Undertaking research is an increasingly important part of communications executives' jobs, whether it's to contribute to measurement efforts, facilitate integration, justify budgets or simply gather intelligence about their target stakeholders. But research is the stuff Ph.D degrees are made of--in other words, it's a science that is learned over the course of an academic lifetime and is impossible to perfect. Thanks to Don Wright, professor of public relations at Boston University's College of Communication, the following how-to guide offers a crash course in the components that combine to create the ultimate body of knowledge: