Module 01 · 3 lessons

What research actually is

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Research is a disciplined way of answering a question you cannot already answer.

Why it matters

Most people have never been told what separates research from looking something up, so they either think it is beyond them or think they are already doing it.

What it teaches

• Research versus opinion
• Research versus gathering information
• Research versus journalism and investigation
• Evidence versus claim
• Fact versus interpretation
• What makes a question researchable

When you reach for it

• Someone tells you to "do some research" and you are not sure what they are asking for
• You have read twenty articles and still cannot say what you found
• You want to know whether a belief you hold is actually supported

The common misreading

That research means academia, laboratories and permission. It means a question, evidence, and honesty about what the evidence supports.

What this module will not tell you

This module will not tell you whether your particular question is worth asking. That is a judgement about your life and your field, and nothing here can make it for you.

Think first

Two people spend the same three hours on the question "is intermittent fasting good for you?" One finishes with a firm view. The other finishes with a more precise question and a list of what would settle it. Which one did research?

Before any lesson: write down what you currently think the difference is between researching something and reading about it.

The lessons

• Research, in one sentence — Research begins the moment your question is specific enough that you could say what evidence would change your mind. (6 min)
• What research is not — If the search could not have reached the opposite conclusion, it was not a search. (7 min)
• Claim, evidence, fact, interpretation — Facts constrain interpretation; they rarely determine it. Ask which one you are being offered. (8 min)

Practise it: Turn three statements into researchable questions

Take three things you currently believe — one about your work, one about your field, one about yourself. For each, turn the belief into a question that could be answered by evidence.

1. Write the belief as you would say it out loud.
2. Ask: who or what is this about, specifically? Add that to the question.
3. Ask: what exactly is being claimed to change or differ? Name it.
4. Ask: compared with what? A claim with no comparison usually cannot be tested.
5. Write down one observation that, if you made it, would make you abandon the belief.

What a considered answer tends to contain (not a mark scheme): A considered answer usually has a named population, a named thing being measured, a comparison, and at least one honest way of being wrong. If the last one is blank, the question is probably still a position.

Use it on real work: Audit something you are about to decide

Pick a real decision you are facing in the next month — a purchase, a course, a hire, a direction.

1. Write the question the decision actually turns on.
2. List what you currently believe and, beside each, where that belief came from.
3. Mark each one: fact, interpretation, or somebody else's claim you have not checked.
4. Pick the single belief that would most change the decision if it were wrong, and find one piece of evidence about it.
5. Write down what you found and whether it moved you.

Reflect

Which of your beliefs turned out to be somebody else's interpretation that you had been carrying as a fact?