Description
Section Description Title Page Research title, recipient or course title, names of authors and student IDs. Executive Summary Summary of half a page. TOC Table of contents, max. one page. Listings List of tables, figures, and abbreviations (if applicable). Introduction General research aim, basic context, purpose of research, contribution to knowledge, definition of terms, scope, and limitations. Research Question Central and guiding questions. Literature Review Details from the peer-reviewed theoretical and research literature in the context of the research aim; critically assessed. Research Design General overview of the research program; best as graphical model Population &Sampling Description of population and sample/participants, sampling process, controlling for extraneous factors and sampling error. Instruments Description of used indices, type of scores, validity and reliability Procedures Procedures of sampling and limitations; best as workflow model Data Analysis Analytical methods, scale of measurement, type of distribution. Research Plan Proposed timeline including milestones Bibliography References according a defined style (such as APA) Appendices Additional information, such as extensive tables, maps, or workflows (if applicable) Glossary Short description of special terms (if applicable)
Writing Guide for Scientific Essays and Research Proposals
Markus C. Hemmer, March 2019
This document will help you to meet the expectations for writing your CE papers and I assume you read it completely. Please note that the recommendations reflect the opinions of your in-structor. Other instructors may set other priorities.
1 The Scientific Essay
The essay as a literary method is not easily assigned to a genre. While there are quite different rhetorical styles (descriptive, explanatory, discursive, and argumentative), essays have some things in common: they are brief, ambi-tious, and they explain, comment on, or assess a topic within a limited scope.
The essayistic style can be found in many articles in newspapers, magazines, and public blogs. However, there are some significant differences between popular literature essays and the scientific essay.
First, a scientific essay contains a thesis; that is, you come up with an asser-tion to an issue that you want to argue for.
Second, scientific essays have a discursive character.1 As an objective scien-tist, you look at the antithesis and its arguments with the same commitment as you do for your own position.
Third, your arguments for both positions are supported by either evidence or logical reasoning.
In contrast to the rigid and formal style of other scientific papers, the scientific essay is a rather informal document, as we will see later.
1.1 The Topic
The topic of your essay should fit to your area of study. Try to select a topic that is under discussion or raises questions that have not been addressed yet. In the ideal case, you may incorporate your business experience. Inequities, ethical issues, controversies, and discourses are most promising sources for ideas. Any topics you are emotional about (happy, disappointed, angry) may also serve as a starting point. You should avoid topics that have been already discussed extensively and can be found easily in the general literature or in online sources. The easier it is for your instructor to find material on your topic, the more critical he can assess your paper.
1 It is not the task of a scientist to exaggerate a controversy beyond logical reasoning. Else, we could simply join the honorable guild of beer-drinking know-it-alls down in the bar. Or maybe become a politician.
Scientific essays are different
If possible, include your business experience
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1.2 The Title
The title of your work will raise expectations; and you make sure that these expectations are met. To obtain to a meaningful and intriguing title, it is a good idea to first state the factual topic:
“Research paradigms”
Since this title would raise the expectation that you cover the entire field of research paradigms, you should narrow it down:
“Research paradigms in business research”
This title would limit expectation to the question, how is business concerned with research paradigms. Now you can incorporate your position:
“Benefit of research paradigms in business research”
This title clearly restricts the topic to the question, how useful paradigms are in the business context. And it shows already where you position yourself.
However, a good essay title identifies your subject, sets the tone, and catches the readers’ attention. We can do this by including a teaser, such as:
“Lost in paradigms: Taking advantage of research paradigms in business research”
This title describes the subject (research paradigms in business research), the anticipated point of view (research paradigms are helpful) and catches atten-tion due to the well-known analogy ‘lost in paradise’.
Make sure, that your work stays within the context given by the title. I recom-mend you review your title after you finished writing.
1.3 The Structure
The structure of an essay follows a simple scheme:
Introduction – Thesis statement – Evidence paragraphs – Conclusion
where the introduction provides the context, the thesis states your position, the argumentation is divided into several evidence paragraphs, and the con-clusion summarizes and restates your position. The following table shows an overview.
Table 1. Typical contents of a scientific essay.
Section
Description
Title
A descriptive and attractive title.
Introduction
Objective, context, and (if applicable) definitions, assumptions, limitations.
Thesis statement
One or more sentences stating the main assertion.
Body
Evidence paragraphs covering arguments for thesis and antithesis. Each of the paragraphs should be linked to the next paragraph.
Conclusion
A summary including confirmation or rejection of the thesis. If applicable; evaluative comments on the relative importance of the arguments.
Critical review and demand statement for ongoing discussion.
Bibliography
Any style of citation (such as APA), but stay consistent.
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1.4 The Introduction
The introduction to a scientific essay is typically just a single paragraph cov-ering the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of the topic:
What the question is about – explain your interpretation of the situation or issue.
Why the question is important – put the question into context and show, why we need to address it.
While the introduction should be short, it must be intriguing to hook your reader. The worst thing you can do is writing a boring introduction. In contrast to other scientific papers, you may be provocative or even cynical at the begin-ning, as long as you argue scientifically in the end.
1.5 Thesis Statement
While a question at the beginning of a scientific paper is usually a good way to attract attention, you should avoid confusing a research question with a the-sis statement. For instance
“Is quality management disrupting business processes?”
might be a good starting point for your introduction, since it arouses curiosity, but it is not a thesis statement. A thesis is an assertion rather than a question:
“Quality management supports business processes, if it is fully understood and con-sistently implemented.”
