Freelance Writing and Research

I have been a freelance researcher for four and a half years now and it is something that I thoroughly enjoy. Currently I am working on two projects and working on a bid for a third. 

Freelance Research

It is worth getting some training as a researcher if you want to earn a decent rate. It is possible to earn £500 or $1,000 a day at freelance research. More usually the rate is between £250-300 or $5-600. Most projects will work out somewhere between five and ten research days - including report writing. However, the research days could be spread over a couple of months or more so you need several projects or another source of income to keep yourself going.

The Cyclical and Creative Nature of Research

Research may seem like a straightforward process when it is written up, but in truth it is anything but. Interpretation and creativity play a large part in trying to understand what people are communicating to you when they answer your questions. This means that there is a lot of weaving and relating things back to the beginning when you write a research report.

Research is a good way of improving your people skills. Focus group methods in particular will mean that you have to learn to get on with sometimes large groups of people if you want to get anything useful from this method. Research should be ethical and nowadays it is becoming common practice to give research respondents something for taking part in the research - which should hopefully be an enjoyable process for all concerned. What do you think about research?

Piggy Bank Pie is asking for guest bloggers so I decided to sign up and offer a blog post. My posting was accepted and if you want to go over and take a look then my post on Getting the Writing Done is here

Brian Clark at Copyblogger always has some great advice for bloggers and writers. On his latest post he suggests that one way of getting readers to interact with your blog is to have a questions section where people can post questions and have them answered on the blog.

What Are Your Research Questions?

I already thought that a question and answer series was a great idea when I first saw one of these options offering answers to freelance writing questions . If you want answers to your writing questions just click on the link, but if you have any questions regarding research then post them here or email me and I will try to answer them. In the meantime check out existing posts on on writing proposals and research reports. Otherwise questions on the following or anything else to do with research will be fine.

Why research

What is empirical research?

Writing a research proposal

What is a research evaluation

What is qualitative research

How do I write a research plan

Advice on writing research reports/papers

What are qualitative methods

What are quantitative methods

Why should I research

What is a focus group

These are off the top of my head. Your questions may relate to applied research or to general research for writing etc. whatever it is please feel free to ask or let me know what you feel about research.