Quick question about creating research topics

[Hemichordate]

Is it ok to do research/publish a paper that has the same research question as another paper except for the location of the investigation? For example, if someone has previously published a paper investigating the nature of injuries suffered during skiing in Norway, could I still publish a paper on injuries sustained during skiing in Northwest US? Of course, the methodology, study design, and results will be different, but the objective of the research will be the same as the previous study.

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[StilgarMD]

Data is data, right? if you want to fully understand something (like a protein), i don't see why the fact it was found in the brain would diminish your finding that it is in the liver.

EDIT: Your profile picture should be an acorn worm, imo.

 

[OCDOCDOCD]

It's called REsearch for a reason you know.

That said, you should make sure that you at least have a justifiable reason to, say, look at skiing injuries in the Northwest US when someone has already looked at injuries in Norway. Not because anyone is going to accuse you of academic dishonesty, but because journals will be asking you why they should publish your research if it contributes nothing new to the current body of knowledge.

 

[physasst]

This^^^^^. As an article peer reviewer for a couple of journals, I have a pretty algorithmic way of reviewing articles. The first thing I do is look at the abstract, and look at the methodology. If it seems really similar to previously published research, that will be on my mind as I start to dissect it, and if I cannot see a different approach to it (IE; a different way of looking at the data) One of my statements in my review will ask how this contributes to the body of research as it seems identical to a previously conducted study. So, not saying don't do it...but think of the article on ski injuries, and think about what did they not ask? what questions are you still left with after reading it? did it bring up new questions for you? Then try to think if you can structure a study to answer those.

Just my 0.02 cents.