Definition of Research

Term "Research" - Defined

Discussing Definition of research is quite different from discussing the meaning of the word “research”. But the difference is often lost sight of in a rush to provide an acceptable definition. Meanings and usage of the word “research” will be discussed here before providing a comprehensive definition of research.

There are two aspects to the word, “research”, a noun and as a verb or activity. It is also used as and adjective to qualify other nouns indicating their relationship to some kind of research, e.g. research work, research grant etc. With these preliminaries we can now take up meanings of the word and then proceed with a comprehensive definition of research.

Meanings of Research

Research means a systematic and scientific investigation to find new facts about a subject or an object. These new facts may be physically identifiable properties or these could well be new but logically argued conclusions that follow a systematic analysis. Research is after all a re-searching through the vast mountain of knowledge and information gathered over millennia of civilization.

It must be underlined that research may or may not lead to a new discovery. A discovery is often a result of research work but not essential. Take the case of a researcher looking into the breeding habits of spiders in Amazon forests and finding a hitherto unknown species of spiders. Such discovery of a new species of spider may well become his research conclusion but in the first place the researcher did not begin research with an object of finding a new species.

As a noun Research has been used to name a ship, a band and is also part of the name of a publisher but these isolated instances would only make us deviate from the definition we seek here. Hence, their details are omitted here.

esearch is a systematic effort to find or inquire into facts in a scientific manner.

The definition would be incomplete without an explanation. The object of research could as much be to establish facts as it could be to view facts in a fresh light or with a new insight. A researcher faces an additional responsibility to establish the freshness of facts or analysis. This has made literature review an essential part of all research papers.

Lastly an investigation to be called research has to be systematically conducted in a scientific manner. Implication of being scientific is repeatability of study or experiment under specific conditions, which is an essential feature of every scientific or academic study.