Dissertation Briefing

What is research in a nutshell?A sustained activity for the purpose of finding

answers to questions

• Is it a worthwhile question (so what?) -- …

• A planned, systematic investigation • but to what purpose?

• So that the answer is as valid and reliable as possibly• Control for potential sources of error (bias)• Eliminate alternative explanations/answers• Examine the theoretical basis for drawing the conclusion

• The answer is generalizable • but to what context

• Assumptions and theoretical basis of the study are examined• Builds on previous work

• Limitations of the study are examined

Different Research Approaches

Nature Focused HolisticKnown variables Unknown variablesPredetermined methods Emergent methodsContext free Context boundDetached view Personal view

Purpose To explain & predict To describe & explainTo confirm & validate To explore & interpretTo test theory To build theory

Data Numeric Textual/image-basedRepresentative (large) Informative (small)

Standard instruments Loosely structured

QuantitativeQualitative

Structure of a Research Report• Abstract

• Introduction

• Literature review

• Research method

• Findings

• Discussion

• Conclusion

• References

• Appendices

Abstract• A summary of the report

• Usually does not exceed 1 page (double-spaced)

• Emphasis placed on objectives of study, methodology, significant findings, and recommendations

• Usually written upon completion of the entire report

• Informative vs. indicative abstract

• Indicative abstract: gives an indication of what information can be found in the paper

• Informative abstract: includes a summary of the research results/findings

Research proposalIntroduction section• Background: Context (local & international),

subject area of your study, perspective from which the topic is addressed

• Problem statement: what’s the problem and why is it important to study it

• Research objectives• The research objectives are

1.to find out …

• The research questions are1.What2.Why3.How

• Explain, clarify the research objectives

• Specify the scope of the study

• Briefly state the data collection method

Literature review

• Overview of lit review

• Previous studies and their results

• Your critique of previous studies

• How your current study fits in the literature

What is a literature review?

Summary of previous papers/studies

With a purpose/message

To show the relation between your study & previous studies

To show a gap in the knowledge that your study fills (research contribution)

To extend current knowledge to new situations (replication)

To confirm current knowledge (replication)

Other purposes of a literature review

To define and explain important concepts

To give an overview of the topic and provide background information

To identify/synthesize a theory or model that will be used to explain the results of your study

To generate hypotheses to be confirmed or refuted in your study

To carry out a meta-analysis: to analyze the results of several studies to arrive at a more authoritative conclusion

To demonstrate your breadth/depth of knowledge

Etc.

Typical problems Summary of 1 paper after another. No organization of

information

No relation to current study

No critique of previous studies, no evaluation of the results of previous studies

Missing important information

Inaccuracy. Misquote or misuse of information. Information taken out of context

Plagiarism No proper citation No paraphrase (cut & paste)

Poor language & style

Beware of plagiarism

2 levels of intellectual property Ideas and content Expression and language

Provide citation for other people’s ideas

In addition, use quotation marks around passages used verbatim (cut and paste)

Avoid cut and paste

Read article & paraphrase from memory

Check the paraphrase for accuracy and that it’s not an exact copy

Research method section

How are you going to collect data (data collection) in a way that will address the research questions

How will the research method guard against biases and random errors?

How will the research method allow you to generalize your results beyond the participants of your study?

How does it rule out alternative explanations?

Frequently used data collection methods

• Questionnaire survey

• Operational data (data collected automatically by the system as part of library operations)

• Interviews

• Focus groups

• Observation, ethnography

• Experiment

Other research approaches• Historical research

• Content analysis

• Action research

• Case study

Findings section• Summary of data collected

• Results that are close to the data• Results based closely on the data

• Statistical results

• Figures and tables are used to support the main findings of the study

• Each figure and table is referred to in the text, with a description of how to interpret it and what the salient information is

• Indicate whether the results are expected. Explanations of the results

Discussion section

• Sometimes combined with Findings section

• Higher level research conclusions that address the research questions

• Makes an argument using statistical results, research methods, results from previous literature, commonsense, etc.

