The Educated Guess

Most of us have had it pounded into our heads that a hypothesis is an educated guess. What may not have been conveyed to you is where that education comes from. It shouldn't be from something your Uncle Ed told you when you were eight, or from that time when you dared your friend Jeff to try doing it in high school. Your personal experiences mean nothing to someone who is reading a quantitative research report. By the way, that means it is research that uses numerical values to measure.

So, in order to develop the educated guess, you must educate yourself. No one is going to just pour this information in your head. You have to find it by reading. Reading blogs (as brilliant as some may be!), websites and the infamous and omnipresent Wikipedia are NOT the places to start.

You must read the current literature on your topic. This does not mean Emily Dickinson or Mark Twain. The literature in this case are the scholarly articles and research reports that are published in peer reviewed journals (not your peers, mine). Journals are academic publications (Ladies Home Journal is not a journal)that differ from magazines in that other scholars must approve the articles, they are not published as frequently, and they don't pay you anything for writing the articles. Isn't that the greatest gig, to be a journal editor? Everyone wants to write for you, and you don't have to pay them! But, I digress.

So read. Stay current because most things in the social sciences change rapidly, so try to Stay within the past five years within your discipline if possible. Sometimes you may branch into a related field if your topic overlaps with other specialties. It also may be essential to read some classic works (e.g., Kubler-Ross for death and dying). It is best to go to the original source. No one wants to see you citing Smith, who quoted Jones, who referred to Freud. Read Freud so nothing gets lost in this little "telephone game."

Two more quick tips: paraphrase and document! If your paper is large quote after large quote from others, I will quickly get bored. If the source is so great that you can't say it as well as they do, then I might as well be reading the other person's work instead of yours!
Put it in your own words. Take the ideas from the things you read, group them together, then document what informed your thinking. Remember, it's not what you know as much as how you know it.

Ever since the cold fusion fiasco, people are a bit skeptical about the source of information. If you tell me that crime rates are on the rise, I want proof that you aren't just pulling that tidbit out of your ass. Show evidence of that statistic by placing a parenthetical citation (if following APA style) at the end of the sentence. Then, if I want to verify your facts, I can look it up. Also, stick with just the facts. In a research paper, I don't care about your opinions or your emotional pleas. Don't say that society "must" do this or that. Give me proof.