Secrets of the Great Researchers - Lazy Debater's Guide to Research (part 1)

     I have spoken with numerous debaters who complain, “I went to the internet and searched for the topic for one hour and didn’t find anything!”  As I ask some probing questions, I realize that these students are taking a wrong perspective toward research.  Some are hopeful that the research will simply pop out at them.  (Typing in “ocean policy” will NOT produce a case in five seconds.  Sorry to disappoint.)  Some students cannot find articles because they are not searching the in right places.  Some students find articles but do not utilize them to their full potential.  Still other students take their hour talking on IM, playing Yahoo games, and posting on the debate forums and are surprised when they look back over their “research time” and realize that they have not accomplished anything! (duh!)  No matter which student one is, a few techniques in the research process can help to make anyone a better researcher.

     The research process begins by taking a broad look at the topic.  First, examine the resolution for key words.  For example, when researching the resolution: “Resolved: That the United States federal government should significantly change its policy toward one of more of its protectorates.” you can circle or highlight the words that seem important.  Also, if you do not know the meaning of any word in the resolution, now is the prime time to solve that problem.  Go to dictionary.com and search for any word you need defined.  Any one of numerous sources can provide you with the basic definition, but dictionary.com provides numerous definitions that will settle the meaning of the term in your mind before you progress any further along in the research process.  After you understand the terms in the resolution examine each “key word” from your initial reading of the resolution.  It might look something like this: 

“Resolved: That the United States federal government should significantly change its policy toward one of more of its protectorates.”

Now that the key words are highlighted (these are also the words you will probably want to define in your case) you can begin your research.

     Typically, I start my research on the internet and quickly move to other sources (we’ll come to those later).  The internet is so expansive that I can get my feet just wet enough that I know what I’m looking for when I start using the other resources.  Warning:  The internet is a time-suck!  If you do not have hours to waste, you may be better off looking for your research in other places.

     Go to google.com and begin looking up these key words.  Look them up individually, collectively, and in different groupings.  For example, search for:

"united states", policy toward protectorate,

Don’t look at just the first page.  If you only look at the first link you will miss many valuable resources which come up down the page or on later pages.  I went to page 2.  A bit down the page, there is a link for “Time for a Korean Divorce” [http://www.cato.org/dailys/01-08-03.html] which is an article mentioning the words in the search query.  Now the research has just begun.  From this point you can read that article.  While you read that article you need to highlight/underline/circle any and all key words you can find in the article.  These terms will be useful in digging deeper into the topic.

For basic research instruction see our youtube channel, specifically the lecture on research/evidence basics. For links to studies and articles on the current NCFCA/STOA policy resolution and NFL/NCFL/UDL LD resolution follow us on twitter