Bryman & Bell: Research Project Guide

Table of Contents

1. Preparing Yourself to Do Research
2. What Do I Want to Research Exactly?
3. The Research Process
4. Writing Up Your Research Report
   1. Preliminary planning
   2. The structure of a dissertation
   3. Title page, acknowledgements and contents page
   4. Abstracts
   5. Introduction
   6. The literature review
   7. Research Methods
   8. Results
   9. Discussion & Conclusions
   10. References, appendices and obligations
   11. Referencing
   12. Writing up research checklist

Introduction

Chapters 24 & 26, Page 560

1. You should explain what you are writing about and why it is important - simply saying that it interests you because of a long-standing personal interest is not enough
2. You might indicate in general terms the theoretical approach or perspective you will be using and why
3. You should outline your research questions and/or objectives:
   1. with qualitative research, it is likely that your research questions will be rather more open-ended than with quantitative research. Totally open-ended research is risky and can lead to the collection of too much data, and a lack of focus, when it comes to writing up
   2. see p.520 & 525 on introductions in writing up quantitative and qualitative research
4. The opening sentence or sentences are often the most difficult of all:
   1. Becker (1986) advises strongly against opening sentences that he describes as 'vacuous' and 'evasive'. He gives the example of 'This study deals with the problem of careers', it is much better to give readers a quick and clear indication of what is going to be meted out to them and where it is going