Here is a process that could help you:
Step 1 – Review the questions
Review the questions generated before the information was gathered because nearly all research is a direct result of a question that must be answered. Why was this particular information necessary? What questions was it supposed to answer? What kinds of decisions will be made based on this information? Renew your understanding of the central issues and key questions.
Unanticipated results should not be ignored. Putting information together will often raise important, unforeseen, and relevant questions. Note these for future reference and point them out when presenting the results.
Step 2 – Organise the Information
- Gather together all relevant information that has been collected
- Sort information into parts that belong together
- Some may have already been analysed. Some may be partly analysed, and some may need analysis
Step 3 – Decide how to analyse information
- Analysis could simply be adding up numbers and averaging them, or comparing information to examine the relationship of one thing to another or two things together
Step 4 – Analyse the information
- Pay attention to the source of the information
- Take note of similarities
- Contrast information by setting two things in opposition to show the differences
- Relate pieces of information to establish relationships between and among them
- Take note of emerging themes
- Identify gaps in the information
- Do you have the information you need to solve the problem or make the decision?
Step 5 – Integrate the information
Put the analysed parts together in a way that tells the complete story. It is impossible to gather all the information you will ever need, so there are times when you have to make intelligent assumptions to fill in the gaps. There are many times when your life experiences come into play and help you make the correct assumptions.
This is an easy process that will help you to analyse information, but the quality of your analysis will always be impacted by the quality of the information that you are analysing. Therefore it is extremely important that you pay attention to where you collect your information.
And the most important thing we’ve learned is that information is like water. It’s vital to our lives; we cannot survive without it. But if too much pours over us – we drown. To keep from drowning in information we must learn to use it properly, which means figuring out what the information is telling us. After all, it isn’t the information itself we use to make decisions; it’s the knowledge within the information that we use. This is why we must learn how to analyse information – how to determine just what information we need to make the decisions we face, how to get that information, and then – this is the most crucial step of all — how to reach inside this information to grasp the knowledge it contains.
Of course, we all analyse information all the time, even without realising we’re doing it. For example, we see the fuel gauge in our car pointing toward “empty,” and we understand it’s time to look for the nearest gas station. We arrive at the airport, glance at the departure screen and see that our flight has been cancelled, and know that we must run to the ticket counter and book another flight. We watch a weather report on television alerting us that a blizzard is heading our way, and we dash out to buy a shovel. Extracting the meaning of information is part of human nature; we’ve always done it, and we couldn’t stop doing it even if we tried.