HOW TO START A RESEARCH

2. Dr . Shakir Hussain Rather
PG.1st years .
Presented by-

3. THE ART AND SCIENCE OF WRITING POST
GRADUATE DISSERTATION
DEFINITION
Dissertation is a treatise, a written composition that deal with a
subject formally and systematically. Thesis is a proposition stated
especially as a theme to be discussed or proved or maintained against
attack.
Dissertation/thesis is a proof that one cannot only DO SCIENCE, but
also WRITE SCIENCE. “The average dissertation is nothing but
transference of bones from one graveyard to another”, said Frank
Dobie.

4. SCIENTIFIC STRUCTURE (ANATOMY) OF
DISSERTATION
Rudyard Kipling and quoted by Richard Asher.-a famous
medical writer in his essay-
“ SIX HONEST MAN FOR MEDICAL WRITERS”.
I keep six honest serving men.
They teach me all I know
They are what, why and when
How, where and who.
Bradford Hill (1965) evolved the IMRAD structure:
I-introduction.
M-method.
R- result.
A- analysis.
D- discussion.

5. STRUCTURE
Title.
Introduction(including AIM); why did you start the
study.
Review of literature .
Material and methods: how did you do the study?
Discussion: what do the findings mean?
Summary (including conclusion).
References ( bibliography).

6. T I T L E
THE TITLE NEEDS TO BE –
 accurate.
 Specific.
 Retrievable.
 Short yet sufficiently descriptive.
 As informative as possible.
THE TITLE SHOULD NOT BE -
 Paradoxical
 Obsecure
 Misleading titles
 Abbreviations.

7. INTRODUCTION
 The introduction should answer the question “why did you
start the study?”
In just 200-500 words the introduction should state:
a. The nature and the scope of the problem.
b. The rationale for the study.
 The introduction should be intelligible and not long and
pompous.
 It should introduce the state of knowledge before the work
was started.

8. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
 This pertains to searching and recording salient and
pertinent points from articles written by earlier workers in
the subject that you have chosen.
 Record the information in chronological order.
 The articles reviewed should be retrievable.
 Only the relevant articles should be reviewed.
LITERATURE SEARCHING;
Dr .Samuel johnson – “ knowledge is of two kinds,- We know
a subject ourselves or we know where we can find the
information about it”

9. The following tit bits might be useful;
a) ask your guide/teacher/an expert for any references.
b) Look at all the loose issue journals in the subject.
c) Textbooks . At the end of each chapter there is a list of
reference .
d) index Medicus . (1) Subject index. (2) Author index.
e) Cumulative index medicus
f) Biological abstracts
g) Science citation index
h) Current contents
i) Computer searching ; (1) medline search. (2) medlar search.

10. MATERIALS AND METHODS
The questions here are; “what did you study?” and “ how did you study?”.
The answer should include-
a) The actual number of patients studied, animals or specimens
used.
b) Techniques adopted
c) Statistical method used for analysis.
 There should be that much information for another
competent worker to repeat your work.
 Technique /method for which there are already clear
published descriptions do not have to described again , but
modification must be described.

11. RESULT
It must answer the question “ what did you find?”.
 The description of the result of your work is the heart of yours
dissertation
 It is the communication of facts, measurements and observations in your
work.
The illustrations can be include- like photographs ,sector graphs, histograms
, pie charts, tables and so on.
They are used to convey information accurately and succinctly.
All photographs should have a figure number written in Arabic numerals , a
short caption or legend .
In photomicrographs the stain used and magnification should be written.
For E.g.- Fig.1 . Mast cell with dense granules obscuring the nucleus.
Toluidine blue X 100 .
Table should be numbered in roman numerals E.g.- Table 1.

12. Clear writing is an expression of clear thinking.
Eg. An improvement in appearance was achieved in the patient
where the orbicularis oris in lower lip was strengthened.
Strengthening the orbicularis oris in the lower lip improved the
patient’s appearance.
 As far as possible, write in past tense. punctuations,
particularly commas, full stop, quotation marks should be
used carefully.
E.g. “The Managing Director” said the Chairman, “ is a fool”.
The Managing Director said, “the Chairman is a fool”.

13. DISCUSSION
Answer the question “ what do the result mean?”
it should include the following;
a) Present principles, relationships and generalizations shown
by the results.
b) Point out the exceptions and lack of correlations.
c) Indicate agreement or contrast with Previously published
work.
d) State the implications of your results.
e) Give reasons for your conclusions.
f) Mention the limitations of your work.
g) Indicate scope for further work.

14. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
The summary should concisely describe
a) The problem
b) The solution
c) The principal conclusion(s).
In the summary avoid experimental details and
references to previous work.
Do not draw wrong conclusions.

15. REFERENCES
• Under this there are two aspects, viz Citing of references
in the text , listing of references in the list of references.
• There are two styles for citing and listing ; Harvard style
and Vancouver style.
Citing of references;-
Harvard style ;
when there are three or less authors;- write all their
surnames and the year of publication.
e.g The occurrences of prostatic tissues in a
retroperitoneal …..has been observed by earlier
workers ( Kini, Raghuveer and Pai 1991).

16. When there are more then three authors;- write the
surname of only the first author , et al and years .
e.g the presence of Psammoma bodies in papillary
carcinoma has been observed by many workers in
the past (Nadar et al 1994)
Vancouver style; irrespective of the number of
authors write only the reference number as shown in
this example.
Earlier workers have observed that endometrial
hyperplasia is a pre- cancerous condition.1-3,6

17. Listing of references-
harvard style ; references are listed in
alphabetical order irrespective of the
order of their appearances in the text.
Vancouver style; references are numbered
according to their appearances in the
text and listed accordingly.

18. WAYS OF WRITING REFERENCES CORRECTLY
1. PRINT ARTICLES
ARTICLE WITH 1 TO 6
AUTHORS.
Author AA , author BB, author CC, Author DD. Title of
articles. Abbreviated title of journal. Data of publication
YYYY Mon DD: Volume number ( issue number ): page
numbers.
Petitti DB, Crooks VC, Buckwalter JG, Chiu V. Blood pressure
levels before dementia. Arch Neurol. 2005 Jan;62(1):112-6.
ARTICLE WITH MORE
THAN 6 AUTHORS
Author AA, Author BB, Author CC, Author DD, Author EE,
Author FF, et al. Title of article. Abbreviated title of journal.
Date of publication YYYY Mon DD; volume number (issue
number):page numbers.
Hallal AH, Amortegui JD, Jeroukhimov IM, Casillas J, Schulman
CL, Manning RJ, et al . Mangnetic resonance
cholangiopancreatography accuraretly detects common bile
duct stones in resolving gallstone pancreatitis. J Am Coll Surg.
2005 Jan;200(6):869-75.

19. ELECTRONIC JOURNAL ARTICLES

20. BOOKS
http://ezproxy.lib.monash.edu.au/login?url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-
4614- 1647-0.

21. BOOK CHAPTER

22. DICTIONARIES AND ENCYCLOPEDIAS

23. REFERENCES-
1) Raghuveer CV, ramanarayan K . The art and science
of writing post graduate dissertation. JAPI 1997;45
(5):400-403.