Now that you have arranged your visit, you should give some serious consideration to how you are going to approach your research. The following should be kept in mind before you set foot in the archive.  Planning your research time Think about how you will use your time, especially if you are travelling from distance or spending a prolonged period at the archive. Where possible, bear the following in mind:

     * try to locate document references before you arrive and if the service is available, order them in advance.

    * think about how you will spend your time on a longer research trip - you might want to spend a day familiarizing yourself with the catalogues or obtaining all relevant references.

    * try not to get sidetracked into irrelevant areas, but equally you should follow up leads or hunches; set your research parameters but keep them flexible.

    * don't be afraid to re-cover ground you have already covered in the light of new discoveries - you never know where the archival trail will lead, and you may need to return to an archive in the light of new discoveries made elsewhere.

    * make a note of documents that you have decided NOT to use - this is part of preparing your research framework and should be incorporated into your dissertation; it will also stop you from 'discovering' new material when writing up - this can cause great panic.

 Catalogues and archival references

Each archive will employ their own cataloguing system to list the documents in their possession. These will vary from archive to archive and can be difficult to understand, especially in the larger archives such as The National Archives. Ask your tutor about booking the onsite training programmed, based on The National Archive’s archival reference system. Details are available on the tutor home page.  Always use the onsite help every archive will have at least one enquiry desk where you can ask for advice. Trained staff, who are familiar with the collections, are there to help - or will know someone who does. Furthermore, many archives publish information leaflets about their collections - READ THEM! They are prepared with the researcher in mind and provide valuable shortcuts to document references.  Reading Documents When reading a document for the first time, try to bear the following points in mind:

     * read through the material first before transcribing it - make sure you know what the document is saying.

    * Always transcribe material in full - you never know what will be of use later in your research.

    * always make a full note of the document reference as you will need to cite any quotations that you use in a dissertation; make a note of the page or even line you quoted from, in case you have to re-visit that document.

 Interpreting documents

It is vitally important to place the document into its contemporary context so that you can interpret it correctly. Researchers have made many mistakes because they have not fully understood why a document was created, and have therefore misinterpreted the contents of the document. You should therefore try to get some background to your source material. Ask yourself who created it, who used it, and why.  Furthermore, the meaning of many words has changed over the years. Try to determine the contemporary meaning of a phrase, and if you are unsure, look it up in a dictionary.

  Potential problems

Until 1733 the language of most official records was Latin (with the exception of the Interregnum, 1649-1660). Furthermore, handwriting can be very difficult to read, as authors often used abbreviations that may not be obvious to the modern eye. Luckily, archives stock numerous Latin-English dictionaries and word lists, paleographical aids and guides to abbreviations to assist you in reading the material.                Ome years ago, while at Huddersfield University, I was timetabled to give a lecture to final year ndergraduate students as part of the preparation for their final year projects. The title of the lecture was o be "Research Methods". At first this sounds easy, after all I was clearly doing plenty of research so I  us know about it... But, of course doing something and knowing about doing it are far from the same thing! Anyway after much sweat I produced the following material. Note however that the title changed to "Research Techniques". Teaching techniques for doing research is one thing - a method!!!!  Since then I have used the basic material with some variations to undergraduate, masters and PhD students. So, although these notes were written with the original audience in mind, I hope that some of the ideas will also be of use students elsewhere including those undertaking Masc. projects, PhD studies or doing research in general.

You can read the complete notes on-line or download the OHPs and notes in various formats:

 New OHP slides ... coming bit by bit

    What is research - PDF (37K) PPT (27K)

    Gathering information - PDF (70K) PPT (48K)

    Analyzing existing work - PDF (141K) PPT (105K)

    Presenting literature - PDF (33K) PPT (23K)

Original notes (1995):

    Full copy of notes as web pages

    OHP slides: PDF (177K), RTF (23K), Word (19K), and Postscript (582K)

    Full notes, formatted for 2 sided printing: PDF (206K), RTF (71K), Word (58K), and Postscript (666K)

 The notes were originally produced on Word 5.1 for the Macintosh, so when rtf or .doc files are used different versions of Word pagination may change and so the page numbers in the table of contents may need to be corrected. The PDF and Postscript version will not suffer this problem.  I ran a session on silly ideas at our Lancaster CSEG group annual away day in December 2000     See my notes about silly/bad ideas and how to use them in research and some of the bad ideas the groups there thought up!

 Driving lesson - fearless play

- A short story about enabling learning

  I have various other things that I keep meaning to write down in this area. If enough people badger me I'll get round to it! In the mean time look at my home page, my statistics tutorial pages or even at Magi Soft.

 Other useful links:

 Referencing style guides collated by Library and Information Services, Curtin University of Technology

    APA Referencing - at Curtin

    Harvard Referencing - at Curtin

    MLA Referencing - at Online Writing Lab, Purdue University

    Footnotes (Chicago Style) - at Madison Writing Center, University of Wisconsin

    Vancouver Referencing - at Information Systems Services, University of Southampton

    Also look at their other factsheets, which are mainly focused on medical research but have some more general information too     N.B. the pages on this site all seem to flicker and display twice on my browser, but seems OK once they settle down!   FirstModay have down-to-earth writing tips and style guide in their Guidelines for Authors       The (LTSN) Centre for Information and Computer Sciences (LTSN-ICS) Research Techniques page     This has links to resources on Effective Study, Project Management (manage data, problem solving, structure an argument, use of feedback),     Research Methods (quantitative, qualitative, interviewing, questionnaires, statistical analysis, and strategies) and Referencing/citation  Research Methods Resources on the WWW     Extensive resource pages produced The School of Library, Archival and Information Studies, University of British Columbia     Targeted at Library and Information Science students and professionals, but a broad list of resources. The slides from Trevor Wood-Harper's talk Reflections on the PhD Process at the 1998 UKAIS Conference College The LOGO foundation

