Empirical Research Guide

Empirical research involves testing, observing, or experimenting.  When writing a paper for a class, students are often writing an argumentative essay or literature review rather than conducting research.  Some courses require students to prepare an empirical research proposal or actually conduct a study or experiment.

For example, a student might choose to conduct a study of middle school students' use of cell phones during the students' lunch break at school.  The study would include a specific methodology (observing middle school students in the cafeteria and on the school grounds during lunch periods over several days or weeks) and a specific participant group (students at certain middle schools in town).  This would constitute an empirical research study.  The student conducting the research would then write up the results of the study in his or her paper for class.

A student writing a literature review or argumentative essay would only look at existing articles about the topic of middle school students' use of cell phones while at school.  The student would draw his or her own conclusions and write the paper based on the articles from the literature that he/she read on the topic.

Always remember to properly cite sources used in order to avoid plagiarism.  Here are research guides on these topics:

Avoiding plagiarism

Citation styles

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