Deciding what type of paper to write

Now that you have a topic, you need to figure out a good way to investigate your topic, and whether or not you will be collecting your own data, or referencing data from other studies. But first, what kinds of data will you be using; there isn't just one type of data, and you need to decide which type or what combination of the two types you are the most interested in looking at. It will be difficult to decide this right off the bat, but read this and mull it over for a while!

There are two types of data:
Qualitative data - these are usually details that are not given a numerical value. For example, you might decide to conduct several interviews about shopping behavior in individuals. You will use quotations, details, and examples in order to support your hypothesis or to provide additional information.
Quantitative data - this is numerical information that is frequently used to calculate statistical information. You might decide to survey several people to find out how much they usually spend in a week. You will use that information to support your hypothesis and to draw conclusions.

In addition to the two types of data, there are different ways in which you can go about analyzing your topic.

And three types of research:
Exploratory research - No hypothesis. The goal is to gather information about a problem, incident, or group and to suggest hypotheses. There is no clearly defined problem in this case. A question might be: is Facebook addictive? There may be a problem (Facebook is probably addictive) or there may not be a problem (Facebook is probably not addictive). You will go out and find information about this subject, namely addictions and Internet usage, and apply these to Facebook. At the end you will suggest a hypothesis (based on the literature, Facebook may be addictive, so further research should be conducted to test this). This is very weird for some people to write since the hypothesis actually comes at the very end of the paper, after you have discussed the findings in the literature or in your observations.

Descriptive research - Hypothesis not required. The goal is to use information to describe a problem, incident, or group. You will not be explaining why you found what you found. For example, you might want to describe the shopping habits of a community. You may use anecdotes, statistical data, and other information to explain who were you looking at in this study (which individuals/groups), what were people buying, how often, and when during the month. This kind of study tends to be a factual one, but does not offer any cause and effect relations.

Causal research - This is the more well-known type of study. Here, you will do a literature review, come up with a hypothesis, and find evidence supporting your hypothesis. Here, you seek to find a cause and effect relation. You want to explain why some behavior might be occurring. For example, you may hypothesize that women are more likely to spend more money and time in retail stores than men (Super original, I know). The cause effect relation in this case may be that being a woman increases the likelihood of spending more time and money in retail stores.

If you're asking yourself, "Well, I don't know which one to do. Which option is the easiest?" then I hate to break the news to you, but none of the options are necessarily "the easiest" to do. You need to determine which of the three research options appeals to you the most. Once you have thought about what type of research you want to conduct, the next step will be to decide between a literature-based paper and one that involves data collection. Stay tuned!