It states an opinion or a claim that is discussed in the course of the essay.
Whether you state your thesis in the final sentence of your introduction or as a separate paragraph is up to you. It is usually a good idea to place the thesis statement separately if it needs additional explanation; whereas, if your intro-duction is already leading to it, you may make it part of the paragraph. An example of a separate thesis statement following the introduction:
Is quality management disrupting business processes? This question has been addressed by several authors…
…without coming to a clear conclusion.
However, quality management supports business processes only, if its concept is clearly communicated.
The thesis statement is not restricted to a single sentence; in fact, using two or three sentences is sometimes required to explain terms:
Quality management supports business processes, if a) it is fully understood by each stakeholder; and b) its implementation is carried out consistently throughout the entire organization.
Full understanding of quality management refers to … whereas a consistent implemen-tation denotes…”
Anyhow, make sure that the thesis statement is accented and separated from an extensive explanation.
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1.6 Evidence Paragraphs
To argue for or against your thesis, you determine how available evidence jus-tifies the thesis or antithesis. You may also question the underlying assump-tions, which is particularly useful in case of doxa. Keep in mind to select some strong main arguments, since you will not be able to cover all arguments in an essay.
The prerequisite for this reasoning process is to understand the context, which is achieved by carefully reviewing the literature.
1.7 Literature Review
One way to conduct literature research is to start with general sources and then move towards more particular sources as direction of your argument be-comes clearer. The order in which you approach your sources should be:
1. Text books and general texts
2. Book chapters and journal articles
3. Data from other reliable sources, such as business reports
4. Articles from newspapers, magazines and the web
Doing extensive literature research is basically good, but it may impede the successful completion of the essay on time. You can avoid this by setting a work plan with a deadline to stop reading and start writing.
Please keep in mind that you should find a balance between your own logical arguments and the evidence found in the literature. Even the most authorita-tive writing includes examples, statements or data from other reliable sources. However, focusing just on arguments from the literature is as bad as just rely-ing on your logic. A reasonable scientist will start with questioning assump-tions.
1.8 Questioning Assumptions
Let’s say, we find the following argument:
Shareholder primacy theory states that shareholders’ interests always take priority and other parties benefits are very much secondary or derivative.
We could argue against by questioning an assumption that underlies this statement:
While this argument seems to be reasonable, it assumes that shareholders are a uniform interest group. In practice, shareholder’s interests are quite diverse. Their interests de-pend on the financial share, their institutional characteristic, and on their investment in related or competing industries.
Assumptions are the basis for an argumentation. If they contain a flaw, the arguments can be easily deconstructed. And even authorities sometimes walk right into the trap of flawed assumptions, as we can see in the next chapter.
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1.9 Challenging the Experts
While you will assume that the authors of scientific literature are authorities in their fields, this should not keep you from critically reviewing even estab-lished positions. Let’s say we have an established point of view, which we use as an argument for our antithesis. Feyerabend’s epistemological anarchism states that
“…a universal scientific method does not exist; consequently, there is no justification for valuing scientific claims over claims by other ideologies like religion, astrology and complementary medicine. (cf. Feyerabend, 1993, p. 214)
You may find a flaw in this position, related to its assumptions:
However, comparing science with cultural traditions such as religion appears not to be valid: while religion assumes an invariant dogmatic concept, a scientific theory that conflicts with new observations will not survive over time.
Such an argumentation evolves from carefully looking at the logic of the orig-inal statement. In this case, the author argued by comparing disciplines that underlie different assumptions, which invalidates the comparison. The same approach can be used in case of illogical reasoning, as the following example shows.
1.10 Logical Deconstruction
Let us look at a popular argument against ethics education in business, which was brought up by Milton Friedman in 1964. Hooker summarized this in the following statement:
“The ethical duty of business people is to maximize profit. This means they should study marketing, finance, and operations and should not waste time studying ethics.” (Hooker, 2004, p. 75)
The two arguments for Friedman’s position are that corporate executives a) are not qualified to do anything other than to maximize profit; and b) have no right to invest the money of shareholders in ethical issues (ibid, p. 76).
Again, by looking at the assumptions, we can easily argue against that:
The assertion that corporate executives are not qualified to do anything else than to maximize profits is apparently a counter-argument: if they are not qualified, they should be. Except, they don’t see any value in business ethics. And that would lead to the he-retical question: Are they interested in ethics at all? Would we allow leaders of compa-nies not taking ethical considerations into account?
The second argument assumes that shareholders are not interested in ethical issues; which is not supported by evidence. Why else would shareholders invest in companies that have strong ethical policies? In 2013, US shareholders invested at least $6.5 trillion in sustainable industries due to long-term financial returns, customer demands, and increasing regulations. (US SIF Foundation, 2014, p. 12)
This shows how a weak argumentation that can be taken down easily from a logical point of view and with evidence found in the literature. Without even approaching its ethical aspects, which are far more debatable.
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1.11 The Essayistic Style
Writing in your own style is what distinguishes you as a good author. Cer-tainly, the style should be ‘scientific’ in a way that you use appropriate word-ing and terms. But since an essay is an exemplary thesis paper (which finally should encourage antithesis and synthesis), it should contain statements that are easily accessible and allow for fluent reading. Consider the style of the fol-lowing news blog article:
“PETER VICTOR is an economist who has been asking a heretical question: Can the Earth support endless growth?
