Transcript Ethics & Research

Writing a research proposal
Communication Research
Week 4
What is a research proposal?
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A research proposal aims to introduce your
reader or supervisor to the proposed purpose
and direction of a research project you are
planning with the purpose of persuading them
that the research will be worthwhile.
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The process is important as it can help you
determine your focus, clarify what is involved in
your project and plan its development.
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The Context
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The Research Proposal is the document
you will present to plead your case for funds
for your research project.
You will probably use the development of
your research proposal to refine details of
your proposed project.
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The Proposal document
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The information needs to be argued well,
presented in a formal yet familiar style and
structure, and with no fat.
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Write a tightly organised and convincing
proposal.
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Expect it to be 1500 – 2500 words.
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How is it set out?
TO:
FROM:
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Often as a report or memo
DATE:
report eg
SUBJECT:
Uses headings and subheadings and a
numbering system to guide the reader
Uses page numbers, includes a bibliography
and an appendix for supplementary material
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Introduction 1 – Topic & problem
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The research topic formulates a problem that
is worthy of research
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The topic should be:
 stated clearly in one or two sentences
 framed as a research question or hypothesis
 framed as a problem or question in need of
an answer
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The topic provides the pivot or focus
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The Research Question
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Research is about finding answers to
questions in order to discover new knowledge
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The most difficult part of the project is
deciding what research question to ask
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The next logical question
Topic of interest
“The formulation of
a problem might be
more difficult than its
solution.”
Literature sea rc h
Literature review
… Albert Einstein
Next logic al q uestion
Researc h question
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Developing the research question
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Write down lots of possible arrangements of
the question
Many of them won’t lead you anywhere, but
eventually you will come up with something
that fits your requirements
In particular, it will follow from the research
you’ve been reading
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Introduction 2 – Context
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Your research topic needs to be located in its
context and background
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In sketching this background, you need to show
how and why this topic is important and why it is
worth researching
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This can be done by:
 Contextualizing the research problem – how does it
arise?
 Outlining its significance – what will be the outcomes
and for whom?
 Referring to key issues that are associated with the
topic
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Introduction 3 – Background
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Background can be provided in several ways.
These might include:
 A brief overview or history of the problem or
issue using examples or statistics in support
 A theoretical overview of the issue
 A brief description of the context in which the
problem has occurred
 An overview or analysis of your position or
assumptions on the issue
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Introduction 4 – Literature review
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All research should be contextualized in
terms of relevant scholarly or academic
literature related to or around the problem or
topic
The literature may not refer to the problem
exactly but may explore similar or related
issues or other research that sheds light on
the problem
The purpose is to demonstrate that you are
familiar with other bodies of research around
your topic
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Literature Review
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Many researchers argue their perspectives
through the literature review
The best researchers attempt to make their
hypotheses evolve out of the literature search
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The Literature Search
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The literature review explores relevant
research, and hypotheses evolve from past
research
The literature is usually found in a search that
is carefully directed by a desire to research a
particular question
What happens next is determined from
studying the literature
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Using scholarly databases
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Searching
1.
2.
Use your topic as your search term to search
scholarly databases and library catalogues
for papers that will support your research
Formulate some more specific search terms.
The more closely the search term matches
the area that you want to research, the more
likely it is that the hits will be useful
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Keep searching
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Don’t get sidetracked into reading the papers
at this stage – just keep searching until
you’ve found some papers
You will want a lot of papers – maybe 30 or
so – because you will probably throw half of
them away in the next stage, when you filter
out those that will not be useful to your
research project
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Filtering the research documents
1.
2.
3.
Display the article in your browser. Select
the whole document, then Copy it to the
Windows clipboard
Open Microsoft Word and paste the
document into Word
Use Word’s ‘Find’ feature (in the Edit menu)
to look for your search term
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In each paper …
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What specific question is being asked?
How does it address the question?
How convincing are the results?
What aspects of the research question
remain unanswered?
What is the next logical question?
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Filtering the research documents
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The context in which your search term is used
and the number of times it’s used give you a
good indication of whether that document will
be useful in your research.
If you decide to use it, save the document
and move on.
If you have less than 12 papers you need to
keep looking.
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Fictional example – Literature Review
Smith and Brown (2001) reported SMS usage against telephone and faceto-face communication and separated their data by gender preferences. In
contrast, Zhou et al (2003) showed that while many people readily accept
the use of SMS as a dating communication tool, many people of the 25-40
age group, and women in particular, oppose it. Harries (2002) suggested
that the opposition is related to the unromantic nature of SMS and Norris
(2002) showed a belief that SMS is considered insufficient for the business
of finding a mate for long term cohabitation and reproduction. Jones et al
(2003) also reported SMS dating across age groups. Cruikshank and
Johnson (2001) said that arranging dates by SMS was readily accepted by
83% of their female respondents and 87% of male respondents. Findings
were corroborated by Stuart (2004) and Nicholson (2005) but with less
detail. Henriks et al (2003) found that respondents in the 16-24 age group
and those over 40 readily accepted SMS as a dating tool, while
respondents in the 25-40 age group opposed it. Other studies (Findus et al
(2003), Horace and Fawn (2002) and Halley et al (2003)) corroborate their
findings, but few respondents made any mention of ending relationships by
SMS, leading to our research question:
Is it acceptable to end a relationship by SMS message?
The research will attempt to differentiate responses by gender and age.
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Method
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A detailed description of the research methods
you intend to develop or employ and a
justification of why you have chosen them. You
should describe …
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Exactly how you intend to conduct the research – eg a
survey that will be distributed to 100 randomly selected
people between the period of x to y 2005
Research instrument – eg 20 question survey
comprising a selection of open and closed questions
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Method
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The timeframe of the research
How you plan to analyse the data to address
the research question
Any problems or issues that you anticipate in
collecting and analyzing the data
What ethical issues might be encountered
and how do you plan to address these?
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Other parts include …
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Research plan and timeline (use a table with
real dates)
Conclusions
Bibliography – listed alphabetically using APA
style (see style guide on CR homepage)
Appendix – additional or supplementary
material such as a draft survey or draft
observation schedule
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References/Bibliography
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Make sure all the references in your
literature review are included and set out
correctly.
Use the APA referencing system
If in doubt, check here:
http://www.psychwww.com/resource/apacrib.htm
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Appendix 1
Your appendix should contain a copy of the
Protocol Application Form that you would
normally submit to the UWS Human
Research Ethics Committee.
http://www.uws.edu.au/about/adminorg/devint/ors/ethi
cs/humanethics
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Appendix 2
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Another appendix should contain a copy of
your draft survey (if you plan to use this
method), observation schedule etc
This demonstrates that you have thought the
research question through, and you have
created a set of questions that address the
research question properly.
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And now … write the proposal
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Use Times for your body text. Set the size to 12
point and 1½ space
Use Arial bold for your headings, and set the size
to 14 point
Don’t underline anything except the obligatory
underlining of URLs.
Use paragraph space (6pt) between your
paragraphs (some journals may prefer indents so
in these cases follow the style guide. As a
general ‘rule of thumb’, I prefer paragraph space)
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Spelling and Grammar
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Don’t use the grammar checker.
Don’t rely on the spelling checker.
Use a dictionary. A real, hard-copy one, with
pages made of paper.
Many online dictionaries are good, but
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Usually don’t give the meaning of the word, so you
can have the wrong spelling.
Might be ‘Standard English’ (whatever that is).
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