What is Research? Research is a process of investigation. It is a skill that can help curious people to educate themselves by collecting information about a particular subject. There are a series of steps taken during the research process: formulate your question, get background information, refine your search topic, consider your research options, select and use the appropriate tool, locate and analyze your materials, and finally organize and write. As college students, most, if not all of us, are familiar with different kinds of research methods. It’s not just a trip to the library or clicking the first result of your Google search. Despite all of my research experience from college and even high school, one silly example of a personal research experience that I would like to share is from when I was in the eighth grade. My class was asked to pick a topic for the middle school science fair. My partner and I decided to pick “The dangers of sun-tanning.” Of course one of the research methods we used was the common one- reading facts about ultraviolet rays off the internet. As something extra, we decided to test out a “carrot-based” tanning oil with no SPF, compared to a sunscreen lotion. For a few days straight, we put the oil on one of our arms and the lotion on the other. Our goal was to see the visible differences between our arms. We wanted to know if the product with no sun protection actually yielded the more desirable results. In the