Traditionally, economists have argued that the answer is ‘yes.’ In the 1960s when Vic-tor was earning his various degrees, a steady rise in gross domestic product (GDP)—the combined value of our paid work and the things we produce—was seen as crucial for raising living standards and keeping the masses out of poverty. We grow or we lan-guish: This assumption has become so central to our economic identity that it underpins almost every financial move our leaders make. It is to economics what the Second Law of Thermodynamics is to physics.
But Victor—now a professor at York University in Toronto—felt something tugging him in the opposite direction. Ecologists were beginning to learn that Earth does have limits. Pump enough pollution into a lake and you can ruin it forever; chop down enough forest and it might never grow back. By the early ’00s, the frailties of the planet were becoming even more evident—and unsettling—as greenhouse gases accumulated and chunks of Greenland’s glaciers began breaking off into the sea.
In essence, endless growth puts us on the horns of a seemingly intractable dilemma. Without it, we spiral into poverty. With it, we deplete the planet. Either way, we lose.” (Thomson, 2010, p. 1)
Clive Thompson – an experienced columnist writing for New York Times Mag-azine and Wired – has a good feeling for bringing up a main question, forming assumptions supported by facts, define terms, criticize and an approach a the-sis; all of it combined with an easy accessible, pleasant and fluent style. Besides the fact that he did not use citations (since he wrote a news article), this is an excellent example for good essayistic style.
Even you might feel you are not at this point at the beginning of your ‘essay-istic career’ you can easily avoid some typical pitfalls.
1.12 Avoid Meaningless Openings
The opening paragraph to a scientific topic is more of a short story than a novel. In any good writing, each of the sentences contains valuable infor-mation. Try to avoid meaningless openings, such as:
Education has long been considered a major force for American social change…
Since the dawn of man, slavery has been a problem in human history…
In the globalized world of today…
These are just combinations of uninspiring trivialities and stylistic modesty. They suggest that you did not know where to start.
Grabbing attention
Bringing the initial question into context
Turning it upside down
Coming up with a thesis statement
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Instead, provide some valuable information immediately:
The Safe Harbor decision, enacted in 2000 by the European Commission, has been crit-icized since then…
Autonomous driving poses a risk from the macroeconomic perspective…
You can assume that your reader has some good educational background, and even basic knowledge in the field of your topic. 2 So you don’t have to explain the ‘European Commission’ is or what ‘macroeconomics’ is. In contrast to a master thesis, were your supervisor would assume that you give definitions and explain special terms (not trivialities), you usually do not have enough room in an essay to bring extensive explanations.
1.13 Use Simple Subtitles
Subtitles in the body of your text will help you to structure your arguments. Rather than anticipating your paragraph statements already in your subtitle, you should use brief subtitles that are descriptive in the context of your topic:
Outsourcing and cultural diversity
In scientific essays, you may use a more appealing subtitle and informal style:
Economy is global – Individuals are not
1.14 Use Appropriate Terms
Use appropriate scientific terms. Rather than writing
Theoretically, this is true… (a theory is a model of reality)
Production is a complex issue… (complex means non-linear and non-predictable)
The results are highly significant… (does, a ‘low’ significance exist?)
you write
Seemingly, this is true… (if there are counter arguments)
Apparently, this is true… (if it is obvious)
Production is a complicated issue… (else it would not work)
The results are statistically significant… (if they are)
The results are notable… (or striking, remarkable, interesting)
1.15 Be Precise in Your Argumentation
Try to avoid ambiguous, vague or fuzzy expressions such as
It is well known that… (why state the well-known?)
Obviously, there is… (why state the obvious?)
It is important to note that… (otherwise, you wouldn’t write it)
As mentioned before… (don’t be redundant)
2 You also wouldn’t read an essay on ‘Quantum Theory’ if you don’t have a clue what it is about.
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Avoid such meaningless phrases. Rather than writing
We must consider that political unawareness poses a significant risk for contemporary leadership.
we simply write
Political unawareness poses a risk for leadership.
Being concise improves clarity and creates space for more sophisticated argu-ments. State facts and avoid valuing statements without evidence, such as
Mac OS is less vulnerable than Microsoft Windows.3
FMEA is the best approach to risk management.
While the first statement is simply wrong, the second can neither be tested nor rationally justified.
1.16 Be Conclusive
Do not end your conclusion with more questions than answers. On the one hand, it characterizes a thesis that it cannot be answered conclusively (else it would not be a thesis). On the other hand, you write an essay to argue for something; that is, you finally must take position. Some bad examples of final statements (from previously assessed essays):
Customer behavior is today not fully understood and therefore not easy to predict.
Besides the fact that irrational behavior will never be understood (else it would not be irrational), this ending does not help the discussion at all. We read through the entire essay, and we will be disappointed at the end.
Another case of disappointment:
Electric cars have both positive and negative sides; therefore, companies shall conduct more studies to estimate if these technologies will have positive or negative impact.
This ending states two trivialities that can be brought up by any guy on the street and it is far from being conclusive. And the worst example:
As the results cannot be finally assessed, a distinct conclusion cannot be drawn.
