2. Research is not mere transportat

2. Research is not mere transportation of facts from one location to another. A college student reads several articles about the mysterious “Dark Lady” in the sonnets of William Shakespeare and then writes a “research paper” describing various scholars’ suggestions of who she might have been. Although the student does, indeed, go through certain activities associated with formal research—collecting information, organizing it in a certain way for presentation to others, referencing statements properly, and so on—these activities still do not add up to a true research paper. The student has missed the essence of research: the interpretation of data. Nowhere in the
paper does the student say, in effect, “These facts that I have gathered seem to indicate this about the Dark Lady.” Nowhere does the student interpret and draw conclusions from the facts. This student is approaching genuine research; however, the mere compilation of facts, presented with reference citations and arranged in a logical sequence—no matter how polished and appealing the format—misses genuine research by a hair. A little further, and this student would have traveled from one world to another: from the world of mere transportation of facts to the world of interpretation of facts. The difference between the two worlds is the distinction between transference of information and genuine research, a distinction that is critical for novice researchers to understand.