RESEARCH PROJECT WRITING

1. RESEARCH PROJECTWRITING DATE : 17TH May 2013 TIME : 3.00 PM – 5.00 PM VENUE : B25 WEBSITE : http://rpicam.wordpress.com/

2. TOPIC TO BE COVERED • INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH PROJECT • WRITING LITERATURE REVIEW • CITATION AND REFERENCE STYLES

3. ORGANISATION OF CHAPTERS • Ch 1: INTRODUCTION • Background • Problem Statement • Research Objectives • Significant of Study • Scope of Study • Theoretical/Conceptual Framework • Ch 2: Literature Review • Ch 3: Research Methodology • Ch 4: Results and Discussion • Ch 5: Conclusion and Recommendation • Reference • Appendix

4. INTRODUCTION TO THE RESEARCH PROJECT

5. PLAN YOUR RESEARCH • Defining the research • Research methods • Research outline • Data collection and analysis • Quality testing

6. DEFINING YOUR RESEARCH • Background reading • Developing the organizational context • Think about research methods and data collection • Is it possible within the timescale • Do you have the resources available • Ensure that it meets the requirements of the degree

7. READING FOR RESEARCH • Build background knowledge and establish context • Establish the state-of-the-art • Identify the “gap & establishing the research objective/question” • Accounts of research methods being applied in ways which are similar to your own plans.

8. THE BUSINESS CASE • Provide context of the problem or area of interest • Establish the need/justification for the research • Utilize background knowledge and experience • Utilize wider organizational data/information to support case • Use the “business case” to highlight the need for important project resources.

9. RESEARCH OUTLINE • What are you going to study and why? • What research methods and techniques will you use? • Where will you collect the information form? • How will you collect the information? • How are you going to analyse the information? • How long will it take to perform each stage of your research? • What will the final dissertation look like?

10. DATA COLLECTION STRATEGY • Type of data to collect • Quantitative vs qualitative • Primary vs secondary • How to collect the data? • Observation, questionnaire, interviews, documentary evidence, experiments, archives

11. CONVERGENCE OF MULTIPLE SOURCES OF EVIDENCE

12. DATA ANALYSIS METHODS • Managing the data • Database • Tabulate data • Organize into categories • Analytical method • Quantitative data • Graphs, trends • Statistical methods • Qualitative data • Coding, successive approximation, cognitive mapping, analytic comparison, ideal types

13. WRITING THE LITERATURE REVIEW (LR)

14. WHAT IS LR? • A literature review discusses published information in a particular subject area, and sometimes information in a particular subject area within a certain time period. • A literature review can be just a simple summary of the sources, but it usually has an organizational pattern and combines both summary and synthesis.

15. WHAT IS LR? • A summary is a recap of the important information of the source, but a synthesis is a re-organization, or a reshuffling, of that information. • It might give a new interpretation of old material or combine new with old interpretations. • Or it might trace the intellectual progression of the field, including major debates. • And depending on the situation, the literature review may evaluate the sources and advise the reader on the most pertinent or relevant.

16. WHAT IS LR? • A literature review is the effective evaluation of selected documents on a research topic. • A review may form an essential part of the research process or may constitute a research project in itself. • In the context of a research paper or thesis the literature review is a critical synthesis of previous research. • The evaluation of the literature leads logically to the research question.

17. The objective of the research are : • To study the factors that influence the customer satisfaction • To study the relationship of X and Y

18. WHAT IS LR?

19. WHY WRITE LR? • Literature reviews provide you with a handy guide to a particular topic. If you have limited time to conduct research, literature reviews can give you an overview or act as a stepping stone. • Literature reviews also provide a solid background for a research paper's investigation. Comprehensive knowledge of the literature of the field is essential to most research papers.

20. WHY WRITE LR? • The purpose of a literature review is for you to take a critical look at the literature (facts and views) that already exists in the area you are researching. • A literature review is not a shopping list of everything that exists, but a critical analysis that shows an evaluation of the existing literature and a relationship between the different works. • It demonstrates the relevance of the research.

21. WHY WRITE LR? • Literature can include books, journal articles, internet (electronic journals), newspapers, magazines, theses and dissertations, conference proceedings, reports, and documentaries. • Literature reviews are written occasionally in the humanities, but mostly in the sciences and social sciences; in experiment and lab reports, they constitute a section of the paper.

22. WHY WRITE LR? • In the context of a research paper on a thesis, the literature review provides a background to the study being proposed. • The background may consider one or more of the following aspects depending on the research question being posed: • Theoretical background – past, present or future • Clinical practice – previous or contemporary • Methodology and/or research methods • Previous findings • Rationale and/or relevance of the current study

23. WHY WRITE LR? • Rationalizing the significance of the problem; • Enhancing and acquiring the subject vocabulary; • Understanding the structure of the subject; • Relating ideas and theory to applications; • Identifying methodologies and techniques that have been used; • Placing the research in a historical context to show familiarity with state-of-the-art developments.

