Proposal Writing for Business

Research Projects

This book helps students with the initial phases of their business research
project, offering a clear step-by-step approach from defining aims and
research questions through to conducting literature reviews and writing a
methodology.
Features to aid learning include chapter objectives, plentiful real-life
examples to demonstrate good practice, exercises to apply the concepts and
further reading for proactive investigation.
A self-contained guide to every stage of writing an effective business
research proposal, this text should be recommended reading for all advanced
undergraduate and postgraduate students studying Business Research
Methods and embarking on a research project of their own.

Dr Peter Samuels graduated with a first class honours in mathematics from

Cambridge University and a PhD in mathematics and cognitive psychology
from the University of Reading. He currently works as Senior Lecturer in
Research Practice in the Business School of Birmingham City University.
He leads undergraduate and master’s level dissertation modules with about
1,000 students per year. He is passionate about developing both staff and
students into competent academics and researchers. He is a self-taught
academic writing tutor and previously set up and led a statistics advisory
service at his university. He is involved in project and voluntary work in
East Africa where he trains doctoral students in research proposal writing
and research methods. He has published widely in mathematics education,
research methods and learning development.
Routledge Focus on Business and Management

The fields of business and management have grown exponentially as areas

of research and education. This growth presents challenges for readers try-
ing to keep up with the latest important insights. Routledge Focus on Busi-
ness and Management presents small books on big topics and how they
intersect with the world of business research.
Individually, each title in the series provides coverage of a key academic
topic, whilst collectively, the series forms a comprehensive collection across
the business disciplines.

Neuroscience and Entrepreneurship Research

Researching Brain-Driven Entrepreneurship
Víctor Pérez Centeno

Proposal Writing for Business Research Projects

Peter Samuels

Systems Thinking and Sustainable Healthcare Delivery

Ben Fong

Gender Diversity and Inclusion at Work

Divergent Views from Turkey
Zeynep Özsoy, Mustafa Şenyücel and Beyza Oba

Management and Visualisation

Seeing Beyond the Strategic
Gordon Fletcher

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/

Routledge-Focus-on-Business-and-Management/book-series/FBM
Proposal Writing for Business
Research Projects

Peter Samuels
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Peter Samuels
The right of Peter Samuels to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-032-22721-4 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-032-25812-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-28513-7 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003285137

Typeset in Times New Roman

by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents

Preface x
Why this book? x
A bear eating fish x
Who is this book written for? x
What is unique about this book? xi
Who is the author? xi

Acknowledgements xii
Reference xii

Introduction 1
Context 1
What is a proposal? 1
Why write a proposal? 1
What makes a good proposal? 2
Added benefits 2
Types of dissertation 2
Outline of the rest of this book 4
References 5

PART ONE
Selecting and presenting your topic 7

1 Selecting your topic 9

Introduction 9
The creative process 9
The importance of data 12
vi Contents
Other topic selection strategies 13
Qualities of a good topic 13
A final word 14
References 14

2 Writing your front matter 15

Introduction 15
Writing your title 15
Writing your aim 15
Writing your objectives 18
Writing your research questions 19
Exercises 19

PART TWO
Academic writing 21

3 Structuring your proposal 23

Introduction 23
Essential and optional elements of a proposal 23
Using section numbering 24

4 Academic writing style 27

Introduction: busting a common myth 27
Use the third person, passive voice 27
Some dos and don’ts 28
Avoiding subjective writing 31
Use hedging 32
Reference 33

5 Using evidence 34
Introduction 34
Backing up specific claims 34
Avoiding plagiarism 35
Quoting 35
Summarising 37
Reference 38
 Contents vii
6 Paragraph writing 39
Introduction 39
Definition 39
Length 39
Structure 40
Using transitional words 41
Examples 41

7 Argumentation 44
Introduction 44
Two styles 44
Examples 45
Argument planning 46
Example 47
Exercise 49
Reference 50

PART THREE
Writing the rest of your proposal 51

8 Writing the rest of your introduction 53

Introduction 53
Writing your background 53
Example 54
Writing your problem statement 54
Example 54
Additional parts 56
Example 56

9 Literature reviews 58
Introduction 58
General principles 58
Obtaining evidence 59
Deciding on your themes 62
Including theory 63
Including critical analysis 64
viii Contents
Concluding your review 67
Exercise 68
References 69

10 Conceptual frameworks 70
Introduction 70
General advice 70
Examples 71
Exercise 72
References 72

11 Writing your methodology/method section 73

Introduction: why the name confusion? 73
Purpose and argumentation style 73
Structure 74
Philosophy 75
Approach 75
Strategy 76
Data collection 80
Validity, reliability and hypotheses 81
Data analysis 81
Ethics 83
Limitations 84
Common mistakes 84
Evaluating methodology/method sections: DECJAD 85
Exercise 86
References 86

12 Producing a schedule 88
Gantt charts 88
Research phases 90
Accompanying narrative 90
Exercise 92

13 Referencing 93
Introduction 93
Citing 93
 Contents ix
Tables and figures 95
Reference lists 95
References 98

PART FOUR
Beyond your proposal 99
Introduction 99

14 Time and stress management 101

Time management 101
Stress management 105
References 107

15 Your supervisory relationship 108

Introduction 108
Have correct expectations 109
Preparing for supervisions 110
Learn to be assertive 111
Tips for a successful relationship 112
References 114

16 Next steps in your research 116

Introduction 116
Responding to your proposal feedback 116
Drafting your introduction chapter 117
Doing and drafting your full literature review 117
Drafting your methodology/method chapter 118
Requesting ethics approval 118
Designing your data collection instrument 118
Bibliography 119

Index 120
Preface

Why this book?

