Fellow drawing researchers,
With the title of this list being 'drawing-research' I thought I would share
part of a discussion which has taken place recently on another of these
electronic discussion lists - PHD-DESIGN.  My apologies if you already read
this list - or if you have been part of such a discussion for many years!.
The posting is a reply to a question by Wim Gilles which asked for
clarification regarding 'types' of research.  This particular reply is from
Ken Friedman.  I reproduce it here with the question 'In the light of this
discussion, what is drawing research and how might we categorise it?'
If you want to see all the postings in this debate you will have to join the
PHD-DESIGN list by sending the message:  join PHD-DESIGN firstname lastname
to:  [log in to unmask]

Regards,  Steve Garner
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The three levels of research - basic, applied, and clinical - deal
with three different kinds of issues.

Basic research is a search for fundamental knowledge. This includes
scientific principles of how things operate. It also includes forms
of scientific inquiry that seek theories or laws explaining why
things operate as they do, or even why they are as they are.

Applied research focuses on how to do things in general. Technology
is the frame of applied research. Applied research often involves
adapting basic principles to kinds of problems. This is what the term
"classes of cases" means.

Clinical research is the examination of specific cases.

There is always some degree of overlap between any range of issues on
a continuum. This is often the case in basic, applied, and clinical
research. Even so, it is possible to offer examples that clarify
distinctions.

Metallurgy and materials science study the properties of metals.
These include studies into the nature and properties of steel.
Engineering also includes some forms of basic research. Engineers
often study the different kinds and properties of sheet steel.

Research into the specific properties and uses of a specific form of
sheet steel constitutes applied research. Here, one does not seek
general scientific principle. Neither does one solve specific case
problem. Rather, one seeks a range of issues to which a specific
sheet steel solution might be applied, and one studies the range of
applications this specific sheet steel may have.

At a more specific level, learning how to bend a certain grade of
sheet steel solves the problem of this specific application for all
cases to which it may be applied.

Clinical research would involve designing, engineering, or
manufacturing a specific artifact that requires bent sheet steel in
its construction. Determining the grade and kind of kind required,
and selecting among available sheet steels is clinical research for
the specific case. Choosing between bending techniques and applying
them to the specific case is clinical research.

Physics is the general study of a rage of features and
characteristics of the physical universe. Physics includes the study
of motion, the properties of moving objects, and the relations
between moving objects and the larger physical environment within
which they move.

Ballistics can be found at he boundary of basic research and applied
research. In general, ballistics is the study of bodies in flight. In
this general sense, ballistics involves basic research. Some of
Galileo's great contributions to physics involved ballistics.

When ballistics involves the study of a certain kind of problem used
in technical applications such as gunnery, ballistics becomes a form
of applied research.

In gunnery, one use of ballistics is the development of ballistics
tables. Ballistics tables are matrix charts compiled specifically for
a kind of weapon and a kind of ammunition, setting forth a range of
parameters that allows a gunner to know what kind of performance to
expect given a weapon, a load, wind factors, distance, elevation, and
other such issues.

In the early days of artillery warfare, gunners hit their mark by
ranging in. A gunnery master would fire a shot. A master gunner would
use intuition and experience to determine the elevation and load of
the first shot. Most of the time, the first shot fell short or went
long. It was, in effect, a test shot.

Depending on how far long or short of the target the first shot hit,
the gunners would range in, adjusting each succeeding shot until they
were on target. When cannon were rare and powerful, this was quite
adequate. A medieval general who could arrive on location with six or
eight cannon was a great power, and even a few cannon could win a war
or break a fortress.

By the time of the Napoleonic wars, gunnery was far more advanced.
Speed of response became an important factor in any battle where each
side had hundreds of guns, all firing at one another. This was even
truer of the first industrial war, the United States Civil War.

In the twentieth century, long distance artillery fire, timed
barrages and strategic plans requiring the use of weapons at great
distance for tactical support made it impossible to rely on earlier
forms of ballistics. There was neither time nor opportunity for the
line-of-sight artillery command that was once required. While
spotters, balloon observation, and other techniques were used to
chart and range, the most effective means of artillery control took
place on the input side. This involved ballistics tables.

Ballistics tables allow gunners to sight and shoot with reasonable
accuracy without the tedious process of ranging. For each weapon,
each load, and each series of conditions, a ballistics chart solves
certain kinds of problems. Even so, what Clausewitz called "the
friction of war" always takes hold and ballistics charts never do
quite what they should. This makes ballistics charts the perfect
example of a distinction between applied and clinical research.

The research used to set up a ballistics chart is applied research.
One is not firing weapons in the heat of battle, but testing weapons,
ammunition, and loads under controlled conditions. These conditions
and the results of each set of parameters then established the
factors for each chart. Each chart governs an ideal set of cases. The
conditions of any battle determine the applicable case, and this is
used to set up and fire a gun.

Firing in battle involves clinical research. Gunners use firing
orders and the ballistics chart to determine how to aim and load.
Artillery observers determine the accuracy of firing and report.
Since battle rarely goes as planned, artillery commanders, gunnery
officers, and gunners use observer feedback to adjust the ideal
procedure to immediate needs.

The changing conditions of modern war created the need for ballistics
tables. Ballistics tables are careful, precise, and accurate. The
reality of war means that these tables rarely work as planned. The
interplay between the results of applied research and feedback on the
firing line demonstrates the distinction between applied research and
clinical research. Both of these are far removed from the general
laws of physics, though it has happened more than once that skilled
technologists have used the laws of physics to advance the state of
art in applied ballistics.

One can find equivalent examples in any field where we seek outcomes
that affect or change the world around us.

There is generally a border zone between basic research and applied
research, between applied research and clinical research. In this
zone, some research may fulfill both basic and applied functions, or
applied and clinical. Beyond this, information always travels among
the kinds of research programs. Clinical problems suggest basic
questions. Basic discoveries inform applications. Applications feed
queries to basic research and to clinical research, as well as
providing solutions to problems in each.

The interplay among these, as well as the distinctions, offer another
reason for the vital importance of scholarly communication.

-- Ken Friedman
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