24. WHAT SHOULD I DO BEFORE WRITING THE LR? • Clarify • If your assignment is not very specific, seek clarification from your supervisor/lecturer: • Roughly how many sources should you include? • What types of sources (books, journal articles, websites)? • Should you summarize, synthesize, or critique your sources by discussing a common theme or issue? • Should you evaluate your sources? • Should you provide subheadings and other background information, such as definitions and/or a history?

25. WHAT SHOULD I DO BEFORE WRITING THE LR? • Find models • Look for other literature reviews in your area of interest or in the discipline and read them to get a sense of the types of themes you might want to look for in your own research or ways to organize your final review. You can simply put the word "review" in your search engine along with your other topic terms to find articles of this type on the Internet or in an electronic database. The bibliography or reference section of sources you've already read are also excellent entry points into your own research.

26. WHAT SHOULD I DO BEFORE WRITING THE LR? • Narrow your topic • There are hundreds or even thousands of articles and books on most areas of study. The narrower your topic, the easier it will be to limit the number of sources you need to read in order to get a good survey of the material. Your instructor will probably not expect you to read everything that's out there on the topic, but you'll make your job easier if you first limit your scope.

27. WHAT SHOULD YOU WRITE? • the accepted facts in the area • the popular opinion • the main variables • the relationship between concepts and variables • shortcomings in the existing findings • limitations in the methods used in the existing findings • the relevance of your research • suggestions for further research in the area.

28. WHAT SHOULD YOU WRITE? • Literature reviews should comprise the following elements: • An overview of the subject, issue or theory under consideration, along with the objectives of the literature review • Division of works under review into categories (e.g. those in support of a particular position, those against, and those offering alternative theses entirely) • Explanation of how each work is similar to and how it varies from the others • Conclusions as to which pieces are best considered in their argument, are most convincing of their opinions, and make the greatest contribution to the understanding and development of their area of research

29. CITATION AND REFERENCE STYLES

30. WHY YOU SHOULDACKNOWLEDGE YOUR SOURCES? • Citations reflect the careful and thorough work you have put into locating and exploring your sources • Citations are a courtesy to the reader, who may share your interest in a particular area of scholarship. • By citing sources, you demonstrate your integrity and skill as a responsible participant in the conversation of scholarship. • Failure to provide adequate citations constitutes plagiarism.

31. AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION (APA) STYLES http://www.apastyle.org/ http://www.studygs.net/citation.htm

32. BOOK – ONE AUTHOR • Format: Surname, First name. Last name. (year of publication). Title of the book (italic). Publisher, town of publication, edition number (if any). • Example: Shipley, W. C. (1986). Shipley Institute of Living Scale. Mcgraw-Hill, Los Angeles, 3rd ed.

33. BOOK - CHAPTER • Format: Surname, First name. (year). Title of topic/chapter taken. Title of book - italic (page). Publisher, town of publication, edition number (if any). • Example: Cohen, J. W. (2009). Militarization of culture in eighteen-century China. In N. D. Cosmo (Ed). Military culture in imperial China (pp. 278-295). Massachussets: Harvard University Press.

34. ENCYCLOPEDIA • Format: Surname, first name (year of publication). Title. Name of the encyclopedia – italic (Vol, page). Town of publication: publisher. • Example: Bergmann, P. G. (2009). Relavity. In The new encyclopedia britannica (Vol. 26, pp. 501-508). Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica.

35. ARTICLE IN JOURNAL • Format: Surname, First name. Last name. (year of publication). Title of journal/article, Name of journal (italic), volume/edition, paging. • Example: Pratto, F. , John, O. P. & Zumalia, N. (1991). Automatic vigilance. The attention-grabbing power of negative social science research information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 380-391.

36. ARTICLE FROM INTERNET • Format: Author(s) or group name (if any), (year of establishment of the website). Title of the article. Source of information, Date of visiting the site.Full address of the website. • Example:Halal cosmetics: a new wave of ethical lifestyle. International Halal Integrity Alliance (2010). Retrieved on 14th October 2010 from http://www.ihialliance.org

37. JOURNAL/ARTICLE FROM A DATABASE • Format: Surname, first name. (year). Title of article. Name of journal/article (italic), volume (issue). Source of information, date and year of visiting the site. Address of source. • Example: Ballato, A. (2010). MEMS fluid viscocity sensor. IEEE transactions on ultrasonic, ferroelectronics, and frequency control, 57(3). Retrieved August 10, 2010, from IEEE Exploral database.

38. GOVERNMENT/COMPANY DOCUMENT • Format: Department. (year). Title of document. Place/Country • Example: Ministry of Human Resources. (2008). Labour and human resources statistics. Putrajaya, WP: Malaysia.

39. NEWSPAPER AND NON-SCIENTIFIC MAGAZINE ARTICLE • Format: Surname, First name. (year, month and date of sources taken). Title (italic). Name of newspaper/magazine, page. • Example: Schuman, M. (2010, July 12). The lost continent. Time, 176, 16-21.