This is a statement of pathetic ignorance; it suggests that the author has no idea what he was writing about.4
The end of your essay should bring some conclusive statements, which are a starting point for the ongoing discussion:
The UK is taking the risk of losing all the economic benefits gained from the EU. In the worst case, the different opinions of England – compared to Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland – will lead to the end of a ’United’ Kingdom.
This is a nice outlook on the consequences of the ‘Brexit’, which may lead to a ‘Divided Kingdom’.
3 In fact, it is the other way around.
4 At this point, the reader is tempted to say (with Lucy van Pelts words): “Charlie Brown: Out of all the Charlie Browns in the world, you’re the Charlie Browniest.”
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Another positive example from an essay with the remarkable title Darwin’s Nightmare on the economic exploitation of the Galapagos Islands:
Stakeholders must realize that Galapagos is more than just the island where Darwin developed his theory of evolution; and it is more than a brand of a diverse country. It is a world heritage that shelters a wide range of rare animals. It is a living laboratory that is struggling to survive the imminent impact of globalization and tourism. And, if the residents, government and people fail to balance the need to conquer and preserve this environment, it would be the end for the Galapagos Islands.
Finally, a more emotional sample from an essay on the role of social media for online child sexual abuse:
While these bulk revenue-generating media make a first effort to safeguard their users, the world of social media is still a world of kids, straying like sheep without shepherd; and ignorant guardians that just hope not to be a harbor for these victims of online predators.
These final statements are what I call a demand note, forcing the reader to revisit the topic and continue the debate.
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2 The Research Proposal
A research proposal describes an intended research project. It is basically a planning document that outlines the workflow of your research activities. It is usually required if you request funding for your research project or – in a shorter version – at the beginning of your master’s thesis.
Planning is important for several reasons. Without planning it is very likely that your reading lacks direction, your writing lacks focus, and your argumen-tation becomes faulty. Although a comprehensive plan does not guarantee that you will avoid these risks, it minimizes their probability and allows you to detect them at an early stage.
2.1 Developing the Research Topic
A good research proposal hinges on an intriguing research idea. There are sev-eral approaches you could follow:
Find a topic on your own. You may focus here on contemporary or emerg-ing issues, things that fascinate you, or those you are emotional about. If you identified a topic, explore this issue with a preliminary search in ge-neric sources such as websites, business journals or science magazines. If you find interesting statements, take a note and ask yourself: ‘why is it im-portant?’, and ‘what is its value?’. Once you found enough valuable state-ments, do a programmed literature research in scientific sources.
A pitfall of this approach is that you might find a lot of literature that already covers most of the aspects of your initial idea. In this case, you could:
Repeat a study in a different context. If there are a lot of studies covering the same field, you may look at whether it has been applied in all relevant settings. You may find that, for instance, a certain industry sector has not been covered or studies have only been performed in certain countries.
Address limitations of existing studies. Researchers typically describe the limitations of their study in the introduction. In a literature review you can easily find out whether the limitations have been addressed in other stud-ies.
These approaches require a programmed research in a limited field and on restricted sources, such as dedicated journals, or on literature reviews.
If you already know the field of study exceptionally well, you might use on of the more challenging approaches:
Apply existing theories or hypotheses to settings or contexts that have not been addressed yet. You may transfer theories or models used in one field or discipline to another.
Investigate an established theory to see whether its underlying assump-tions still apply today or under particular conditions.
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Identify links between theories, hypotheses, or studies. Finding relation-ships might enable you to come up with an overall model, or even a new theory.
Identify gaps or contradictions in existing studies. Nobody is perfect. This applies to scientist, too. You can find enough studies that are not covering topics sufficiently, or even contradict other studies and results.
Whatever approach you choose, obtaining a good idea hinges on your famili-arity with the topic. This assumes a longer period of discussion, observation, and reading. Here are some recommendations:
1. Read everything that you can find in your area of interest.
2. Figure out in your readings what is fascinating, amazing, unusual, or peculiar, or otherwise attracts your attention or arouses your disap-proval.
3. Collect these issues with few statements in a notebook
4. Find out, why they made you react that way and why you think they are important to you.
5. Talk about these issues with anyone who is willing to listen, whether it is your instructor, your friend, your grandma or your neighbor’s cat.
6. Prioritize the issues and select the ones you like to focus on.
7. Phrase a preliminary research objective from the selected issues.
The research objective (research questions, hypotheses, theses, or a combina-tion of these) will guide you through the workflow of research and structure your proposal.
2.2 Drafting the Proposal
Once you have defined the research objective, you can draft the proposal in a few hours. The draft should describe the ‘what’, ‘why’ and ‘how’ of your re-search idea. It is usually a good advice to support your draft with a visual roadmap of the tasks you want to accomplish. You can use such diagram (probably a reduced version) in your proposal to describe your research de-sign.
Whatever the outcome of your draft is, you should finally make sure that the topic is still in the field of your personal interest; it is hard to do research on a topic that is not arousing your curiosity or is not challenging your mind.
2.3 The Structure
Once you have drafted your research objective, you can talk to your instructor (or supervisor, if it serves as proposal for a master thesis) about the topic. It is regarded as your instructor’s role to direct you to the most promising starting point surveying the literature.
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Writing the proposal will help you step by step estimating the scope of a re-search project. During your literature survey, you will find things that may change your mind about the topic. Thus, you should not assume that you will write the story from beginning to end. Without a doubt, you will rephrase your introduction and rewrite your literature review several times. While your main research objective might stay the same, your sub-questions may vary during your journey through the literature. The general structure is shown in Table 2 and explained in the subsequent sections.