• Relates the results of the current study to the literature

Conclusion section• Restates the research objectives/research questions, in an

informal style

• Summarizes the research results, highlighting interesting results

• Points out contributions of the study• Relates the research results to previous literature

• Points out limitations & weaknesses of the study

• Makes recommendations based on the research findings

• Suggest future research directions• To address weaknesses in the study• Unanswered questions• Perhaps the study has raised further questions

Presentation of Information Try to keep in mind who the potential audience are

(what they already know and what new information they need)

Identify the specific focus that your analysis is aimed at (state the relationship in clear and unambiguous terms)

• Indicate the purpose of the section or paragraph at the beginning – why are you presenting this information

• State your key messages up front and clearly (strip out the jargon)

• Focus on the implications of your analysis for the reader (downplay the methods and technical details)

APA Guidelines for Manuscript Preparation

• Orderly presentation of ideas. Logical flow. Give the punchline at the beginning

• Smoothness of expression. Clear, logical writing

• Economy of expression. Concise writing

• Avoid abbreviations

• Reference to the author:

• Use “I” rather then “we”, “the author”, “the experimenter”. Use “we” if there are more than one author

APA Guidelines

• Don’t use “we” to refer to the readers and the author

• Bad: We usually classify bird song on the basis of frequency …

• Better: Researchers usually classify bird song on the basis of frequency …

• Alternatives: people, humans, researchers, psychologists …

• Avoid the generic “he” and gender bias

• Use gender neutral terms, e.g. person, individual, user

• Use plural: they, their

• Replace pronoun (his) with article (the)

• “he or she” should be used sparingly

• Not: he/she, (s)he, she

APA Guidelines

• Use active voice

• Use past tense

• Numbers• For numbers below 10, use words• For numbers 10 and above, use figures, except at the beginning

of a sentence• Use figures for numbers before a unit of measure (e.g. 3 hr, 3

cm)

• Distinguish between different levels of headings, and do it consistently

• Capitalization of important words in section headings and journal titles: capitalize words of 4 letters or more

Figures• Put figure caption below the figure

• Refer to the figure no. in the text.

The Siberian Tiger has black stripes (see Figure 1).

The journal instructions to authors may require you to put all the tables and figures at the end of the manuscript

Figure 1. The Siberian Tiger

Tables• Useful for large amounts of numerical data

• Don’t use too many tables (combine small tables into 1 big table)

• Put table heading above the table

• Refer to the table no. in the text, and point out important information

• Use as few lines as possible in tables

Tables

Table 1. Example of poor table design

Table 2. Example of good table design

APA citation styleReference in the text

In the text, use the author-date method to cite references :

• In 1994, Lancaster evaluated …

• Lancaster (1994) evaluated …

• In a recent evaluation (Lancaster, 1994) …

• Three studies (Bart, 1985; Frasier & Niles, 1996; Slocum, 1978) …

• Past research (Christie & Marsh, 1924; James, 1991a, 1991b) …

APA citation styleCitation format in the reference list

Journal article• Gay, L.S., & Croft, W.B. (1990). Interpreting nominal

compounds for information retrieval. Information Processing & Management, 26(1), 21-38.

Book• Asher, R.E. (Ed.). (1994). The encyclopedia of

language and linguistics (2nd ed.). Oxford: Pergamon Press.

Chapter in a book• Fillmore, C.J. (1968). The case for case. In E. Bach &

R.T. Harms (Eds.), Universals in linguistic theory (pp. 1-88). New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

APA citation styleCitation format in the reference listPaper in a conference • Mauldin, M.L. (1991). Retrieval performance in FERRET: A

conceptual information retrieval system. In Proceedings of the 14th Annual International ACM/SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (pp. 347-355). New York: ACM Press.

World Wide Web document• Langston, L. (1996). Scholarly communication and

electronic publication: Implications for research, advancement and promotion. Retrieved August 31, 2002, from http://www.library.ucsb.edu/untangle/langston.html

Dissertation• Chan, Y.H.J. (2002) A survey of Singapore family literacy.

Unpublished master’s thesis, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.