Evaluation: 4) Research

A) Describe how you used secondary research to complete this project. 

Throughout this project I have used secondary research for inspiration this allowed me to gain information on vintage subjects and how the public care about them. This was mostly done by researching information on vintage blogs, magazine and companies. The issues these businesses were talking about are what most of my articles are based on. Articles like Too expensive relied on secondary information such as the price of vintage clothing and this also linked to living a vintage life. 

The articles that mostly relied on this research were Living a vintage life and The perfect body. These were my feature piece and my critical debate. My feature piece was about vintage clothing and the various places you can buy it such as the fairs and shops . To look this up I mostly used directories and social media which allowed me to find the companies quickly and allows me to ask them any questions I wanted to know about the company. These companies were easy to find because they are commercial businesses so their web addresses ended with . com or .org but this is not reliable if you are using research for articles such as the crical debate.

The critical debate research was mainly for statistics and quotes so that they can be used in an academic structure. My research needed to be reliable and credible. To get this research I had to use the correct websites and sources such as book or academic websites which would end in .ac . These would be reliable because they are fact  checked as they are mostly being used for education. The statistics I found needed to be sourced back to  their creator to check their credibility as they can be bias if they were used for commercial purposes. These were mostly found through google but  it will advertise most commercial websites above others as they are sometimes getting paid to do so. To find accurate sources you must make sure the site you are quoting from is not trying to sell a product or service as this can sway the sources they use. Try to avoid articles that are from know unreliable sources as most will try to explain their point using bias opinions. The best method of secondary research is through books as they would have been fact checked before being published.

B) What problems did you encounter when sourcing information for your critical debate? 

The basic problem I faced when researching for my critical debate was biased and incorrect sources. These were sources that had swayed the results of their  statistics for a commercial use this also occurred in articles from magazines as their personal opinions are being used instead of fact.This could be stopped if all research is fact checked and all original sources are found as they may have came from an academic publication or from a known reliable source. On any future projects i will check full credibility of my sources so that my articles are as reliable as they can possibly be. This will make my articles credible. 

The second problem i faced was finding research from many different media sources such as books, articles this was mainly because of my subject choice. The 1950's had little relevancy to subjects that are being debated today although this did fit with my magazine it was hard to research.  Most of the research that I used in my critical debate were not specifically about my subject instead about sociology and people attitude to body image. This did limit my article in the fact that I could not talk about my subject in great detail. If I was to do this article again i would choose a current debate instead because it would be easier to find relevant sources that prove my statements accurately. 

C) Describe the different types of primary research used to complete this project.

For my project I used two methods of primary research, for my article Too expensive i used an interview to gather shop owners opinions on the vintage market. For this method research i had organize the interview so that i recieved information that I need to create a basic outline of an article. I also used an interview to gain a teenagers perspective on body image and how it has changed over time for my critical debate . I used this method because it allowed me to use direct quotes from the source this method gathers a persons opinion and does not state it as fact. This can be harmful because if you misquote your article can become unreliable which makes people doubt your work. you must make sure that any quotes taken are sourced back to the person who said them this points out that it is a personal opinion instead of a statistic. 

I could of used a focus group to get number statistics and opinions as this provide both and has more use then an interview . It does have its faults as it can give wrong answers and be swayed by the people in the group as people are more likely to say what another has said then give their own opinion. To fix this fault would be hard but if I was to do a focus group for future projects I would use a range of people as a certain friendship group or age can make the group bias. 

Overall I think when doing primary research in the future I will take longer to organise as my interview were rushed and sometimes produced information I did not need. I might also consider doing a focus group because it would not only provide me with quote but would give me a range of opinions.