research, researches

[joham]

do/ conduct/ undertake research/ researches
make research/researches

Are all the above collocations good English?

Thank you very much.

 

[Barb_D]

Keep research in the singular.

"make research" doesn't work

[not a teacher]

 

[Neillythere]

I'm not a teacher but:

I would only use "Research", as a noun, in the singular form.

If you needed to use it in a plural situation, it could be handled as:
"Five avenues of research are currently being progressed".

"Researches" is the 1st person singular of the verb eg:
"He researches magazine articles for a trade journal".

I would never "make research". To me it tends towards impling fabrication of results (i.e. "making up" or "inventing" the results).

Hope this helps

 

[joham]

I'm not a teacher but:

I would only use "Research", as a noun, in the singular form.

If you needed to use it in a plural situation, it could be handled as:
"Five avenues of research are currently being progressed".

"Researches" is the 1st person singular of the verb eg:
"He researches magazine articles for a trade journal".

I would never "make research". To me it tends towards impling fabrication of results (i.e. "making up" or "inventing" the results).

Hope this helps

I read 'researches' used as a noun in OXFORD 6th edition: What have their researches shown? and in OXFORD CONCISE DICTIONARY: make researches.
Thus came my last post.

Thank you very much.

 

[Anglika]

"Researches" is a perfectly acceptable plural: "Their researches show that children learn to read if taught how to do it".. However, it is usually used in a way that is interchangeable with "research" in the singular.

 

[Barb_D]

This must be an American/British difference? I would never use "researches" in the plural.

 

[Anglika]

It is used, but more rarely than in the UK, as can be seen by the comparison of the BNC [12 references] and the American National Corpus [9 references].

 

[acorn]

I'd have no problem with "various/several researches".

 

[Neillythere]

Having re-read through the thread, I defer to Angelika's comments:

In my 60+ years or reading, writing and speaking English, including provision of advice as a mentor, though not (yet) as a teacher, I personally wouldn't have used the plural form of the noun. As Angelika says, it appears that both forms are available, but the singular can be and is used as the plural.

In my career in the Oil & Gas industry, I have, however, regularly (almost constantly) been exposed to the US variant of the English language - and we all have to be very careful in our advice in such forums as a result.

We are, unfortunately, as someone once said: "2 countries separated by a common language!".

PS In this context, I have just failed to obtain 100% on one of the tests, as I believed "worthful" to be a valid "English" word. It apparently is so in American English (Ref: worthful - definition of worthful by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.) but not in OED!

Angelika: Maybe the testing should either declare that it is based UK rather than American English or the tests adjusted to allow for both?

 

[Barb_D]

If it makes you feel better, I wouldn't have said that "worthful" was a word either. I've never seen it used, and would have assumed it was a mistake.

 

[Neillythere]

I would have used it in, say, the context of:

"Attending that course proved to be a very worthful [i.e. worthwhile] experience".

Regards