Author: Patricia de-Casas-Moreno– Translation: Erika-Lucia Gonzalez-Carrion

In any research process it is important to attend to a series of fundamental steps to lay the foundations for the formulation of the research problem or topic. In this sense, the following blog entry will try to share recommendations in this regard in order to generate knowledge and understanding through different approaches and methodologies.

To begin with, it is necessary to differentiate between different concepts: the state of the art, which is aimed at the formulation and specific justification of a research problem; the state of knowledge, aimed at a wider audience related to the educational field; the state of research, aimed at researchers specialized in a specific topic; and the theoretical framework, responsible for clearly explaining the theory and how it applies to our research problem.

The elaboration of this type of section must comply with a series of points:

– Search, selection, organization and arrangement of information sources.

– Reading and writing are the key tools to generate a quality scientific product.

– Reflect on the fields of inquiry directly related to the research topic.

– Conduct a descriptive, synoptic and analytical survey.

– Obtain relevant data about theoretical approaches, as well as describe the state of development on a specific topic.

– Contribute to the construction of a common language for scholars and those interested in the topic of study.

– Debate and generate new critical interpretations.

– Identify limitations or needs related to documentary production.

Figure 1: Main questions

Source: Londoño-Palacio, Maldonado-Granados and Calderon- Villafáñez, 2016).

To carry out this whole process, libraries, newspaper libraries, databases with quality indexing and the Internet have become the most popular scenarios for the search of information. The criteria for research and/or search are based on keywords and topics.