The document outlines key elements and guidelines for effective academic writing, emphasizing clarity, active voice, and the importance of external feedback. It provides dos and don'ts for various components of academic research including topic identification, literature review, methodology, data collection, results, and conclusions. Additionally, it highlights the need for organization, concise writing, and the avoidance of clichés, slang, and unnecessary details.

1. Do and Don’ts of research

2. Key elements to Academic writing
 Write in a clear, “plain” style. Avoid “flowery” language at
all costs
 Use active voice. Put your verbs to work for you and use
direct, clear sentences.
 Use consistent tenses. Present tense is most common in
academic papers, and should be used when referring to written
texts.
 Have someone else read your paper before you turn it in! All
writers get very involved in their own ideas and need an
outside reader to provide feedback.
DO

3. Key elements to Academic writing
 Don’t use first person pronouns ("I", "we," "me," "us," "my," and
"our"). Most readers know who is writing the paper, so you do not ever
have to refer to yourself.
 Don’t use slang. Though academic writing should use common English
terms, it is not casual writing.
 Don’t use clichés. Be careful – clichés are easy to use. For example,
“too little, too late” seems full of meaning, but it is considered vague
and cliché in an academic paper.
 Avoid the "Dictionary" Introduction
 Do not annoy reader by making negative remarks about other
researchers.
Don’t

4. Don’ts
 Do not use too many abbreviations; they shorten the text but
make it more difficult to read because the reader has to
repeatedly think about what each means.
• Never start a sentence with an abbreviation.
• Do not start sentences with conjunctions (and, but, or).
• Do not use superlatives unless they appear in direct quotes
from other sources.

5. Identifying a Topic
The formulation of a research
problem is the first and most
important step of the research
process. A research problem is like
the foundation of a building.

6. Before selecting a topic answer these question
 1. Will anybody care about the answer?
Is there any utility in answer? Sometimes we
care about the answer
 2. Is this problem solvable within the given
amount of time?
Is this the right time to start with it? Can I finish
it in less than three to
 3. Will I be the first to answer this question?
This includes the past, but we can insure
ourselves by doing a good job on library search.
Are other people working on it now?

7. 4. Do I have good tools to address this question?
What makes me think I will be
successful?
 “Because I’m smarter than
others”(Bad)
 “Because I’m a hard
worker”(Better)

8. Dos And Don'ts in topic identification

9. Dos And Don'ts in topic identification

10. Personal + Practical/Feasible + Important + Ethical
= A good topic!
That is why we say that the heart of every research
is the problem.

11. Literature review

12. Literature review
 Literature review is an organizational pattern and
combines both summary and synthesis.
 A summary is a recap of the important information,
but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling,
of that information in a way that informs how you are
planning to investigate a research problem.
 Give a new interpretation of old material or combine
new with old interpretations.

13. Keep in mind these issues.

14. Don't try to read every
thing, Select only the
most important points in
each source to highlight
in the review. The type
of information you
choose to mention
should relate directly to
the research problem.
BE Selective

15. Some more Dos and Don’ts in L.R
DOs Don’ts
•Do organize your literature review so that
there is smooth change between various
studies cited.
•Don’t use a study simply because you
have it
•Do demonstrate the relationships between
the works you are citing.
•Don’t simply summarize one study after
another without demonstrating a
connection between issues/ findings
Don’t forget to proof read for grammar
and spelling errors

16.  Avoid using bullet points
(page 46)
TIP

17. Dos and Don’ts in Methodology

18. Does
•Ask your supervisor.
•Clearly define your methods.
Unreliable methods produce unreliable
results, which will affect the outcome of
your entire research.

19. Don’ts
Openly advertise your incentive
While it’s tempting to yell out that participants will
receive a $20 gift card if they just spend a little
time answering some questions, resist this urge.
People whose ears perk up for this kind of hook are
often likely to want to finish as quickly as possible
and probably won’t give you the kind of thoughtful
feedback you’re seeking.(www.ivoryresearch.com/writing-a-dissertation-methodology
http://www.catalystnyc.com/)

20. An effectively written methodology section should:
 Introduce the overall methodological
approach for investigating your research
problem.
Is your study qualitative or quantitative or a
combination of both (mixed method)?

21. Indicate how the approach fits the overall
research design.
 Your methods should have a clear connection with your
research problem. In other words, make sure that your
methods will actually address the problem. One of the
most common deficiencies found in research papers is that
the proposed methodology is not suitable to achieving the
stated objective of your paper.

22. Data collection

23.  Data collection is the systematic
approach to gathering and measuring
information from a variety of sources to
get a complete and accurate picture of an
area of interest..(http://searchcio.techtarget.com/)

24. Describe the specific methods of data collection you are
going to use.

25. Will you use
statistical
analysis.
How you intend to analyze your results.

26.  The present study is descriptive in nature. For
conducting the research, data have been collected
from both primary and secondary sources. The
primary data have been collected through a
structured questionnaire with a Likert type 5
point scale and applying a simple random
sampling method in selecting respondents.
Respondents of the study were 100 personal care
product manufacturers in Malaysia. Statistical
Package of Social Sciences (SPSS) was used for
analyzing the data.

27.  Are there any practical limitations that could affect
your research process.
Describe potential limitations.

28. The methodology section of your paper should be
thorough but to the point. Do not provide any
background information that doesn’t directly help the
reader to understand why a particular method was
chosen.
Problems to Avoid

29. Problems to avoid
Remember that you are not writing a how-to guide
about a particular method. You should make the
assumption that readers possess a basic understanding
of how to investigate the research problem on their own
and, therefore, you do not have to go into great detail
about specific methodological procedures. The focus
should be on how you applied a method, not on the
mechanics of doing a method.

30. Result

31. The results section is where you report the
findings of your study based upon the
methodology you applied to gather information.
Result

32. •Organize the layout of the results
section in the same way you structured
the research questions in your research
project.
•This will make it easier for the readers
to follow your results.
Organize the layout (Dos)

33. Use of the past tense when referring to
your results
Example;
The literature is very useful to gain additional insight and add
knowledge for this conceptual paper. The literature enables to
provide results on the role of green innovation and green
promotion as a marketing strategy. Based on the literature, it
was found that other than green innovation and green
promotion, marketing mix comprises of product, pricing,
distribution and promotion also applied as a green marketing
strategy. Following an exhaustive review, it can be concluded
that, the green marketing strategy contributes to the firms’
profitability, competitive advantage and encourage a greener
pattern of consumption among consumers.

34. Don’ts
• Things not
do in
result

35. Discussing or interpreting your resultsIgnoring negative resultsrepeating the same information more than once.Confusing figures with tables.

36. Conclusion

37.  The conclusion is intended to help the
reader understand why your research
should matter to them after they have
finished reading the paper. A
conclusion is not merely a summary,
but a synthesis of key points and, where
you recommend new areas for future
research

38. Identifying how a gap in the literature has been
addressed
It should
consider
 The conclusion can
be where you
describe how a
previously identified
gap in the literature
[described in your
literature review
section] has been
filled by your
research

39.  Demonstrating the importance of your ideas.
The conclusion offers you the opportunity to
elaborate on the impact and significance of your
findings.

40. Relates the finding to those of similar studies.

41. Things to
Avoid
 Failure to be concise
The conclusion section should be
concise and to the point. Conclusions
that are too lengthy often have
unnecessary information in them. The
conclusion is not the place for details
about your methodology or results.

42. Things to
Avoid
 Failure to comment on larger, more
significant issues
In the introduction, your task was to
move from general to specific [your
research problem]. However, in the
conclusion, your task is to move from a
specific discussion [your research
problem] back to a general discussion.