Deadline: Thursday 14th January, 2-4pm
Substantial draft submitted by Christmas.
Research books: Judith Bell, Stella Cottrell.
Planning the project:
- write down all questions that you want to investigate
- consider each on their merits and focus on two (primary & secondary)
- write an a4 sheer for each, notes/ideas what I'm looking at and why
- what is the purpose of the study?
- is your question researchable?
- working title
Choose an appropriate title
- ideally the title should provide a thesis or an answerable assertion
- you might opt for a tile and subtitle
- make notes of the key questions that your research raises as you go along, try to encapsulate all of these in the overarching title
- no more than 15-20 words
- choose the appropriate tone
- discuss this with your tutor at the first tutorial
Project Outline
- consider timings
- Think about working title and the different component parts that need researching
- introduction last
- visits, contact?
- allocate timings to each
- draw up a project outline based on the above
- allow generous time for initial reading and writing up
Literature Search
- survey existing material
- who are the specialists
- which writers and websites are the most important/relevant
- key texts on chosen topic
- focus your reading based on an initial assessment of this survey
- secondary sources/criticisms of key texts (Triangulation)
- use journals (www.jstor.org)
Referencing
- start compiling a bibliography at the beginning (complete as you go)
Structure
- a dissertation should be separated into chapters
- each chapter should ideally evidence a different theoretical/methodological approach
- chapters can be quite different in focus - hopefully the introduction will explain why you have chosen a certain structure
