What is Research?

research
n 1: systematic investigation to establish facts 2: a search for knowledge; "their pottery deserves more research than it has received" [syn: inquiry, enquiry] v 1: inquire into [syn: search, explore] 2: attempt to find out in a systematically and scientific manner; "The student researched the history of that word"

scientific method
n. The principles and empirical processes of discovery and demonstration considered characteristic of or necessary for scientific investigation, generally involving the observation of phenomena, the formulation of a hypothesis concerning the phenomena, experimentation to demonstrate the truth or falseness of the hypothesis, and a conclusion that validates or modifies the hypothesis.

empirical
adj. 1. Relying on or derived from observation or experiment. 2. Verifiable or provable by means of observation or experiment.

heuristic-- a commonsense rule (or set of rules) intended to increase the probability of solving some problem.

Why people perform research
1. Make the world better.
2. Improve state-of-the-art
3. Business Decisions: Deciding what to create, what to invest in, in general to make decisions.
4. The Creative impulse.
5. As an in-road to creating a startup and millions.
6. Obtain tenure/promotion

Structure of a Research Paper
Title
Authors
Abstract
Categories and Subject Descriptors, General Terms, Keywords
(See How to Classify ACM Papers)

Intro
    What is the problem of the world that the paper will address.
    Outline of solution, results
Related Work
Theoretical Results
Empirical Results
Current Status
Suggestions for Future Work
Summary
References

Example: Check out Cho's, Impact of Search Engines on Page Popularity. What is the hypothesis? Is the paper structured as above? What results are reported? What is suggested for future work?

Research Process
1. Literature Survey
2. Formulation of Hypothesis
3. Obtaining new results
    Development of Software System followed by testing (usability or otherwise)
    Theoretical Analysis
    Empirical Testing
        Formulation of Test and Assumptions
        Statistical analysis, measuring statistical significance
4. Writing the paper/Speaking at conference       

Categorization Schemes
ACM Paper Categorization
dmoz Open Directory Project

Surveying Existing Literature
Search using digital libraries and search engines
Citation Linking
    papers referred to in paper
    papers that cite the paper (inward links)
Other Types of Associations
    other papers by authors
    other papers in same category
    papers by colleagues of author
    papers at author's organization or by author's research group.

Demos
Google Scholar   
ACM Digital Library
Citeseer