【正文】 he project will be impossible to plete? 2020/9/10 15 Choosing a Topic facts – Unlike PhD, a postgraduate research project is to gain basic research skills and don’t require to be original or contribution to knowledge – Literature is very important in the initial selection of the topic. This should be an extensive reading rather than a formal literature review, which will happen at an early stage of the research – A PG research topic is usually selected from a list provided by your supervisor, or from a consultancy job – You should have several optional topics – You can normally plete in the time frame 2020/9/10 16 Preparing a Research Proposal – what’s for? – Research proposal is a document which finally establishes the need for the study and confirms that the student has or can have the skills or other required resources – The research proposal serves as a quality and reality check: it helps confirm that you have a genuine research petence and that you can undertake the research in appropriate way – The research proposal also clarifies expectations and acts as a record for all concerned of the research to be carried out 2020/9/10 17 Preparing a Research Proposal – contents? – You need to read your university’ s regulations, or talk to your supervisor, to find the requirements of proposal – Normally, a proposal should contain: 1. What are you going to do in your research? 2. Who else has done research like this, and what did they do? 3. How are you going to do this research? 4. Why will this research be important to the academic munity? – Size can be from a concise onepage outline to a prehensive report 2020/9/10 18 Literature Review – what is literature review? – Literature review is essential to any kind of research – A literature review is a description of the literature relevant to a particular field or topic. It is a “ report of primary scholarship” and “ an interpretation and synthesis of published works” – It gives an overview of what has been said, who the key writers are, what questions are being asked. As such, it is not in itself primary research, but rather it reports on other findings – Literature review should never be just a list, or accumulation of other research. You have to criticize them, look at the relationships between the views, or draw out themes 2020/9/10 19 Literature Review – role of literature review – literature review is carried out to gain an insight into the theoretical background of the topic – To show awareness of the present state of knowledge of a particular field – To identify the 39。 in the research and to provide a foundation for your research. It should help you define a research question, and show how answering the question will contribute to knowledge creating a 39。 for your work – To demonstrate your scholarly ability to identify relevant information and to outline existing knowledge – Ongoing literature review is to keep in pace with the new development and achievement of related research works 2020/9/10 20 Literature Review – Sources – Sources include published journal papers, conference proceedings, books, working papers, reports, theses, internal documents, presentations, press releases and etc – library catalogues, databases (. SCI, EI), media releases, research publications, colleagues and etc. – Literature evaluation 1. Authority: is the author identified? Publisher? 2. Content: is it supportive to yours? Primary or secondary? 3. Timeliness: when is it published? Is it still valid? 4. Accuracy: is it peerreviewed? What methods are adopted? 5. Objectivity: is it biased? Is it a fact or opinion or debate? – Online resources, . Wiki, discussion forum, mailinglist 2020/9/10 21 Literature Review – Writing – Only plete your review when your thesis is nearly finished – Read the literature reviews in other theses: structure, useful references – Examine how literature reviews are undertaken in journal articles, although these are generally much shorter – Your words should be objective, balanced and dispassionate – Follow the requirement for reference system / style 1. Harvard system: In main body: Hurley (1998), in reference: Hurley, M. A. (1998) Features and Functions Overload. Information Management amp。 Computer Security, vol. 6, pp. 160161, 1998 – Use software (. EndNote) to manage your references 2020/9/10 22 Literature Review – EndNote – EndNote is a software developed by Thomson Reuters, for managing your reference library – It can store and anize numerous references and other files – It can create instant bibliographies in word processing software – It helps you to modify your reference style at your willingness 2020/9/10 23 How to read a research paper? – Reading research paper is partly a matter of experience and skill, and partly learning the specific vocabulary of a field – It is not reading a novel, so it’s not linear. You can skip some points and go where you are really interested in. – You are required to read them because: 1. journal papers are current。 3. one day soon you could be writing papers too. 2020/9/10 24 Organization of a paper IMRAD and plus – Introduction: introduces the problem(s) addressed in the paper – Methods: how the work was performed – Results: conclusions of the paper – And Discussion: summary of the contributions, philosophical discussions, future research, etc. – Plus 1. Title: what is the paper about? 2. Author list: who did the work? where are they from? (do remember them as they may bee your colleagues or bosses) 3. Author list convention: alphabetical or ranked (note: first and corresponding) 4. Abstract: brief outline of the results presented in the paper 5. Acknowledgements, declarations, references 6. Tables and figure