What is SNJ Associates & Why Are We Here?

As a research company, SNJ Associates has two main types of activity. One is to ensure our clients receive the best professional research and analysis services whether that is comprehensive research project management or individualized a-la-carte research services tailored for each client’s needs.  Two, SNJ Associates provides a variety of research information, education and resources for our website visitors. We transform research into valuable information for all our clients and website visitors.

SNJ Associates provides assistance to people from all different backgrounds, skill levels and areas of research interests. Visitors of our website include SNJ Associates clients, research associates in the field, individuals looking for health and wellness information and students across all levels of education. We want to assist our visitors in becoming the best critical consumers of health and wellness research information.

Through our website, we bring together research from many different perspectives, disciplines, and approaches. Similarly, we share and present different types of resources in the area of research and analysis. The SNJ Associates website is designed to help individuals find, understand and better use research information.

Helping Create a Community of Critical Consumers of Research Information

SNJ Associates assists our website visitors in becoming the best critical consumers of research with a focus on the areas of health and well-being. Our visitors have an opportunity to become more informed about how research is produced, how to know that research results are reliable and where along with what to look for when they need health and well-being information.

Not all research is designed and executed well, not all information appearing in interent research results lists are factual and not all research information is widely available to all individuals. Importantly, we demonstrate to our visitors how to critique the information to ensure we’re all using valuable and useful information for our particular needs.

The endless amount of health and wellness information available today is unprecedented. The amount of information available leaves us with a massive amount of data and information and can result in confusing and contradictory information.  

Importantly, the public is often presented with advertising that initially may appear as unbiased and factual research information; however, on closer examination is actually clever marketing. Becoming a critical consumer of research and creating an informed perspective requires evaluating what other people have written and presented about the topic of interest. Also, it is essential to review and compare results of different studies. [See Our Discussion About What is Research?]

We are committed to creating a community of SNJ Research Rangers (RR)! Our RR’s will be able to tell the difference between valid and reliable research information versus plain old bad science. Our RR’s will ask questions, critically think about research results and look for characteristics in research studies such as bias and conflict of interest. Also, our RR’s will examine studies and considered items that may confound or confuse the conclusions of a research study. We want to provide information for all our visitors to be able to better understand research and have the confidence to critique research results across all types of topics.

At SNJ Associates, discussions about various research topics and characteristics will help our visitors understand the difference between an anecdotal summary of a health issue and results of a clinical trial. Through upcoming posts, we will discuss the difference a between information that is presented as sales marketing compared to evidence-based information. We want to help our visitors obtain the very best research data for their needs and quickly understand if the information is based on sound research principles.

SNJ Associates demonstrates and explains how to ask the right questions when presented with research information in order to investigate the validity of what is stated, questions such as how to carefully examine:

1. The research question
2. The research hypothesis
3. How the data was collect and analyzed
4. Who the researchers are stating their results apply to in the larger or general population

All four items listed above are equally important steps in assessing how well a research project was designed and completed thus, assessing how valid the research results and conclusions are of the study under consideration. With SNJ Associates help and resources, our site visitors can develop critical thinking skills and an informed perspective about a topic of interest all the while becoming better critical consumers of research information.
When the work we do at SNJ Associates leads our clients and visitors to recognize and critically examine information, for example, the difference between robust research results that produce health information versus a sales and marketing approach to health procedure/product, we have done our job. Each day we work to bring you the information that helps you become an expert critical consumer of health research and information.

Overall, we will embark on a journey together to sharpen our critical thinking skills, expand our understanding of research and become the very best informed consumers of health and wellness information.

Our discussion about research begins with the following list of topics…..

What is Research?

Characteristics of Research 

Parts of the Scientific Method

Influence in Research/ Bias and a Few More Words About Bias

Creating and Editing a Research Question

Literature Reviews Part 1 and Part 2

….and more

Beginning Mid-April 2016: Quantitative & Qualitative Methodolyg Series