Researching may involve informal or formal methods. List and describe two informal research methods and two formal research methods
Informal Research Methods:
Search your company's files: Before asking others for help, business writers should see what they can find themselves. For many routine messages, previous documents can help with content and format.
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Talk with the boss: Get information from the individual making the assignment to find out what that person knows about the topic, what slant should be taken, and what other sources he or she suggests.
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Interview the target audience: Talk with individuals at whom the message is aimed. They can provide clarifying information that tells you what they want to know and how you should shape your remarks.
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Conduct an informal survey: Gather unscientific but helpful information via questionnaires or telephone surveys.
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Formal Research Methods:
Access electronic sources: College and public libraries provide retrieval services that permit access to a wide array of books, journals, magazines, newspapers, and other online literature. In addition, you could conduct an online Google search turning up thousands of hits, which can be overwhelming.
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Search manually: If a business writer needs background or supplementary information, he or she will probably conduct manual research in public or college libraries. These traditional resources include books and newspapers, magazines, and journals. Other sources are encyclopedias, reference books, handbooks, dictionaries, directories, and almanacs.
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Investigate primary sources: To develop firsthand, primary information for a project, business writers should go directly to the source. Primary sources can be investigated using observation, questionnaires, interviews, and focus groups.
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Conduct scientific experiments: Another source of primary data is experimentation. Instead of merely asking for the target audience's opinion, scientific researchers present choices with controlled variables. The results of such experimentation would provide valuable data for decision making and problem solving.
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What will be an ideal response?