    The LOGO language was popularized in Seymour Papert's book Mindstorms. Even in the early '60s Papert saw computers as tools to enable children to learn and think. One of the key features of his use of LOGO was that 'error' became experiment enabling a more adventurous approach to learning.     The issues of reducing fear of doing things wrong are crucial in both learning and research. See my driving lesson story for an example of this.     Turtle graphics were a central part of LOGO as they make the hidden internal procedures of the computer visible - you don't just tell the computer what to do, you see it do it. The fact that unintended outputs are still interesting ones is a central part of the non-judgmental use of LOGO.     Some years ago a colleague at York University, worked with me to produce a prototype Turtle Prolog. This was designed to expose the internals of Prolog. It consisted of a set of turtle graphics operations that drew lines just like LOGO, when Prolog backtracked the lines were undrawn, but left a residual mark.. It was this possible to see both the final successful path and also see others being explored.  "The journalist is stimulated by a deadline. He writes worse if he has time" Karl Krauss     Translation by Verb Volant Kibitzers: Discourse - Connecting Ideas in Writing - from University of Birmingham (UK)     Aid for writing style, aimed at second-language English speakers, but I think useful for many native English speakers too. It has examples of cpmments, rewordings and discussions about writing that have arisen form on-to-one sessions with students at Birmingham. Do be a little careful though. The advice is every useful, but in a few cases the explanation of exactly why a correction is the correct one are not perfect - the experts seem great and knowing  what is right, but perhaps less so at understating why ... a not uncommon phenomenal.

    According to the site, the word Kibitzer / Kibitzer (def) comes from those who watched (and learnt from) experts playing in the chess cafe's of eastern Europe, although some dictionaries have broader definitions.      Following the Kibitzing theme the general idea of learning form experts at work by observing is taken up by Mike's work. Of course over-shoulder learning does not engage the learner directly, but is often a side effect of an expert coming in and solving the suers problems, so the 'leaner' who is the 'problem owner' has an very direct attachment to the problem and may well have tried alternatives and experimented already. A variant of this is when you have paired programming where the weaker programmer is at the keyboard and learns through being the 'hands' of the expert.   The PDF files provided below give details on the techniques that have proven very reliable over many years in the field and laboratory. Also included are sources for supplies. Also shown below are some photographs to illustrate the techniques.        Making, staining, and storing blood smears.    See a movie of a smear being made On the left below is shown three slides that have two smears made per slide. This is the method we use when traveling to field sites where large numbers of smears will be made. The slides shown in the picture on the left are fresh-made (not yet dipped into methanol). The top slide has one smear, the middle slide shows our practice when on field trips of putting two smears per slide, and the bottom slide is one typical for mammal blood with both a thick and thin smear.

                The photo to the right shows some smears that have been stained with Giemsa. Three good slides are shown on the top. The ones staining pink are from gravid female lizards. Proteins used to produce egg yolk cycle through the blood and stain pink with Giemsa. The two lower slides show some poorly made smears. Note the “bubbles” on the left smear, second from the bottom. This is a result of grease on the slide.                 Making and storing dried blood dots for genetic studies.

Storing dried blood from lizards or birds is easy and should be done with every animal sampled. The left photograph shows a filter paper disk with several blood samples, the right photo shows the disk in a small plastic zip-lock bag with some silica gel to keep the disk dry. These disks can be kept at room temperature until returning to the lab, and then kept in the freezer at -20 C.                Scanning slides, identifying and counting parasites.

                How to catch and take blood samples from birds and lizards.

Catching and taking blood samples from lizards are easy, and described in the pdf file. However, working with birds requires special training, and for wild birds, permits. Blood samples should be taken from birds only by veterinarians or wildlife workers who have received the necessary training. Use of mist-nets is also regulated, and even their purchase requires a permit. Although regulations vary among countries, researchers should still capture and take blood samples only after proper training, and should follow strict ethical guidelines. That is, presented the pictures below does not suggest that catching and handling birds should be done without the proper training.      A field station for identifying, sexing, measuring, banding, and taking blood samples for birds. The metal tray provides a clean, flat surface for making blood smears. Birds are kept in cloth sacks for the short period between being taken from a mist-net until processing. Birds typically become very quiet in a these sacks.      

On the left, mist-nets are set in an area of forests where birds are seen to use as a fly-way. In the foreground, a goldfinch and redstart are seen in the net. Removing birds takes patience and skill because they can become very tangled in the net as seen for the goldfinch on the right.                   

A woodpecker is prepared to donate a blood sample by use of a moist Q-tip to push feathers away and reveal the brachial vein. A very thin syringe needle is used to prick the vein, and a capillary tube takes a blood sample. In the lower right phogograph a much smaller bird (a warbler) is giving a blood sample.                                       Noosing lizards can be very enjoyable, provided a properly made noose is used. We use tri-filament fishing line, but the pictures are shown here with heavy cord for illustration (such cord might be used to noose enormous Varanus lizards!). First, a knot is tied at the end of the line, then an overhand knot made. The long end of the string is pushed into the overhand knot, and then tightened. The picture on the lower left shows the finished noose. When a lizard is captured, it can be very quickly released by pulling on the “handle” of the noose (the knotted end).