This document provides information about the research process. It discusses what research is, the typical stages of research (research, brainstorming, writing, and editing), and important considerations at each stage. Key points include: research involves systematically collecting and analyzing data to increase understanding; it is important to select a clear topic and follow a specific plan; the brainstorming stage involves critical thinking to develop a reasoned argument; writing should be an ongoing process that involves drafting and revising sections multiple times; editing requires thoroughly proofreading the final draft and preparing it for printing. The document also covers ethics, plagiarism, and strategies for appropriately incorporating and citing outside sources in writing.

1. Enjoy Writing your
Dissertation

2. What is Research?
 Research is the systematic
process of collecting and
analysing information (data) in
order to increase our
understanding of the
phenomenon with which we
are concerned or interested.

3. The Research Process
 Originates with a question or
problem;
 Requires a clear articulation of a
goal;
 Follows a specific plan of
procedure (design);
 Usually divides the principal
problem into more manageable
sub-problems, which guide the
research;
 Requires collection and
interpretation of data to answer
original research question;

4. Stages of Research

5. 1. The Research stage
 A useful model for thinking about research is:
LEARN, THINK, SHARE.
 Students learn about a topic; think about a topic; and share what
they have learned.
 The research stage is where students:
 build a sense of excitement and a positive attitude bout the
research project.
 identify potential resources―e.g., libraries, archives, the Internet,
and people.
 develop note-taking systems.
 inform about project management procedures.
 Researching is where you find more out about the topic.
 You find out what a topic is about, and you keep notes about
each source so that you can properly cite your sources.

6.  Selecting a topic:
 Brainstorm possible topics using suggested lists.
 Think about topics based on their personal
interests and curiosities.
 Narrowing the topic:
 Identify a specific, manageable research topic
using a process that goes from the general to the
specific.
 Background reading:
 Begin background reading using secondary
sources (e.g., encyclopedias, books, magazines,
newspapers, people) and practice using source
sheets to record where they find information.
 Begin developing specific research questions.
 Gathering and recording information:
 Practise quoting, summarizing, and paraphrasing.
 Refine note-taking.

7. 2. The Brainstorming stage
 What is Critical Thinking?
 "Purposeful, self-regulatory judgment which results in
interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference, as well
as explanation of the evidential, conceptual,
methodological, criteriological or contextual
considerations upon which judgment is based." (Facione,
Simpson and Courtneay, Banning, Brookfield, Ornstein,
Hunkins, Sternberg, Ennis, and Lipman)
 It is an important stage in the research process:
 You are able to reason about a problem or issue;
 Mount a reasoned argument for your point-of- view and
conclusions;
 It is the process by which you can think your way through
your paper prior;

8.  This stage is characterized by asking the following
questions:
1) What is being asked of me?
2) What is actually the problem?
3) How can I simplify the problem?
4) What information do I need to solve this problem?
5) What conclusions can I draw?
 Critical thinkers tend to:
 Be capable of taking a position or changing a position;
 Seek information;
 Be open- minded;
 Keep the original problem in mind;
 Search for reasons;
 Deal with the components of the problem in an orderly
manner;
 Seek a clear statement of the problem;
 Look for options;
 Use credible sources;

9. 3. The Writing stage
"Writing up your research should start
early and become a regular and continuing
activity. It is also likely to be an iterative … .
That is, you will draft a section or chapter, then
move on to some other activity, and return one
or more times to redraft your original version.
This is partly because as the totality of the
research thesis or report takes shape, what you
have written in subsequent sections affects
what you wrote earlier and necessitates
changes in it."
(Blaxter et al., 1997, 208-9)

10.  If your paper is well planned, it should not be difficult to
write;
 Writing drafts of your work is an essential part of
constructing a paper;
 The best possible way of developing both your writing
skills and your dissertation quickly is to get your ideas
down on paper and give the chapter to peers and your
supervisor;
 The more feedback and constructive criticism you
receive, the faster you will improve;
 Check through it carefully, edit the text and, if possible,
give it to a peer or friend to read through;
 The point is to see if you are expressing yourself in a
clear and coherent manner;
 The 'write—read—rewrite—read—give to a friend
strategy‘:
 It ensures that your work reaches your supervisor in a
clear, legible state;
 Your supervisor can give maximum attention to the
subject matter and not have to concentrate on poor
expression, grammatical mistakes and spelling errors;

11. Writing strategies
 The writing strategy you adopt may be driven by personal
preferences or previous experience;
 There are, however, two very big things you should not do:
 Do not conceive of the writing-up phase as separate from
the research process in general;
 Do not make the mistake of hanging on to work;
 You are writing for your supervisor;
 Choose clear and concise phrases, sentences, paragraphs
and style;
 Do not be afraid to repeat yourself in the text;
 You need to strike a balance between boring repetition
which adds nothing to your argument and recurring
observations that help connect your empirical work with your
conceptual framework;
 The idea is to help people follow a well-set-out, clearly
expressed argument;
 Whatever data you use ensure your references are in order, as
improper referencing can lead to serious delays and
accusations of plagiarism;

