Research Methodology: Archival Research

Archival Research is the investigation of hard data from files that organizations or companies have. US Census data are archival data. Telephone bills that are in the computers of the telephone company are another example. Fire departments keep records of fires, chemical spills, accidents and so forth, all of which constitute archived data. Most IQPs use archived data.  Indeed, many IQPs require the use of several kinds of archived data, some of which get transformed into different forms so that they can be used together to help the authors defend an argument.