In order to be able to write my dissertation I will need to research everything to make myself able to answer it, within this I will have to use secondary research (research that combines other, already known ideas) and primary research (original research). I've never had to write anything with sources other than using the internet and textbooks and I needed to learn more about primary and secondary sources with which to gather research so I made the following mind maps (using the student room's create your own resources site).
Prior to making these mind maps I decided to try and think of, after defining primary and secondary research, disadvantages and advantages of each to help me with my mind maps.
I came up with the following:
Primary Research
Advantages
Secondary Research
Advantages
The following SLIDESHOW of three mind maps (one for primary and two for secondary) show the different kinds of resource I could use, examples of them, and the advantages and disadvantages of each type.
Yellow = type of resource
Grey = examples of that resource
Green = advantages of that type of resource
Red = disadvantages of that type of resource
Prior to making these mind maps I decided to try and think of, after defining primary and secondary research, disadvantages and advantages of each to help me with my mind maps.
I came up with the following:
Primary Research
Advantages
- I can use it to gather the exact type of information I want, for instance ask an academic the precise question I want an answer to. This, arguably, makes primary research more useful than secondary in some ways. It addresses the exact thing I want it to.
- As it will have been gathered immediately at this time the information won’t be out of date at the time I write my dissertation.
- It can be time consuming to gather and often depends on others e.g. academics replying to my emails. This means it is difficult to acquire.
- It is more likely that I won’t be able to gather any primary research because it depends on whether academics reply to emails, whether I have a sample that will respond to questionnaires and whether I can actually find and get near any historical articles relevant to Alexander the Great
Secondary Research
Advantages
- Really easy to get to a variety of sources, with the internet I can gather lots of secondary sources (journals, websites, eBooks etc.) within minutes without having to go to a library or anywhere special. It is very convenient and easy to use
- I can use the secondary research to gather both contextual knowledge and more specific knowledge to help me answer my question about Alexander the Great. This is because secondary knowledge will contain a lot of breadth over the topic I am interested in
- I don’t have to do anything too complicated to obtain secondary research, such as carry out a questionnaire, because the data I am looking for already exists. This means it is quick to gather
- With some areas of secondary sources the quality of the information may be questionable, for instance some websites can be edited by just about anyone which decreases their reliability as they may have been made by people who have no real expertise in the area I'm looking in to.
- With secondary research I can only use what it gives me, what I mean is that I can’t make it any more relevant or precise to my title. The research may not be precise enough to help me answer my question about Alexander the Great. It may not answer the exact questions I have.
- It can easily go out of date e.g. textbooks, articles, journals which makes it less reliable
- Books and journals, if I have to buy them, can be expensive.
The following SLIDESHOW of three mind maps (one for primary and two for secondary) show the different kinds of resource I could use, examples of them, and the advantages and disadvantages of each type.
Yellow = type of resource
Grey = examples of that resource
Green = advantages of that type of resource
Red = disadvantages of that type of resource
From looking into the various ways I can gather research for my dissertation I have come up with the following sources I plan to use in order to write my dissertation:
Primary Research
Get in contact with academics
Secondary Research
Textbooks
Primary Research
Get in contact with academics
- They will be able to provide me with the answers to the more specific types of questions that I have that the books and journals of the secondary research category may not give me
- I will choose ones that are experts in their fields e.g. have a PhD in history and this qualification will also mean they have a good reputation. This, along with the fact that they don’t want to ruin their reputation by distorting the truth meaning the information they provide me with is likely to be very accurate, means that they will be a very credible source
- Using such things to interpret the past is essential because they give you an inkling of what was actually happening, being felt and the attitudes of the past more so than books etc. because they were actually there. This is why ancient texts, art and archaeological findings will be so useful to me because they will be able to get me in the mind-set of the people to help me find the reason behind Alexander’s epithet from an Ancient Greek perspective
- Analysing these types of sources, such as physical ones like statues, is something I have never really done before – particularly with an academic aim. Therefore I have decided to incorporate this kind of research into my EPQ because I want to learn something new and it may help me when I go on and do a history/classics degree
- As my EPQ centres around why Alexander deserved his epithet it deserves quite a bit of contextual knowledge which the majority of people won’t have and therefore won’t be able to fill in a questionnaire about Alexander the Great which means I probably won’t use this type of primary research on ‘normal’ people however if I find lots of academics with an expertise in Alexander I could send them all a questionnaire on him, this would be good as it would mean I get lots of data quickly and can analyse different academic’s views to see for myself which is the most commonly held one. This will be useful in my EPQ as it should help give any critical arguments a sense of balance
Secondary Research
Textbooks
- Educational textbooks are generally only for the providing of information; they don’t offer opinions because that is what they want the student to do in their exams. Therefore textbooks are likely going to be very good for me if I want simple factual knowledge, especially as the lack of an opinion means the textbook is likely not bias and therefore a more credible source
- Furthermore as textbooks are generally for educational purposes they’re probably going to be very accurate as the company have a vested interest in using the best information possibly or they will lose business because schools won’t choose to use their textbooks which makes them a credible source
- Books/journals on Alexander the Great will probably have been written by historians meaning the author has a lot of expertise in this field because they will have studied it extensively in order to write such a book, they will have a good reputation among their peers (such as if they have a PhD) especially if their work is cited elsewhere, and they will have a vested interest in being accurate and not distorting the evidence as that could ruin their reputation. Therefore this makes academic books and journals very credible sources from which to gather research
- With the use of the index in books (and some journals) it should be quite easy to find the relevant parts so I don’t have to read them the entire way through which would be very time consuming, this would also help with choosing books as I would simply look in the index and see if they have ‘Alexander the Great’ mentioned
- They’re very easy to use as I can just search for the key words; this should mean that everything I find should be relevant to what I’m looking for because I can tailor my searches. Therefore lots of relevant data can be gathered quickly
- They will be good sources because they are free, easy to use and very quick
- I can use them to review other sources, for instance if I feel a date doesn’t sound right in a textbook I can just search it and see how many websites correspond with it to check its accuracy
- Alexander the II is obviously a historical figure so it is unlikely there will be many newspaper articles on him, this is why using magazines may be more useful as there are ones specifically aimed at historians or those interested in history so there should be lots of information that would be relatively easy to gather
- Magazines will also cite their sources which will be useful in seeing how well regarded other sources (such as books) are because if lots of other sources cite them in their references it suggests they are very credible. Therefore magazines may be useful for looking for and evaluating other sources
- Magazines are often aimed at ‘ordinary’ people which means, unlike many journals I would imagine, they will be easy to understand and quick to read so can be used for quicker information gathering than journals