Table 2. General structure of a research proposal.
Section
Description
Title Page
Research title, recipient or course title, names of authors and student IDs.
Executive Summary
Summary of half a page.
TOC
Table of contents, max. one page.
Listings
List of tables, figures, and abbreviations (if applicable).
Introduction
General research aim, basic context, purpose of research, contribution to knowledge, definition of terms, scope, and limitations.
Research Question
Central and guiding questions.
Literature Review
Details from the peer-reviewed theoretical and research literature in the context of the research aim; critically assessed.
Research Design
General overview of the research program; best as graphical model
Population &Sampling
Description of population and sample/participants, sampling process, controlling for extraneous factors and sampling error.
Instruments
Description of used indices, type of scores, validity and reliability
Procedures
Procedures of sampling and limitations; best as workflow model
Data Analysis
Analytical methods, scale of measurement, type of distribution.
Research Plan
Proposed timeline including milestones
Bibliography
References according a defined style (such as APA)
Appendices
Additional information, such as extensive tables, maps, or workflows (if applicable)
Glossary
Short description of special terms (if applicable)
2.4 Executive Summary
This section contains a condensed version of your research proposal. In con-trast to an abstract, the executive summary is intended to be read by a decision maker, such as a sponsor of the research or your supervisor.
It contains the research objective (not the entire question), the methodology and the expected outcomes. This section should be as intriguing as your re-search idea. You will write it when you finished the entire document.
2.5 Introduction
In this section, you should provide a short introduction to your research ques-tion. It describes the purpose and the basic context of yours proposed study.
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It should also emphasize the relevance of the study in terms of its contribution to knowledge, that is
the importance of the question,
the significance of the anticipated findings,
the implications for theory, methodology, and practice; and
the limitations of the study to generalization.
Potential contributions to knowledge could be filling gaps in the literature, cri-tique of existing hypotheses or theories, falsification of a hypothesis, defining a taxonomy, creating a new model, or modifying an existing one.
It might be necessary to define terms that are specifically used in the field of your study (and within your document) but are not common in economics. Examples are ‘partial reinforcement effect’ (in psychology), ‘unilinear evolu-tionary theory’ (in sociology), ‘delegitimisation’ (in political sciences), or ‘wavelet transformation’ (in engineering). If you have multiple terms, it is a good idea to provide a glossary in the appendix.
If you use abbreviations, introduce them in parentheses on the first appear-ance of the term in the text and summarize them in the list of abbreviations at the beginning of your document.
The introduction closes with setting the scope of the study by defining what is not covered and what are anticipated limitations of the study.
2.6 The Research Objective
This section states the research objective and its context, such as an underlying assumptions or theory. You can follow three approaches to define a research objective:
Research question: a question that is answered more or less completely at the end of the research document.
Hypothesis: an assumption in the context of a theory that is either proven or falsified at the end of the research document.
Thesis: an assumption that cannot be simply proven or disproven, but is discussed an argued for at the end of the research.
You may also use any combination of these. The following chapters explain the differences.
2.7 Research Question
A research question is an explicit question; either consisting of one or more individual questions, or a main question that divides into several sub-ques-tions. A research question must be answered comprehensively at the end of your research project.
A research question is answered comprehensively
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A research question should be clear and explicit. Do not state a main question that no one understands by including every parameter and limitation in a sin-gle sentence, such as: 5
“To what extent can juvenile historical novels on the theme of slavery from the national canon and published since 1984 be used for teaching literature and history in the first years of pre-university and higher secondary education and the theoretical learning pathway in preparatory secondary education?” (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 2019, p. 19)
Besides the complicated phrase, there are several issues: What will be the hy-pothesis (if any)? What are the variables to measure the ‘extent’? How is ‘usa-bility’ defined? How is a ‘theoretical learning pathway’ defined?
Since you should have presented the scope of your research already in your introduction, you could state the main question simpler and still provide more details for a potential hypothesis:
“What are implications of using juvenile historical novels on the theme of slavery for teaching literature and history in terms of:
a. understanding particular historical events;
b. comparative literature study; and
c. ideological disruption of the national canon?”
In this case, the detail statements provide the variables that ‘implications’ refer to, which may finally lead to a hypothesis, such as ‘Use of juvenile historical novels distorts historical understanding’.
Another example shows a case with multiple individual main questions:
“The research question is divided into three parts:
a) What is the degree of adoption of strategic management practices among the local authorities in terms of control mechanisms?
b) What are the contributing factors for local authorities in successfully adopting the strategic management practices?
c) How do the factors leadership traits and organizational culture impact the adop-tion of strategic management by the local authorities?”
Whether you have multiple questions, or main and sub-questions, they should
be linked to each other
be researchable; they should not be formulated in terms that are so ab-stract that they cannot be converted into researchable terms;
have some connection to established theory and research; and
provide a reasonably significant contribution to your area of study.
5 Ironically, this sentence can be found on a website as an example on how to state research questions.
Did you get the question?