12.  When writing a long piece of research, pay attention to
structure;
 If you present examiners with a long, rambling, illogical piece of
work, you will fail, even if your work contains wonderful
empirical revelations;
 If your empirical data do not relate to clear, precise questions or
hypotheses, it will be difficult to know just what your contribution
to research is;
 The best method of developing a robust structure to your
dissertation is to draw up a plan, setting out the headings of
each chapter and subheadings within them;
 These will undoubtedly change or be moved around with time,
but the point is to draw up and set out a 'map' for the writing
process;
 You should begin each chapter with a summary of the
arguments;
 Ensure that you have enough 'signposts' in your chapters,
indicating the 'direction your argument or discussion is taking'
(Fairbairn and Winch, 2000, 77);
 It is useful to point out to the reader the obvious link between
one chapter and the next;
 An effective way to structure your writing is by setting up folders
for each of your chapters;

13.  In each folder, collect relevant material for the chapter
and sit down transferring the information from the folders
into the sections and subsections of your plan;
 At this stage the idea is simply to transfer the information;
 Once you have added all the information for a specific
section or even chapter, you can start the enjoyable
process of write-read-edit-rewrite- re-read-edit‘;
 Each time you go through this cycle, you end up with a
better product;

14. Writing & revising the rough draft
 Writing the rough draft should be much easier;
 Do not expect to write the final version;
 The rough draft should be the last of several versions;
 This final version is considered a "rough" draft: it still must
go through a series of editorial reviews;
 It should be ready for printing and distribution to a critical
audience;
 The last stage of report preparation is just as important as
the previous stages;
 The appearance is improved without influencing the
structure;
 Approach it with a critical attitude;
 Change in roles is most important because you must try to
see what is actually written rather than what you think you
wrote;
 Successful technical writers use a wide variety of methods
to review and revise;
 One of the best involves three separate reviews of the
report:

15.  The first review is of the material in the report. In this check ask
yourself these questions:
 Are the conclusions valid? Is sufficient information given to
support the conclusions?
 Is enough background information given to explain the results?
 Have all irrelevant ideas been deleted?
 Are the illustrations pertinent and necessary?
 The second review is of the mechanics and organization.
 Are the subject and purpose clearly stated?
 Does the report flow smoothly from topic to topic?
 Are the relations between topics clear?
 Is each illustration clear and properly labeled?
 Are all required parts of the report included?
 The third review is of spelling and grammar, particularly
punctuation and sentence structure.
 Is each sentence written effectively?
 Are the sentences varied in length and complexity to avoid
monotony?
 Are the words specific rather than vague?
 Have all unnecessary words been deleted?

16. Ethics and plagiarism in research
 Ethics impact on all forms of research;
 Researchers have a set of moral principles that guide him/ her
in choosing how to conduct themselves with regard to such
topics as confidentiality, anonymity, legality, professionalism
and privacy when dealing with people in research (Blaxter et al.,
1997, 148);
 You have a duty to respect the people you are studying and you
need to make sure you ask their explicit permission first, and
then make very clear how you intend to collect, analyse and
disseminate the data you have gathered by talking to them;
 Ethical codes can be a useful starting point for new
researchers, for the topic of ethics is not clear-cut, as one
person's ethical behaviour may not equate to another person's;
 Punch sums up the main areas in which ethical issues can arise
in research as:
 Harm;
 Consent;
 Deception;
 Privacy;
 Confidentiality;

17. Plagiarism
 The original meaning of the term was 'kidnapping",
although it has now come to mean the act of stealing or
presenting as one's own, the ideas or work of someone
else;
 Make sure that you obtain your institution's guidelines on
plagiarism at the earliest possible opportunity;
 Ben Rosamond (2001,1-4) points out the differences in
definitions of this term and what exactly constitutes an act
of plagiarism;

18. Bad practices Risk of plagiarism
Copying the sentences or paragraphs of the
work of others and not using ‘quotation marks’
and referencing properly.
This is Plagiarism!
Copying and pasting material from the web
directly into your research paper.
This is extremely risky
practice. It is all too easy to
forget to add quotation marks
and reference properly – in
which case it would be
plagiarism.
Copying sentences or paragraphs and just
changing the odd word or two.
This is extremely risky
practice and is highly likely to
be considered as plagiarism.
Forgetting to add page numbers in the reference
in the text when using quotes and statistics.
Low risk – this is sloppy
practice and should be
avoided.
Using the references given in other people’s
work and presenting them in your own
bibliography.
This is incorrect – it implies
you have read this material
when you have not.

