 What is an empirical study? Put simply, an empirical study can be defined as a collection and analysis of primary data to answer a research question. The study is then reported in an article by the researchers who conducted the experiment. How the experiment is carried out can differ in criteria, from qualitative to quantitative. However, all empirical studies include a number of things that can help identify them. To determine whether or not a study is an empirical study, there are some questions you can ask. Is there a specific research question? Empirical studies present primary data collection with the intention of answering a previously determined research question. So keep an eye out for the question being answered in the abstract or the introduction. Can the study be replicated? When reading through the methodology section, ask yourself if the experiment or survey can be replicated. Also try to determine their methodology. Empirical studies consist of hands-on research, which can vary from surveys to social experiments. Let's take a look at an example. Reading through this article's abstract, some things pop out right away that lead me to believe the study is empirical. The first being a question that needs answering. What's the association of depression with grief-related risk factors among bereaved individuals? The second thing I notice in the method section is a clear population and primary study method. We can see that the mode of research was a primary interview among 161 individuals. The research question mixed with a hands-on study characterizes this source as being empirical. Also, a quick mention, some databases make finding empirical studies really easy, such as PsychInfo, which allows you to narrow to empirical studies using the Refine Results tab on the left side of the page. So, what isn't empirical research? Some common examples of scholarly papers that aren't empirical studies are literature reviews and papers that form theories based on the research of others. Let's take a look at some examples. This paper doesn't appear to be a literature review, as it has a clear, unexplored topic which it wishes to expand on. However, one thing mentioned in just a third sentence of the abstract that leads me to believe that the article isn't empirical is the statement. The suffered is correlated with the newest research findings in cognitive neuroscience and neurocognitive psychology of creativity. With this, it's apparent that they won't be conducting any primary research on their own, but will instead draw from other relevant research that has already been conducted. There's further evidence from the fact that, scrolling through their paper, there's no methodology section. This paper seems more interested in developing a theory to explain previous research rather than conducting new research to answer a question, making it a non-empirical study. Overall, the main giveaways to a study being empirical are a clear research question and primary, repeatable data collection, which can range from surveys to social experiments. If you need more help with empirical studies, feel free to ask a librarian.