Research Article:
How is Information Organized?
The Research Process


Research is a dynamic process that involves collecting, organizing, and analyzing information at every step along the way. When studying biological environments, for example, researchers:

Sometimes this process helps researchers answer their original questions but raises other questions. Here's a fictitious account that shows how this can happen:

In a remote area with numerous lakes, one species of bird has been dying in unusually large numbers. A team of researchers begins a study to determine why. The researchers, in the process of gathering, organizing, and analyzing information to answer this question, discover that both the fish in the lakes and the fish-eating birds in the area contain high levels of industrial pollutants. This is a surprising finding, because the lakes are far from any industries or other known sources of such pollutants. The finding leads the researchers to ask new questions, such as whether the air flow patterns are carrying the pollutants from a long distance away, and whether lakes in other areas are affected in the same way. The answers they find to these questions may raise still more questions, forcing the researchers to repeat the research process until as many questions as possible have been answered. The researchers share their findings so that other people (as well as they themselves) can draw conclusions about whether there is a problem and decide what actions might help.

Researchers collect an enormous amount of information when studying coastal communities or aquatic environments. To make this task manageable, they collect the information in a step-by-step fashion. For example, researchers often begin with descriptive research, collecting information that accurately describes the area under study. This might include information about the history of the area, the current size and physical characteristics of the area (and changes that have occurred over time), past and current problems affecting the area, local residents' opinions about the situation, and solutions that have been tried in the past.

To collect this information, researchers rely on both primary and secondary sources. Primary sources are original sources or direct observations. In historical research, examples of primary sources include original documents (such as original land charters or deeds), diaries, journals, family bibles, photo albums, letters, oral histories, interviews, questionnaires, and Internet communications. In scientific research, primary sources include logs and journals containing data from tests and experiments, surveys, maps, and photographs and other images.

Secondary sources are other people's descriptions of primary source information. These include books, journal and magazine articles, newspaper articles, radio and television stories, and encyclopedia entries.

Researchers usually try to verify the accuracy of the information that they collect. They do this by comparing information that they collected from one source with information that they collected from another source-and by comparing this information with their own observations.

Organizing Information

As researchers collect more and more information, it becomes harder and harder to keep track of where to find specific pieces of information already collected-unless they organize their collection of information in a logical, useful way. Researchers usually use some type of filing system for this purpose. That is, they divide their information into files containing related pieces of information, then arrange the files in a logical way.

Information can be organized in many different ways. Different filing systems lend themselves to different tasks. For example, a telephone directory is organized by residents' last names, making it easy to find a telephone number if you know the person's name. Finding the correct telephone number would be much harder if the same information were arranged in order of residents' first names-and even harder if the information were arranged in order of residents' telephone numbers!

When designing a filing system, researchers consider the types of information they have collected and how they want to use it. They then develop criteria for dividing information into files and for arranging files in a way that fits the research they are conducting. They also develop an index of the files in their filing system-containing brief descriptions of the contents and locations of individual files in the filing system. By referring to the index, researchers can find and retrieve specific pieces of information quickly and easily.

Organizing information also helps researchers share their findings with other people. If researchers would have a hard time picking through an unorganized mass of information that they themselves collected, just think how difficult it would be for other people to find a specific piece of information in that mass of research!

Using the Internet

Organizing information efficiently and logically is especially important when putting information online. Just as a card catalog helps library patrons find specific books, indexed filing systems help Internet users navigate the "information superhighway" to find relevant bits of information. Gone are the days of boring text-only files and downloading information from menus. New, user-friendly filing systems for the Internet are helping researchers, students, and others use this vast resource as never before.

A growing number of people are using the Internet to communicate, share ideas, disseminate information, and obtain quick, easy access to information about a huge number of topics. Many companies, universities, and individuals are connected to the World Wide Web, the part of the Internet made popular by graphical browsers such as Mosaic and Netscape. These tools help Internet users browse through homepages, which are like mini-indexes that link related files. When users find homepages that seem interesting or relevant, they simply open the linked files to find information on the topic of interest. In this Investigation, you will have an opportunity to create a filing system, index, and homepage so that you can organize and share information that you collect about your aquatic field-study site.

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Gene Carl Feldman (gene@seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov) (301) 286-9428
Todd Carlo Viola, JASON Foundation for Education (todd@jason.org)
Revised: 30 Oct 1995