Notes on Research Proposals

1. Notes on Research Proposals

2. Components of the Research Proposal • Problem Description/Statement • Research Objectives • Importance/Benefits of the Study • Literature Review • Research Design / Data Analysis • Deliverables • Schedule • [Facilities and Special Resources] • References • Budget (Appendix)

3. Problem Statement • Review the discussion from Week 2 on problem statements.

4. Purpose of the Problem Statement • Represents the reasons/motivation behind your proposal (based on the specific domain of study). • It specifies the conditions you want to change or the gaps in existing knowledge you intend to fill (this is the specification of the research problem). • Should be supported by evidence. • Specifies your hypothesis that suggests a solution to the problem. • Shows your familiarity with prior research on the topic and why it needs to be extended. • Even if the problem is obvious, your reviewers want to know how clearly you can state it.

5. Guidelines for writing a good abstract/problem statement All should have the following elements in this order: • State the general case / problem • Describe what others have done • What’s missing / where is the gap in knowledge? • Describe the proposed solution or research objectives/questions • Specify one or more specific hypotheses • Should include specific metrics/measurements • Discuss how their validation addresses the research questions • Specific results (or research design, if it is a proposal)

6. Purpose of the Research Objectives Section • Specify the outcome of your project, the end product(s) • Keep you objectives • Specific: indicate precisely what you intend to change through your project • Measurable –what you accept as proof of project success • Logical – how each objective contributes to systematically to achieving your overall goal

7. Research Objectives • Flows naturally from the problem statement • state your hypotheses clearly • give the reader a concrete, achievable goal • Verify the consistency of the proposal • check to see that each objective is discussed in the research design, data analysis and results sections

8. Literature Review • Recent or historically significant research studies • Always refer to the original source • Discuss how the literature applies, show the weaknesses in the design, discuss how you would avoid similar problems • How is your idea different/better?

9. Importance/Benefits of the Study • Importance of the doing the study now • What are the potential impacts on • Research in the area • Applications of the research if successful • Broader impact (in other areas, on the society, in education, etc.) • If you find this difficult to write, then most likely you have not understood the problem

10. Research Design • What you are going to do in technical terms. • May contain many subsections • Be specific about what research methodology you will use and why • Provide details of your proposed solutions to the problem and sub-problems • Provide information for tasks such as sample selection, data collection, instrumentation, validation, procedures, ethical requirements

11. Schedule & Deliverables • Include the major phases of the project • exploratory studies, data analysis, report generation • Critical Path Method (CPM) of scheduling may help • Deliverables: • Measurement instruments • Algorithms • Computer programs / prototypes • Comparative evaluation • Other technical reports

12. Budget and Resources • Itemized Budget • Access to special systems or computers • Infrastructure needs • Costs of surveys, user studies, etc. • Cost of travel if related to research design • Provide a Budget Narrative • This part is usually an appendix.

13. Proposal Characteristics • Straightforward document • No extraneous or irreverent material • Don’t tell us why you became interested in the topic • The first words you write are the most important ones • Not a literary production • Clear, sharp and precise • economy of words; no rambling sentences • Clearly organized • Outlined with proper use of headings and subheadings

14. Suggested Organization • Title, Abstract, Keywords (problem statement) • Introduction and Overview • Background information; problem description in context • Hypotheses and objectives • Assumptions and delimitations • Importance and benefits • Related Work/Literature Review • Research Design and Methodology • Plan of Work and Outcomes (deliverables, schedule) • Conclusions and Future Work • References • Budget (appendix)

15. Weaknesses in Research Proposals • Research Problem • unfocused • unimportant (done before!) • more complex • limited relevance

16. Weaknesses in Research Proposals • Research Design • so vague it prevents evaluation • inappropriate or impossible data • procedures inappropriate for problem • Threats to validity • Lack of reliable measures • lacking controls

17. A Sample Research Proposal • Read (and study) the sample proposal in Chapter 5 of in Practical Research • Fill in the critique in Chapter 12 for this proposal. • Since the critique is designed for a REPORT, simply change the tense for most questions. • Is the sample size adequate? -> Will the sample size be adequate

18. Guide to Writing the Research Proposal

19. 5 Key Questions to Answer in Your Problem Statement • Does your problem statement: • Demonstrate a precise understanding of the problem you are attempting to solve? • Clearly convey the focus of your project early in the narrative? • Indicate the relationship of your project to a larger set of problems and justify why your particular focus has been chosen? • Demonstrate that your problem is feasible to solve? • Make others what to read it further?

20. 5 Key Questions to Answer for Purpose and Objectives • Does this section • Clearly describe your project’s objective, hypotheses and/or research question? • Bury them in a morass of narrative? • Demonstrate that your objectives are important, significant and timely? • Include objectives that comprehensively describe the intended outcomes of the project? • State objectives, hypothesis or questions in a way they can be evaluated or tested later

21. Writing Tips for Objectives Section • Don’t confuse your objectives (ends) with you methods (means). • A good objective emphasizes what will be done, whereas a method will explain why or how it will be done. • Include goals (ultimate) and objectives (immediate)

22. Purpose of the Research Design • Describes your project activities in detail • Indicates how your objective will be accomplished • Description should include the sequence, flow, and interrelationship of activities • It should discuss the risks of your method, and indicate why your success is probable • Relate what is unique about your approach.

23. Data Analysis Data Analysis is essentially a four step process • Identify precisely what will be evaluated. If you wrote measurable objectives, you already know. • Determine the methods used to evaluate each objective. More precisely, you will need to describe the information you will need and how you propose to collect it. 3. Specify the analyses you plan to make and the data you need to collect. Your design may be simply to observe behavior of a particular population or something more complex like a rigorous experimental and multiple control group design. 4. Summarize the resulting data analyses and indicate its use. Consider mock data tables that show what your resulting data might look like.

