Assignment 1: Library Project: Exploring the Database Universe

An Empirical Research Study: How Will I Know One When I See One?

An Empirical Research Study Is an Experiment
To conduct and publish an empirical research study, an author or team of authors designs an experiment, gathers data, then analyzes the data and discusses the results of the experiment. A published empirical study will therefore look very different from other types of articles (newspaper stories, magazine articles, essays, etc.) found in our library databases.

Structure of an Empirical Study
Typically, an empirical study has the following sections:

• Abstract
  • The author summarizes her article
• Introduction
  • The author discusses the general background of her research topic; often, she will present a literature review, that is, summarize what other experts have written on this particular research topic
• Method
  • The author describes the experiment she designed and conducted
• Results
  • The author presents the data she gathered during her experiment
• Discussion
  • The author offers ideas about the importance and implications of her research findings, and speculates on future directions that similar research might take
• Acknowledgments
  • The author thanks people, organizations, and so on, who assisted her research, for example, by helping to fund it
• Literature Cited
  • The author gives a References list of sources she used in her paper

As you can see from the following snapshots from the full text of an empirical research study, the structure of the article is often clearly shown by headings, for example, Method, Results, Discussion:

Another common feature of empirical studies is that they are often full of statistical data analysis, tables, and graphs. Here's an example:

As you know, in most library databases, even before you view the full text of an article, you can see detailed information about the article, including an abstract. By reading an article's abstract, you can tell if the author has performed an empirical study--an experiment--because the purpose, method, and results of the study will be summarized in the abstract:

Now That I Know What One Looks Like, Where Can I Find Empirical Research Studies?

The following library databases are chock full of empirical studies on topics having to do with communication and conflict.