What does future research means?

Answer 1

To understand a phrase, break the words into their separate meanings. Further is to go ahead, go longer in time or distance, or deeper into a subject, discussion, etc. Research is to systematically investigate something. So further research is to keep going ahead with a systematic investigation. Let's use a couple examples to show what this means.

In the 1940s, scientists did not know what caused cancers. In fact, when soldiers left for war, the government gave each of them packs of cigarettes. By 1970s doctors wanted to identify What causes lung cancer. They did interviews (research) of people who had lung cancer. Some ate certain foods-- but not everyone ate those foods-- so foods alone could not explain it. They did further research. Doctors asked patients if their parents ever had cancers. Some people said yes but others said no. They did not have an answer, so they did further research. Some male patients worked with heavy metals, but females in the study did not. Again, it needed further research. This has gone on for many decades. One day the Surgeon General of the United States claimed cigarette smoking caused lung cancer-- but there was no research. They have been doing further research on this ONE point for decades.

Let's use another example. Your teacher assigns a writing project. "Describe the family and early life of Abraham Lincoln." To describe a person, normally you tell when the person was born, who the parents were, where the person was born, their formal education, their occupation, and a few interesting details about their life. In one book it tells where and when he was born. But you need to do further research to identify his parents' names. So you look in 2 or 3 more books; you get the names. Now, where can you look to learn about his education-- ah, you find a book about history and it mentions this fact too. You find his occupation in another book. Looking in EACH of those books is doing "further research" on the topic.