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2.8 Hypothesis
A hypothesis is an unconfirmed assumption in the context of an existing the-ory. In the course of the research it is either supported by evidence or rejected. An example: Trompenaar’s model of cultural dimensions distinguishes be-tween neutral and affective cultures, i.e. those that tend to hide emotions and those that are willing to show emotions in their behavior, respectively (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 2011, p. 91). If we accept this model, a hy-pothesis might be:
If teams consist of representatives of neutral and affective cultures, the chance of con-flicts increases.
There are several characteristics of hypotheses:
A hypothesis is either confirmed by evidence or rejected.
A confirmed hypothesis supports the model or theory (which is a col-lection of confirmed hypotheses).
A rejected hypothesis will either lead to questioning the underlying as-sumptions or it may even challenge its fundamental theory.
A hypothesis cannot be conclusively verified, but it can be falsified.
The latter refers to the possibility to prove that the hypothesis is wrong. In the above case: if a single instance exists, where these mixed teams show a de-crease in conflicts, the hypothesis is proven wrong. Keep in mind that hypoth-eses need rationales (i.e., a theory or a well-defined model); they are not sup-posed to be based solely on intuition.
2.9 Thesis
A thesis is an assertion that cannot be completely validated or invalidated; there will always be an antithesis (else, it would be not a thesis). However, you try to find strong arguments for the thesis during your research. In contrast to a hypothesis, a thesis is not necessarily part of a theory and might even con-tradict established views. An example of a thesis is:
Trompenaar’s model of cultural dimension is useless in a scientific sense.
There are for sure some scientists that will contradict this statement. And they usually have strong arguments. However, the question whether a culture can be modelled is still subject to discussion, and thus it is a good example for a thesis. The argumentation might be:
Practice shows that cultures cannot be categorized in a stereotypic manner. In fact, there are many situations where multiple cultural dimensions can be assigned inconsistently to the same culture. In addition, the bipolar assignment of dimension implicates a quan-tification that is not supported by any evidence. And: the approach has been constructed in the framework of values of western cultures; thus, its neutrality can be doubted.
While these arguments are strong and cannot be easily invalidated, they still have counterarguments.
A hypothesis is proven true or false
Hypotheses need rationales
A thesis is not answered conclusively
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2.10 Literature Review
This section references the most important texts related to the research objec-tive. Please keep in mind, that the research proposal just contains a prelimi-nary literature review, which is extended in the subsequent research (or your master thesis).
The common strategy for a literature review is to proceed from the general, wider view of the research to the specific problem. In practical terms, it is nec-essary to have an overall picture of how the thread runs through your analysis of the literature before you can get down to writing a section of your research design.
The following example shows some selected paragraphs of a paper on the topic of leadership style in construction management:
“Construction companies must utilize planning, organizing, leading and controlling, known as the four basic management functions. Project managers should possess these functions in order to successfully manage construction projects.
Researchers in construction management have unequivocally reiterated the fact that [the] project manager is one of the most important success factors of projects. Herbert et al. have gone to an extent of quantifying cost saving of as much as 10% through a well-qualified manager (Herbert et al., 1970).
Little attention has been given in the leadership issues in construction (Bresnen et al., 1986) despite the fact that there is so much literature and research in other industries. […]
Goodwin stresses the importance of effective leadership and points out the skills required of effective project managers (Goodwin, 1993). […]
According to Walker, leadership is defined as the manner in which the project managers conduct themselves in their role in order to obtain the best performance from the people they are managing (Walker, 1996). […]
The aim of this paper is to investigate the manager’s approach to leadership in construc-tion industry. This is done by focusing on the actual leadership styles of managers in the construction industry. […]” (Panthi, Farooqui, & Ahmed, 2008)
As you can see, the literature review does not cite general concepts that are well-known the field of research. And that raises the question: What to cite?
2.11 About citation
The reader of your text will assume that facts, ideas or conclusions that are not cited are your own intellectual property. However, if you cite every triviality, you render your text unreadable and withdraw the reader’s attention:
Since the World Wide Web (Berners-Lee, 1991, p. 15) has been made available to the public (Oxford Dictionary, 2015), no other evolution (Darwin, 1889) in mankind (1. Moses 1,26) was so successful as digital (Peirce, 1886, p. 514) social (Comte, 1851, p. 123) networks (Hiltz & Turoff, 1978, p. 23). In the year (Gregor XIII, 1582, as cited in Borromea, 2002, p. 63) 2014, the Federal Statistical Office (destatis, 1953, par. 3) of Germany (Frankfurt Parliament, 1848, as cited in Obermann, 1985, p.123) found that
Introduction (no citation)
Importance of project manager
Addressing a gap
Research on leadership skills
Defining leadership
Defining the research objective
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29 million (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2014, p. 134) people were connected over Internet (ARPA, 1969, p. 244) using social media (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010, p. 12).
You can readily assume that the reader has some basic knowledge in the field; consequently, you can leave out the citation for the common knowledge and just cite where the data came from:
Since the World Wide Web has been made available to the public, no other evolution in mankind was so successful as digital social networks. In the year 2014, the Federal Sta-tistical Office of Germany found that 29 million people were connected over Internet using social media (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2014, p. 134).
If you now remove the invaluable information, you will arrive at a good sci-entific statement:
In Germany, 29 million people were connected over the Internet in 2014. (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2014, p. 134).
Keep in mind that a scientific paper needs anything but invaluable introduc-tory statements that just blow up your text.