24. Key Questions to Answer for Research Design/Data Analysis • Does the research design and data analysis section • Describe why analysis is needed in the project? • Clearly identify the purpose of your analysis? • Demonstrate that an appropriate analysis procedure is included for each project objective • Provide a general organizational plan or model? • Demonstrate what information will be needed to complete the analysis, the potential sources and the instruments that will be used to collect it.

25. Writing Tips for Research Design • Begin with your objectives • Describe the precise steps you will follow to carry out each objective, including what will be done, and who will do it. • Keep asking and answering the “What’s next?” question. • Once you have determined the sequence of events, cast the major milestones into a time-and-task chart

26. Scientific Writing • Prosaic • Clear, accurate, but not dull • Economy – every sentence necessary but not to the point of over condensing • Ego less – you are writing for the readers not yourself

27. Scientific Tone • Objective and accurate • To inform not entertain • Do not over qualify – modify every claim with caveats and cautions • Never use idioms like “crop up”, “loose track”, “it turned out that”, etc. • Use examples if they aid in clarification

28. Scientific Motivation • Brief summaries at the beginning and end of each section • The connection between one paragraph and the next should be obvious • Make sure your reader has sufficient knowledge to understand what follows

29. Other Writing Issues • The upper hand – inclusion of offhanded remarks like “ …this is a straightforward application …” • Obfuscation – aim is to give an impression of having done something without actually claiming to have done it • Analogies – only worthwhile if it significantly reduces the work of understanding, most of the time bad analogies lead the reader astray

30. Writing Issues • Straw men – indefensible hypothesis posed for the sole purpose of being demolished • “it can be argued that databases do not require indexes” • Also use to contrast a new idea with some impossibly bad alternative, to put the new idea in a favorable light

31. Unsubstantiated Claims • Example: • Most user prefer the graphical style of interface. • We believe that …. • Example • Another possibility would be a disk-based method, but this approach is unlikely to be successful. • Another …, but our experience suggests that …

32. References and Citation • Up-to-date • Relevant (no padding) • Original source • First order: books and journal articles • Second order: conference article • Third order: technical report • No private communications or forums ( material cannot be accessed or verified) if you must leave as a footnote not in the bibliography • Do not cite support for common knowledge

33. Reference and Citation • Carefully relate your new work to existing work, show how your work builds on previous knowledge, and how it differs from other relevant results. • References – demonstrate the claims of new, knowledge of the research area, pointers to background reading

34. Citation Style • References should not be anonymous • Other work [6] -> Marsden [6] has … • In self-references, readers should know that you are using yourself to support your argument not independent authorities • Avoid unnecessary discussion of references, Several authors …., we cite …

35. Citation style • Ordinal-number style, name-and-date style, superscripted ordinal numbers, and strings. • Use anyone, but use one! • Entries ordered • By appearance of citation • alphabetically

36. Quotation Text from another source If short – enclosed in double quotes If long – set aside in an indented block Long quotations, full material, algorithms, figures may require permission from the publisher and from the author of the original Use of quotes for other reasons is not recommended

37. Acknowledgements • Anyone who made a contribution • Advice, proofreading, technical support, funding resources • Don’t list your family, unless they really contributed to the scientific contents

38. Ethics • Don’t • Present opinions as fact • Distort truths • Plagiarize • Imply that previously published results are original • Papers available on the internet – authors put out an informal publication and becomes accepted as a formal. It is expected that the informal version will be removed

39. Notes on Research Design • You have decided • What the problem is • What the study goals are • Why it is important for you to do the study • Now you will construct the research design which describes what you are going to do in technical terms.

40. General Structure of Research Proposals

41. Research Design • Is a plan for selecting the sources and types of information used to answer the research question. • Is a framework for specifying the relationships among the study’s variables • Is a blueprint that outlines each procedure from the hypothesis to the analysis of data.

42. Research Design The research design will provide information for tasks such as • Sample selection and size • Data collection method • Instrumentation • Procedures • Ethical requirements • Rejected alternative designs

43. Classification of Research Designs • Exploratory or formal • Observational or communication based • Experimental or ex post facto • Descriptive or causal • Cross-sectional or longitudinal • Case or statistical study • Field, laboratory or simulation

44. Exploratory or Formal • Exploratory studies tend toward loose structures with the objective of discovering future research tasks • Goal - to develop hypotheses or questions for further research • Formal study begins where the exploration leaves off and begins with the hypothesis or research question • Goal – test the hypothesis or answer the research question posed

45. Observational or Communication Based • Observational studies – the researcher inspects the activities of a subject or the nature of some material without attempting elicit responses from anyone. • Communicational – the researcher questions the subjects and collects response by personal or impersonal means.

46. Experimental or Ex Post Facto • In an experiment the researcher attempts to control and/or manipulate the variables in the study. Experimentation provides the most powerful support possible for a hypothesis of causation • With an ex post facto design, investigators have no control over the variables in the sense of being able to manipulate them. Report only what has happened or what is happening. Important that researches do not influence variables

47. Descriptive or Causal • If the research is concerned with finding out who, what, where, when or how much then the study is descriptive. • If is concerned with finding out why then it is causal. How one variable produces changes in another.

48. Cross-sectional or Longitudinal • Cross-sectional are carried out once and represent a snapshot of one point in time. • Longitudinal are repeated over an extended period

49. Case or Statistical Study • Statistical studies are designed for breath rather than depth. They attempt to capture a population’s characteristics by making inference from a sample’s characteristics. • Case studies – full contextual analysis of fewer events or conditions and their interrelations. (Remember that a universal can be falsified by a single counter-instance)

50. Field, Laboratory or Simulation • Designs differ in the actual environmental conditions