Although the library and
the Internet of a wealth of authoritative information in the workplace,
you will often need to conduct primary research because you need new information.
There are several major categories of primary research, observations and
demonstrations, inspections,
experiments, field research, interviews, inquiries, and questionnaires.
Observation and demonstration are two common forms of primary research.
When you observe, you simply watch some activity
to understand some specific aspects of this activity.
For instance, if you were trying to determine whether the location of
the break room was interfering with work on the factory floor,
you could observe the situation preferably at different times of the day and
in different days of the week.
If you saw workers distracted by people moving in and out of the room, or
by sounds made in the room, you would record your observations
by taking notes, taking photos, or shooting videos of events.
An observation might lead to other forms of primary research.
You might, for example, follow up by interviewing some
employees who could help you understand what you observed.
When you witness a demonstration, you are watching someone carrying out a process.
For instance, if your company was considering buying a mail sorting machine,
you could arrange to visit the manufacturers facility
where technicians would show how the machine works.
If your company was considering a portable machine such as a laptop computer,
manufacturers or dealers could demo their product of their facility.
When you plan to observe visitation or witness a demo, prepare beforehand.
Write down the questions you need to be answered or
the factors you want to investigate.
Prepare interview questions in case you have a chance to speak with someone.
Think about how you are going to incorporate the information you acquire
into the document you will write.
Inspections are like observations, but you participate more actively.
For example, a civil engineer can determine what causes a crack
in a foundation by inspection by the site.
Walking around, looking at the crack, photographing it and
its surrounding scene, examining the soil, for example.
Sometimes, inspection techniques are more complicated.
A civil engineer inspecting foundation cracking might want to test his
hatches by bringing soil samples back to the lab for analysis.
Learning to conduct the many kinds of experiments
used in the particular field take months or even years.
In many cases, conducting an experiment involves four phases.
Establishing a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis,
analyzing the data, and reporting the data.
Whereas an experiment yields quantitative data,
they typically can be measured precisely, most film research is qualitative.
That is, it yields data that typically cannot be measured precisely.
Often, in field research, you seek to understand the quality of an experiment.
Some kinds of studies have both quantitative and qualitative elements.
Interviews are extremely useful when you need informational subjects
that are too new to have been discussed in the professional literature or
are too narrow for widespread publication.
In choosing a person to interview, answer three questions.
What questions do you want to answer?
Who could provide this information?
And is the person willing to be interviewed?
A useful alternative to a personal interview is to send an inquiry.
This inquiry can take the form of a letter, email or
a message sent through an organization's website.
Although digital inquiries are more convenient