources of SR (which will be considered later in this document) the student can identify possible gaps in previous work or identify possible logical extensions or analysis of existing work which has been completed. In carrying out this SR the student should identify possible areas of investigation for the MSc project.
SR can also rule out possibly irrelevant project proposals where the proposed work may have already have been carried out to completion or trends in technology have moved on thus making the proposal irrelevant.
Once the project is underway this form of SR will always be useful in identifying resources which are already available for use by the student, e.g. software libraries, tutorials on certain topics, reviews, gathered and formatted data, user studies, etc.
The
value of SR is in what it can bring to the student as a basis for their own
work and individual contribution. Merely copying or summarising resources
identified by SR has no value as far as the MSc project is concerned. SR is of
value when, for example, reports are compared and analysed or set within a
particular context or the student performs a critical review of existing
work.
SR is information and/or data that someone else has previously collected. You can find this type of information in printed sources (books, magazines, journals, and trade newspapers) and in electronic sources (CD-ROM encyclopaedias, software packages, or online services, such as the Internet). When you use a secondary source, be sure to note, for future reference, where you got the information. As you are required to write a project report, you will need the following information for a bibliography or to give credit for any software, quotes or illustrations you use. Note that sections of existing work quoted or used MUST BE CREDITED to the original source in the MSc report; the student must fully understand the university regulations on plagiarism.
Books
Author's name, title of book, place of publication, publisher, copyright date,
and pages read or quoted.
Books in general are a good resource; however, due to the pace of change within the IT industry published books can become outdated very quickly. The student must ensure that the latest edition of a book is used and that the subject matter and its treatment within the book are relevant and up to date.
Refereed Journals
Author's name, title of article, title of
magazine, volume and issue number and date of publication, and page numbers of
article.
Refereed journals provide an excellent source of the latest views and developments in the particular area of study. The articles found within these journals will have been stringently reviewed for accuracy, reliability, novelty and relevance and as such are a good source of SR. However, most of these articles will be written by leading experts in a domain targeted at an audience with similar expertise, so some of these articles may be tough going. (As an example my own publication list provides a good cure for insomnia http://cis.paisley.ac.uk/giro-ci0/publications.html)
Trade Newspaper
Author's name, title of article, name of newspaper, date of publication, and
section and page numbers.
Trade newspapers provide a good resource for identifying current trends in the industry. However, unlike refereed journals, the content of such newspapers will be biased in that a particular company product may be advertised in an article and as such objective analysis may be difficult to find. The student should exercise a high degree of critical thought and caution when taking information from such a source.
CD-ROM encyclopedia or software package
Name of program, version or release number, name of supplier, and place where
supplier is located.
Document from online service
Author of document (if known), title of document, name of organization that
posted document, place where organization is located, date given on document,
and online address or mailing address where document is available.
One approach is to read broadly on a topic to try to understand it better. This may be a good way to start, particularly if there are parts of the topic you are not yet familiar with. A second approach, particularly as you get into your project, is to use your project outline to pose particular questions and then search for the answers to them.
There are a number of search engines that can be useful in
searching the internet, for example http://www.google.com. The problem with
search engines is that they will often return thousands of hits, many of little
interest.
The internet has the
advantage that it is easy to access, it has lots of information, and it is
sometimes the most up-to-date source of information. However it also suffers
from a lack of any overall quality control, information is often incomplete
(publishers may be reluctant to give information away for free), and
information frequently disappears, therefore extreme care must be exercised
when taking information from the internet.