Essential Research Background

Researching consists of a series of steps to collect and analyze information to increase understanding of a topic or issue. By using open access data, we bypass the data collection step and obtained information that others have already found. Before moving on and analyzing the data (which is the topic of Chapter 3), it is important to understand how and why to do research and clear up some misconceptions about it. We will discuss that topic in this chapter, as well as presenting the structure of a typical study, which features a planning phase and an execution phase. In biomedical research, there are many types of studies, and it is important to be familiar with the major ones, which is the next topic covered in this chapter. Then we will present the life cycle of a study, including what will happen after you finish writing the manuscript. The next section will provide an essential background of the ethics of research, and the chapter ends with a tutorial on how to write a study protocol.