Before we answer the question, when or when not to cite, let us reconsider what a citation is about. With a citation, you:
Acknowledge the fellow researcher that had the original idea; it is simply a matter of respect;
Direct the reader to information that supports your statements and ideas;
Demonstrate your understanding of the research context and show how you have been influenced by other authoritative sources.
With the latter in mind, the number of citations in your paper should decrease while your paper evolves. From these objectives, we can derive the recommen-dations in the following chapters.
2.12 When to cite
You may cite from any accessible source, such as peer-reviewed literature, in-ternal reports, meeting minutes, images, accessible audio or video recordings, verifiable personal communications, or something you published previously.6
But you should cite only what
what is originary and not a common concept in the field of study;
what is required for your argumentation; and
what you have read by yourself and – whenever possible – in the orig-inal language. Otherwise you run the risk of overlooking important as-pects of the concepts involved or you run into the trap of false transla-tion.
6 It may sound weird to cite yourself, but this avoids people publishing the same things re-peatedly just to enhance their publication list.
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Concerning the source, you should cite
the primary source, even it is old, if you refer to the original idea. The only valid source of Kant’s categorical imperative is the original Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals from 1785. Using any secondary source involves the risk of misinterpretation.
the secondary source only if its meaning differs from the primary source; and only if this difference is important in your context. Avoid the indirect citation (‘as cited in’) unless the original source is not acces-sible anymore.7
online sources only if equivalent peer-reviewed literature is not avail-able; e.g. patent applications from the US Patent Office, online publica-tions from government, peer-reviewed journals or encyclopedias.
magazines, newspapers, or weblogs only if they provide opinions to discuss or point to. Keep in mind that such statements merely represent the author’s opinion, which often lacks any foundation.
2.13 When Not to Cite
You will always verify the reliability of statements. If you cannot assess the reliability of a statement (which is the rule in web sources), it is useless for any argumentation. Consequently, you will not cite:
Online sources that are not peer-reviewed, such as Wikipedia. Alt-hough Wikipedia contains some excellent articles, you cannot validate their accuracy. But you may use the literature cited in the articles.
Commercial online portals. Such portals are not the source of infor-mation, but (if credible) refer to the original source, which you can cite.
Biased statements, such as about the success of Apple Inc. from the Apple website; except you address this bias.
Also, there is no need to cite:
Well-known facts and trivia that any guy you ask on the street would know, such as “Economy is understood as the system by which goods and services are produced, sold, and bought in a country or region.”
Lecture materials; even your lecturer relies on other sources (or own publications).
Unpublished intellectual property of your own.
7 An acceptable reason to cite a secondary source would be if you have problems accessing the Qumran Caves Scrolls in the original; not, that you just lack shoes to walk to the li-brary.
Old sources are still valid
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However, if you intentionally do not cite fully and correctly genuine and val-uable foreign intellectual property (thoughts, ideas, expressions, quotations, facts, or visuals), you commit plagiarism. The consequence is that your assign-ment fails.
2.14 The Citation Style
The social sciences typically follow the style recommendations of the American Psychological Association (APA style), whereas technological papers prefer the style of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). You also may use another standardized style. The following examples use APA style.
A citation refers to the name, year, and page number of the found literature. Let’s say, we want to use the definition of the term ‘project’ as it occurs in the documentation of the Project Management Institute (PMI). The source states:
“A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.” (PMI, 2013, p. 2)
A paraphrase of this quote expresses the meaning of that idea (or a part of it) using different words. The citation occurs either at the end or in the middle of a sentence:
According to PMI (2013, p. 2), projects create unique products.
If you refer to the author in your sentence, you still must provide the citation:
The US-American Project Management Institute refers with the term ‘project’ not just to products, but also to services (PMI, 2013, p. 2).
A quotation states the identical wording including any literal errors. It is put between double quotation marks (” “) and may be either a complete sentence:
According to PMI (2013), “A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result” (p. 2).
or a partial quotation:
PMI (2013) believes that projects are “undertaken to create a unique product” (p. 2).
With quotations of more than a sentence, use an indented block quotation:8
ISO 21500 defines project management as:
“Project management is the application of methods, tools, techniques and compe-tences to a project. Project management includes the integration of the various phases of the project life cycle. Project management is accomplished through pro-cesses.” (ISO, 2015, p. 15)
The full stop usually goes outside the parentheses, if the quotation is part of the sentence. However, if the quotation already contains a full stop and is an individual sentence (as in the above example), no further full stop is added.
8 Try to avoid block quotations, unless you want to discuss them extensively. Ultimately, we want to read your ideas, not those of other authors.
Don’t commit plagiarism!
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2.15 The References
References follow the generic scheme: Author. (Year). Title. Source. Access de-tails. The most important cases are:
Books: Author, A. B. (Year). Title. Location: Publisher.
Barnes, Z., Danton, R., & Dunbar, H. (2016). On corruption of Democrats from South Carolina’s 5th congressional district. Washington, DC: Netflix Inc.
Journals: Author, A. B., Author, C. D., & Author, E. F. (Year). Title of article. Title of Periodical, volume number(issue number), pages.
Stamper, D., Danton, R., & Underwood, F. (2016). House of Cards: The Second Season. Journal of Political Drama Series, 55(1), 893-896.
