Generally speaking, the commonly used research methods of academic papers mainly include observation, investigation, experiment, experience summary, case analysis, comparison and literature.
Literature research is the most commonly used research method. Whether you are majoring in science, engineering, liberal arts or business, you will use it when writing your thesis. The significance of using literature method lies in that it is conducive to comprehensively and correctly grasping the situation and present situation of the problems to be studied, making maximum use of the existing knowledge, experience and scientific research achievements, and helping researchers choose research topics and determine research directions; It is beneficial to provide scientific basis for scientific research and improve research efficiency; It is conducive to expanding research ideas, improving research foundation, developing creative thinking, improving the innovation of subject research and avoiding research duplication.
1. Characteristics of literary methods
Literary method has three characteristics:
First, historic. From the perspective of time, literary method is a kind of "historical" research. As long as it is ahead of the researcher's current research results, researchers can conduct research;
Second, flexibility. Literary methods are not limited by time and space. In space, you don't have to go to the scene. Time can be arranged flexibly;
Third, inheritance and creation. The purpose of using literature method is to compare and draw lessons from, and finally realize the understanding of a phenomenon and analyze its objective reasons through retrieval, collection, identification, research and application. You can also reorganize and sublimate the original documents, so as to find out new relationships and laws between things and form new viewpoints.
2. Literature retrieval method
The practical application of literature method is usually to search and determine the scope and depth of the searched literature according to the needs in the direction or after the topic selection. First of all, according to my understanding of the subject, my knowledge structure and existing materials, I determine the scope of the literature I need to consult. The methods of literature retrieval vary with the content and scope of the retrieval subject. The retrieval methods mainly include:
1) direct inspection method. A method of directly retrieving documents from books and periodicals related to the retrieval subject. The retrieval subject is single, the literature is concentrated, and the retrieved books and periodicals are well understood, so this method is suitable for use;
2) backtracking method. Take the quotations, notes, corner notes and appendix references of the retrieved documents as clues, and trace them one by one to find the required documents. Generally, some necessary documents can be obtained when there are few known documents or lack of retrieval tools;
3) follow-up method. According to the time range of the retrieval subject, from far to near, from old to new. You can get more systematic, comprehensive and complete literature, but it takes time and energy;
4) Reverse search method. A method of backtracking documents from near to far according to the time range of retrieval subject. Suitable for searching new documents, especially theoretical research topics;
5) Comprehensive method. That is, the method of alternately using the above methods. It is suitable for complex and important retrieval topics. Specifically, if researchers have certain retrieval knowledge and good quality and relatively complete retrieval tools, they can use forward search method and backward search method; If it is a comprehensive and systematic summary report of the research topic, sequential investigation method should be adopted; For example, the research on new topics should be based on reverse investigation; If there is a lack of complete retrieval tools and clues, retrospective retrieval method (retrospective method) can be used.
3. Advantages of literature method
1) research is not limited by time and space. With the method of literature, we can study those objects that are inaccessible due to geographical or chronological restrictions;
2) Use the literature method to conduct scientific research. The research is not interfered by the "reaction" of the research object;
3) The research embodies the combination of criticism and innovation. In the process of scientific research by using literature method, researchers always use their own political views, world outlook and contemporary educational ideas to analyze and study, take the essence and discard the dross, and the research is critical;
4) The research is objective. The writing of most documents has no research purpose, and the author recorded it spontaneously in a specific environment and time, with a high degree of "frankness" and true feelings. The study of these documents will inevitably improve objectivity;
5) Large information capacity and low cost. The information capacity of literature research is not limited, as long as the collected literature can be used as the research object.
4. An important link in the law of literature-document arrangement
1) literature reading. There are generally three ways to read research literature: browsing, rough reading and intensive reading. These three reading methods have their own advantages and disadvantages. For researchers, reading and analyzing documents are very useful methods, which should be well mastered and applied comprehensively and flexibly in the research process.
2) Records of documents. The purpose of recording is to keep the valuable information discovered through reading for further analysis and research. Recording can help you remember, exercise your thinking, improve your writing ability and help you study new problems. The methods and forms of recording research literature mainly include: marking and commenting, copying, summarizing, reading notes, summarizing and so on.
3) Identification of documents. There are two ways to identify the authenticity of a document: external audit and internal audit. There are four external audit methods: identifying the authenticity of the version, analyzing the language style of the book, analyzing the style of the document, and analyzing the basic ideas and ideas in the document. Four methods of "internal audit": mutual verification of written documents, verification of written documents and objects, historical background of documents, author's life, position and basic ideas.
4) Classification of documents. (1) Qualitative classification: primary classification, continuous classification and dichotomy. (2) Requirements for collation: First, we should not beautify or demand the contents of historical documents with today's viewpoints or even ideals; Second, historical materials cannot be deleted at will to meet the pre-compiled conclusions or ready-made conclusions.
The above content focuses on the literature method, a commonly used research method for academic papers. To put it simply, literature method is a method of collecting, analyzing and studying all kinds of existing relevant literature materials, and selecting information from them to achieve certain investigation and research purposes. I hope you can master the main points after reading it and use it flexibly in future research and study.