5 - DR Ngan Nguyen

PHƯƠNG PHÁP
NGHIÊN CỨU KHOA HỌC

Giảng viên:
Nguyễn Lưu Thùy Ngân
Khoa Khoa học máy tính
Trường Đại học Công nghệ Thông tin – ĐHQG-HCM
CHAPTER 5
From Problems to Sources
Content
• How to find sources
• If you have a question and at least one

promising answer (hypothesis), you can
start looking for data to test it.
• If you have a deadline, you need more than
luck to find good sources in time: you have to
search systematically.
Types of data
• Your own data from experiments or
observation
• Data in books or articles, occasionally in
photos, films, videos, or audio recordings
 Go to libraries (today’s libraries connect you
to the best online resources)
3 kinds of sources
1. Primary sources (tài liệu gốc)
2. Secondary sources (tài liệu cấp hai)
3. Tertiary sources (tài liệu cấp ba)
Primary sources
• Provide the “raw data” that you use first to test
your working hypothesis and then as evidence
to support your claim.
• History:
documents from the period, person you are
studying, objects, maps, even clothing
• Literature or philosophy:
▫ text you are studying (data: words on the page)
• IT:
▫ Experimental results, data, …
Secondary sources
• Research reports that use primary data to
solve research problems, written for
scholarly and professional audiences.
• You can use their data to support your

argument, but only if you cannot find those
data in a primary source.
Tertiary sources
• Books and articles that synthesize and report on
secondary sources for general readers, such as
textbooks, articles in encyclopedias and mass-circulation
publications, and what standard search engines turn up
first on the Web.
• If you use these sources, most of your readers won’t

trust your report—or you.
▫ Oversimplify the research
▫ These sources usually dates quickly
• So if you start your research with a popular book, look
at the journals listed in its bibliography, then go to
them for more current research.
How to search for sources?
• Planning your search
• Searching for specific sources
Planning your search
• Start with an overview of the research on your topic.
• Talk to librarians
• Talk to experts
▫ to help you focus your topic and suggest sources.
• Consult general reference works
start by looking at the end of an article on your topic in
a general reference work such as the Encyclopedia
Britannica (Wikipedia), where it may list basic
sources.
• Consult specialized reference works
look up your topic in a specialized encyclopedia or
dictionary, such as the Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
and consult the references cited there.
Search for specific sources
• Start from keywords search (libraries, online
databases)
• If you find too many titles, cut it to those
published in the last 15 years; if that’s still too
many, cut to the last 10.
• If you find nothing,
▫ your topic may be too narrow or too far off the
beaten track to yield quick results.
you could also be on to an important question that
nobody has thought about, at least not for a while.
Evaluating sources for relevance and
reliability
• A source is useful or not?
▫ Relevance (phù hợp)
▫ Reliability (tin cậy)
Relevance (1)
If your source is a book, do this:
• Skim its index for your key words, then skim the pages
on which those words occur.
• Skim the first and last paragraphs in chapters that use a
lot of your key words.
• Skim prologues, introductions, summary chapters, and
so on.
• Skim the last chapter, especially the first and last two or
three pages.
• If the source is a collection of articles, skim the editor’s
introduction.
• Check the bibliography for titles relevant to your topic.
Relevance (2)
If your source is an article, do this:
• Read the abstract, if it has one.
• Skim the introduction and conclusion, or if they
are not marked off by headings, skim the first six
or seven paragraphs and the last four or five.
• Skim for section headings, and read the first and
last paragraphs of those sections.
• Check the bibliography for titles relevant to your
topic.
Relevance (3)
If your source is online, do this:
• If it looks like a printed article, follow the steps for a
journal article.
• Skim sections labeled “introduction,” “overview,”
“summary,” or the like. If there are none, look for a
link labeled “About the Site” or something similar.
• If the site has a link labeled “Site Map” or “Index,”
check it for your key words and skim the referenced
pages.
• If the site has a “search” resource, type in your key
words.
Reliability
• Is the source published or posted online by a reputable press?
• Was the book or article peer-reviewed?
• Is the author a reputable scholar?
• If the source is available only online, is it sponsored by a
reputable organization?
• Is the source current? You must use up-to-date sources (IT: <5
years).
• If the source is a book, does it have a notes and a bibliography?
• If the source is a Web site, does it include bibliographical data?
• If the source is a Web site, does it approach its topic judiciously?
• If the source is a book, has it been well reviewed?
• Has the source been frequently cited by others? To determine
that, consult a citation index.
Tip
When They Beat You to the Punch
Don’t panic if you find a source that seems to pose and

solve precisely your problem: “Transforming the Alamo
Legend: History in the Service of Politics.” At that moment
you might think, I’m dead. Nothing new to say. (It
happened to Williams when he was writing his doctoral
dissertation and to Colomb just before his first book came
out.) You may be right, but probably not. If the source does in
fact settle your exact question, you have to formulate
a new one. But the question your source asked is probably
not as close to yours as you first feared. And you may find that
you can do the source one better: if the author failed to get
things entirely right, you have an unwitting ally in formulating
your problem.
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PHƯƠNG PHÁP

NGHIÊN CỨU KHOA HỌC

• If you have a question and at least one

• You can use their data to support your

• If you use these sources, most of your readers won’t

Don’t panic if you find a source that seems to pose and

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