Web sources: Author, A. (Full date). Title. Retrieved [retrieval date] from URL
with unique date:
Loofbourow, L. (2016, March 16). How the reality of Trump’s America outpaced House of Cards. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/mar/16/ donald-trump-house-of-cards-frank-underwood-election-2016
with non-unique date or changing contents:
Idato, M. (2014, June 03). House of Cards barred from UN Security Council chamber. Retrieved Nov 3, 2016, from http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/tv-ra-dio/10227118/House-of-Cards-barred-from-UN-Security-Council-chamber
with Digital Object Identifier (DOI):
Keller, J.R. (2015). The Vice in Vice President: House of Cards and the Morality Tradi-tion. Journal of Popular Film and Television, 43(3), 111-120. doi: 10.1080/01956051.2015. 1027649
2.16 Missing Details
In some cases, required details of the source are missing. These most important cases are:
Missing author. In case the author is not provided, replace the entry with the institution that published the document.
Missing date. In historical sources, you might not find the date of publica-tion. In this case you can use ‘(n.d.)’ instead of the year.
Missing title. Where a title is missing, replace it with a description in square brackets:
Cartwright, B. (2016). [Internal Memo on IT Management]. Bonn: Siemens AG.
Missing publisher’s details are to be replaced with ‘(n.p.)’.
Missing page number. If page numbers are missing (e.g., in web docu-ments), you use a paragraph number (para. 2), a line number (line 11), or a section header in double quotation marks (“Final remarks”).
no retrieval date
document date and retrieval date
only year and DOI; no hyperlink
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But be careful: if you don’t find a date (for instance in a web document), how can you assume it is still valid? A missing date in a contemporary printed source renders it useless. The same applies if no author (person or institution) exists.
I strongly recommend using a bibliographic tool or the corresponding func-tion of your text processor, such as Insert Citation in Microsoft Word or Biblio-graphic Entry in OpenOffice. Make sure that you fill out the required fields completely.
More examples can be found in the Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue Uni-versity (Purdue OWL, 2018) or the IEEE Author Center (IEEE, 2018).
2.17 Research Design
Assuming you already have made sense of the literature, and that you know its role in your proposal, this section identifies what is necessary to carry out the research. It focuses on analysis and research techniques that could deliver the information you need to answer the research questions. The design in-cludes:
Epistemological paradigm and research methodology; discuss the re-search paradigm and why it is suitable for the research. Reflect the assump-tions of the methodology/paradigm and why they are appropriate for the research topic.
Research approach; descriptive, exploratory, explanatory, or predictive.
Research methods; describe the methods and instruments used (e.g. case study, interviews, questionnaire, survey, mathematical modelling) and ar-gue why they are most appropriate for the study.
Population and sample; define the population for the research (such as re-search site, country, culture, etc.) and the sample (participants, data selec-tion, etc.)
Sampling method; describe the sampling method including details of sam-pling; for instance, the number of interviews or the required number of questionnaire responses.
Data analysis and interpretation; describe variable types and how the data will be analyzed, such as regression analysis, factor analysis, or content analysis.
Validity and reliability; discuss validation of proposed causal relation-ships and validity of proposed generalizations (internal/external validity) with respect to the reliability of the results, such as reproducibility and fault tolerance.
Constraints of the study; describe potential limitations (ethical considera-tion, quality issues, risks) as well as weaknesses related to sampling and analysis methods with respect to the interpretation of the results.
Don’t create the references manually
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2.18 Research Plan
The research plan is best provided by using tables or Gantt charts. It includes:
Research schedule; a schedule for data collection, data analysis, and report-ing.
Consistency matrix; a comprehensive summary table on research tasks, ap-proaches, source and type of data, and data analysis (see Table 3).
Table 3. Consistency matrix for the research project ‘Leadership in Team’.
Sub-question
Approach
Sources
Type
Analysis
Conflict management
Descriptive
Participant Observation
Qualitative
Discourse analysis
Risk management
Explorative
Project reports
Qualitative
Quantitative
Hermeneutics
Team formation
Explorative
Observation
Interviews
Qualitative
Event analysis
Leadership factors
Predictive
Interviews
Qualitative
Formative modelling
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3 Style & Visualization
The research proposal is a formal scientific document written in a clear and unadorned English appropriate for your audience. It is a) stereotypical in terms of both lexicology and syntax; b) impersonal and suppressing the per-sonality of the author, and c) explicit, unambiguous, and precise.
3.1 Making the Difference
Understanding the meaning of words is the foundation of communication. Having said that, scientific authors can be distinguished from other writers because they
write in an unadorned language. They would not write:
We must consider that political unawareness poses a significant risk for contemporary leadership.
but: Political unawareness poses a risk for leadership.
write comprehensibly. They would not write:
A rhetorical degeneration of comprehensibility in scientific phraseology should be cir-cumvented to admit apodictic dialectics,
because they know that it just renders the message to an inapprehensible amount of hot air. They would state: It is better to write understandably.
never state trivialities, such as:
Lack of quality in products bears the risk of losing customer satisfaction,
because they know that every fellow on the street would be able to conclude that. They also would not define:
Quality is the degree of excellence,
because they know that such definition neither demarcates nor characterizes.
use correct terminology. They would not claim:
Microeconomics is a theory, because they know that a theory requires con-firmed hypotheses.
HTML is a programming language, because they know that the acronym ML refers to a markup language.
Computers are complex systems, because they know the difference between complex and complicated.
avoid meaningless phrases. They would not start a sentence with:
Obviously, there