Research Fundamentals

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Language of Research

Organize and Synthesize Information

Introduction

Information must be organized in order to permit analysis, synthesis, understanding, and communication. One way to organize the information you have gathered is to group materials by similar concepts or content. For example, if you are doing research on the wine industry you can organize the data into several folders or "baskets":

• Wineries
• Laws and Regulations
• Vineyards
• Costs of Operations
• Land use
• Demographics of consumers
• Governmental publications (Crushed grape report)
• Global competition (Australia, Italy)

Utilizing Outlines

Another way of organizing information is to create an outline. An outline arranges materials hierarchically and sequentially by identifying main topics, subtopics, and details under the subtopics. For example, marketing plans are organized and framed in a certain way to present specific and crucial information:

• Executive summary
• Table of contents
• Company situation
• Sales/revenues
• income statements, balance sheets, ratios, growth data
• Environment
• Target markets
• Objectives
• Strategy
• Action plans
• Anticipated results
• Contingency plans
• Appendices
  

Well organized information is essential - especially in the world of business!

Purpose

Organizing information is important because it allows you to:

• manage and retain the information more efficiently
• communicate the information more effectively
• recognize the need for further information and discard unneeded information
• identify trends, clusters, and other patterns in the information gathered
• synthesize disparate pieces of information into new knowledge