19.  Plagiarism is seen as an informal practice breaking down
the trust between teachers and students;
 Plagiarism actually breaks ethical codes and standards;
 Plagiarism is seen as a breach of copyright and a form of
fraud;
 It is the violation of the intellectual property belonging to
an original author’s piece of work;
 ‘Stealing' people's ideas and passing them off as your
own;
 The explosion of Web-based activities has boosted the
potential for plagiarism to an extent that is very difficult to
estimate;
 With Web- sites specifically focusing on offering
academic essays which can be purchased by credit card,
the chances of cheating have greatly increased;
 The fact that students at undergraduate and taught-
graduate level routinely prepare their essays on
computers and submit them electronically has greatly
increased the opportunities for plagiarism;

20. Why do writers plagiarize?
 Sometimes they are dishonest and are willing to
break the rules, of which they are quite aware,
in order to gain unearned benefit;
 The lack of awareness that certain writing
strategies may be considered inappropriate
(Deckert, 1993; Errey, 2002; Hayes and
Introna, 2005);
 Writers plagiarize because they are in some
way unwilling or unable to use sources in
appropriate ways;

21. Learning to write from sources
 Plagiarism is viewed as a dishonest act;
 First, students need to know how very seriously plagiarism is
regarded in the academic community, and how heavily it is
penalized.
 Howard (1995): "Students who know that plagiarism can attract
‘the academic death penalty’ will naturally want to understand
what, specifically, the act entails, so that they can avoid it.”
 Since virtually all academic genres refer to other sources,
writers who are concerned about plagiarism cannot simply
avoid using other people’s texts;
 Avoiding plagiarism entails knowing how to use sources
appropriately;
 Cite the exact Web- site and date, if you use any material from
the web;
 Learn good time-management skills from the start and avoid
including anything in your dissertation that you cannot honestly
account for;
 To guard yourself further against accusations of plagiarism,
familiarise yourself with the referencing conventions of your
discipline and get into the habit of making a detailed note of
books, articles and journals you have taken information from;

22.  According to Brie (1995), the moon is made of cheese.
 The moon is very likely to consist of cheese (Brie, 1995).
 Dairy researchers have made considerable recent
progress in ascertaining the composition of the moon.
 Brie claims that the moon is almost certainly made of
cheese (1995, p. 25).
 There is a growing consensus that the moon is likely to
be made of cheese. 15
 The moon is now thought to be made primarily of cheese
[3].
 For a review of research into the moon's lactose content,
see [3].
 Brie’s (1995) report of the whey content of the moon
provided solid evidence for this contention.
 The first hard evidence for the moon’s caseous
composition was provided by Brie (1995).

23. 4. The Editing Stage: Preparing to print the final version
 Allow yourself enough time for some final checks;
 Spell-check everything;
 Spelling mistakes will lose you marks;
 Go back and make whatever spelling corrections your
examiners request;
 Remember to spell- check the References;
 Make sure it is properly laid out by using the 'print preview'
facility of your word processor; This lets you see what each
page looks like on your computer screen;
 Check that the layout of the dissertation is consistent;
 Headings, tables, titles, and figure numbers should be correct;
 Something that many people miss before printing is having a
title on the last line of a page and the text starting on the next
page, which looks awful.
 Check that you have put page numbers;
 Once you have looked at your text on computer, print one copy;
 Check that everything looks consistent and is well spaced; you
do not have blank pages or other unexpected mistakes;
 Now thoroughly proofread your text;

24. Proofreading
 Proofreading your text means checking it for mistakes
before submitting it;
 Do not rely on your spell-checker, it will only pick out
combination of letters it does not recognize as words;
 It will not pick up grammatical mistakes, words that have
been used incorrectly, or words that have been missed
out;
 Make sure all your numbers are correct;
 It is possible to proofread the text yourself but much
better to have someone else proofread it;
 He will find mistakes that you have missed;
 Choose someone who has a good command of English;
 Once your text has been proofread make your final
corrections;
 Do not rush this stage just because you are almost
finished;

25. Printing Your Dissertation
 Prepare adequate stocks of paper and toner and any
other supplies you may need so that the final stages in
the production of your dissertation go as smoothly as
possible;
 Before you print, clear away any old drafts of your
dissertation that may confuse you;
 Check, again, that you have a stack of clean paper in the
printer and the toner is not run down;
 You can now give the print command to print the final
version of your dissertation;
 It is sensible to print one copy and do a last minute check
for any mistakes before printing further copies;
 You will almost certainly have to print more than one
copy;
 Binding:
 You now have a very valuable stack of papers;
 These need to be bound together so that none are lost
and the dissertation is easy to read and handle;

26. Questions?