Hints and Tips to Aid in Preparation of a Major Research Paper - Essay Example

Hints and Tips to Aid in Preparation of a Major Research Paper Your first focus when planning to complete your Major Research Paper should be to have your Research Proposal approved. What you plan to write about, what you plan to research, and how you plan to carry out the task must be approved by your advisor before you begin. If you want to present a high-quality research paper, careful preparations are necessary. Already in the planning stages, many aspects of your project need to be considered, and you need carefully to think through your research design. To repeat, present your ideas to your advisor and let him/her assist you to decide if your project, as proposed, is manageable within the available time-frame, and in light of the resources you have. Even a very promising proposed research project can be destroyed because the researcher has not allocated enough time or sufficient resources to its completion. Presented here are a number of suggestions and ideas that could help you in your preparations for, and in the writing of your Major Research Paper. As you start to plan, develop a Research Proposal, in which you decide on the topic you will research and write about. Your topic needs to be important and of significance within your field of study. It also should be feasible – you should be able to conduct effective research and report on the topic well in writing, within your allocated time, and using your resources wisely. Of course, it is also a good idea to have some personal interest in the topic you select. Do not choose to explore an area where the outcomes of your research are completely unimportant to you. Once you have decided on a topic, develop a Thesis Statement. This is the main idea of your topic. It should be a strong and specific idea which firmly asserts what you propose to research and discover. It must be clearly and precisely written in as uncomplicated a way as possible. Your next step is to consider the planning and writing of a Literature Review. This section of your paper must be carefully planned and written, not just a summary of everything you have read relating to your topic. Be certain that you will review and include only literature and materials that you plan to synthesize in your own discussion. Now move on to think about, plan, and describe your data collection processes. This description of your process should later be included in the Methodology of your paper. Consider that you will describe, in fair detail, all the methods that you will use in your research. Good research papers discuss literature in their field and research thoroughly with a view to prove something. Ensure that you have identified and constructed a Hypothesis for your paper. Provide some assumptions you will be making about your topic. Make sure that you will fully be discussing the topic. Present, clearly, a hypothesis that you intend to prove as valid or invalid in your research. The quality of your written paper will be very heavily influenced by the nature and effectiveness of your Research Design. It is important that you consider the types of research that are widely accepted when you are designing the research methods you will use. Two wide-ranging or general types of Research Design are possible: Experimental Studies, and Non-Experimental Studies. In Experimental research, both standard Experimental designs as well as Quasi-Experimental designs can be used. In standard experimental studies, you are able to randomize the subjects of your study into “control” and “treatment/intervention” groups. By randomization of the subjects you are able to control the variables which influence the outcomes of your study. Quasi-Experimental approaches also compare two groups. But subjects in the study are not randomly assigned to control and treatment groups. Other selection methods, where subjects are not randomly assigned, are used. A Non-Experimental study allows you to collect data in an organized way when it relates to your research topic. No control/treatment groups are identified and/or subjects are not randomized. Data collection is often based on survey research only, rather than a comparative approach with randomized control and treatment groups. As you are aware, data must be integrated into your research paper. It is essential that you collect data only through realized and acknowledged techniques, however. The techniques highlighted below are valid data collection methods: Surveys are a popular method by which to collect data. You should create a survey questionnaire and then distribute it to your sample groups. Make sure that the questions you design are carefully constructed, clear, and itemized. Most importantly, questions should allow the respondents to reveal the relevant information which you need for your thesis. Try not to have too much background information specifically targeted in your survey. Interviews are often a good way to structure raw data into more reliable results. Even though interviews are time-consuming, they do assist you to understand the accurate meaning intended by your respondents. An interview process after a survey process can often allow the researcher to refine and structure data obtained. Data Mining requires you to search for published data from good sources. It is again essential that you make sure that the data you find is reputable – it should not be outdated, nor should it have been gathered in unscientific ways. Untrustworthy or inaccurate data cannot be used in a scientific thesis. Laboratory experimentation is an excellent source of data. In the controlled setting of the laboratory you can collect data which is not externally influenced. Find out how to conduct the experiments you want to use accurately, and you could produce excellent data to use in your thesis. Now some personal advice: if you select to use an on-line survey as a method of research, a number of ideas have to be taken into account. Perhaps the most important consideration is that you do not annoy your respondents. Although you want to collect as much information from as many people as possible, a survey that takes too long, or that is over-complicated will cause your respondents to quit before they have completed the questionnaire. We must recognize, as researchers that the most important element of any survey is the respondent. The survey software does not have nearly as much impact on the results as the people’s responses. It is likely that you will have access to a limited number of respondents, and you will only have one opportunity to collect information from each of them. This must not, however, cause you to ask as many questions as possible of anyone you can persuade to respond to you. Don’t be intimidated into doing this because you think, for example: “Ask now or you’ll never get another chance!” “I’ll have to pay for a whole new panel.” ‘I’ll have to force conclusions out of the little bit of data I’ve collected – and everyone will know that I’ve squeezed my data to the limit!” Instead, remember any ’phone survey you’ve taken part in previously. I know that I have responded to one of these that went on and on! Every time I thought that we had reached the final topic another one came up. Eventually I just hung up. Select the sample group you want to use after consideration of your desired outcomes, approach only people who would be able to contribute to your research in meaningful ways and do not alienate your respondents – rather try to establish a balance. Perhaps you could use the same guidelines that I use when I am designing a survey. What does the respondent get for participating in my survey? Is the survey going to be interesting to the respondent? (People do not mind responding to a survey when it covers something they find interesting. They stay in the process a lot longer if they are discussing matters relevant and of concern to them personally. Also, if they feel that they have opinions and thoughts to add value to the issue being discussed, they enjoy the process more.) Is it fun to complete the survey? (Try writing questions in interesting or witty ways. Configure response options so that the respondent has some fun while answering. If the response options are predictable and obvious, your respondents will become bored and quit.) What impact will completing the survey have on the respondent? (If the respondents believe that the survey wills in some way benefit them – not just you – they will take more care and spend more time completing the survey.) Are the response questions targeting my research? (Do not get distracted from your focus – no irrelevant questions should be included. Keep in mind that you have limited time for the analysis and writing of your thesis, so do not retrieve so much information that you will struggle to make sense of it.) By thinking through these points, you can decide on an effective form of presentation for your survey. If you have the impression that your survey will not work well, consider different incentives for your respondents, or even, as a last resort, change the length of your survey. Once again, I remind you that the planning of your Major Research Thesis is as important as its writing. And, consult your advisor and others who will be able to give assistance and advice. Be sure to enjoy the experience, as you learn from it. Read More