Hello. My name is Dr Peter Samuels and I work for Birmingham City Uni-
versity. Taylor & Francis asked me to write this book because they had seen
some of my online resources (such as Samuels, 2017), and thought I might
be able to write a book to help business students undertaking dissertations.
As far as we are aware, this is the first book on research proposal writing
specifically for business students. Proposal writing is the important initial
phase in doing a dissertation project. It combines many aspects of the whole
dissertation process. We believe this specialist book on proposal writing in
the context of doing a business dissertation project will be a useful resource
to many students.

A bear eating fish

The main message of this book is the importance of putting the reader
first. I like to think of writing proposals like a bear eating a fish as shown
in Figure 0.1.
The fish represents your proposal. The bear represents your target reader –
the proposal reviewer. You can see that this bear has too many fish to eat so it
will focus on eating the high-protein parts. In the same way, proposal review-
ers are busy people and probably have many proposals to read in a short period
of time. Therefore, they will be looking for certain essential elements in your
proposal, which you can think of as the high-protein parts. By following the
principles explained in this book you will be able to give them a good taste.

Who is this book written for?

This book is written for final-year undergraduate and master’s business
students undertaking a dissertation. It might also be relevant to doctoral
students, especially those for whom English is an additional language. The
 Preface xi

Figure 0.1 Bear eating fish

content is also largely relevant to social science dissertations, although the

examples are all taken from the business context.

What is unique about this book?

Apart from the title, this book uses actual business students’ examples of
writing.
It also emphasises academic writing development within the proposal
writing process.
There are also some appendices at the end which address the next steps
in the dissertation supervision process.

Who is the author?

I am Senior Lecturer in Research Practice. I work in the Business School at
Birmingham City University. I have been teaching dissertation writing for
over ten years. I am responsible for teaching and coordinating the supervi-
sion of over 800 undergraduate and master’s dissertations students every
year. I am also involved in voluntary work in East Africa where I teach
intensive courses on proposal writing to doctoral students.
Acknowledgements

I would sincerely like to thank four dissertation students from Birmingham

City University who allowed me to use their proposals as examples in this
book. Their first names are Kate, Mollie, Tappasiya and Thomas. Each of
them was awarded a distinction grade for their proposal but their work was
not perfect. They therefore provide useful examples for learning purposes.
I would also like to thank my colleague Andrew Hambler for being my
critical friend in the writing of this book.

Reference
Samuels, P. C. (2017) How to write a PhD proposal. Technical report. ResearchGate.
Available at: www.researchgate.net/publication/322077097_How_to_Write_a_
PhD_Proposal.
Introduction

Context
This book assumes that you are undertaking a research project in the aca-
demic subject of business as part of your undergraduate or master’s degree.
Business includes areas such as business management, human resource
management, leadership, supply chain management, business information
systems, entrepreneurship, marketing, economics, finance and accounting.

What is a proposal?
A proposal is a statement of what you intend to do. Proposals are com-
monly required in many areas of research as they encourage the researcher
to think about, decide on and articulate what exactly they are planning
to do. This provides an excellent opportunity for them to receive feedback
at the formative stage of their research which can improve their perfor-
mance and reduce the risk of them going in the wrong direction.

Why write a proposal?

Most undergraduate and master’s level students are required to write a pro-
posal for their dissertation projects. This comes at the start of their projects.
It is likely to form part of their dissertation assessment with its own assign-
ment brief and marking scheme. However, this is not the main real reason
for writing a proposal.
The real purpose of a proposal is to persuade the academic staff respon-
sible for reviewing proposals that you have chosen a viable research proj-
ect in a context which you understand, and that you have a credible plan
to carry it out.
Proposal reviewers are busy people (remember the bear and the fish met-
aphor from the preface). They will not be impressed by long words, long

DOI: 10.4324/9781003285137-1
2 Introduction
sentences, a long document, or complex ideas. Instead, they are looking
for interesting ideas and to be persuaded by a clear and concise argument
that is correctly structured.

What makes a good proposal?

The first and most important aspect of a good proposal is to choose a good
topic. This means that it should be within the scope of your course, of
interest and importance to some group of people and narrowly focused
so that it is original and achievable.
Secondly, your argument for choosing your topic (known as your ratio-
nale) needs to be clear and persuasive.
Thirdly, you need to demonstrate that you understand the context of
your chosen topic in your background and literature review.
Fourthly, you need to have a credible and persuasive plan for collecting
and analysing your data (your method), the theoretical context of this plan
(your methodology) and its practical outworking over the time available
(your schedule).
Finally, your proposal needs to be well written and presented and fol-
low the correct academic writing conventions.

Added benefits
Proposal writing is the first phase on the dissertation journey and the first
subject for discussion with your supervisor. It therefore acts as a gateway
into your research experience.
Learning how to write a good proposal can help you to become a bet-
ter academic writer. I do voluntary work helping doctoral students in other
countries understand these principles because I have seen that this can
change their lives and open doors for them.

Types of dissertation
All dissertations involve the systematic collection and analysis of data.
However, in some places in this book, it is important to understand the dif-
ferences between three main types of dissertation. These are distinguished
by the type of data that is being collected and how it is being analysed,
as shown in Table 0.1.
The three main types of dissertation are:

1 The normal primary research dissertation involves the researcher

collecting and analysing some data themselves, for example by car-
rying out a questionnaire or interviews.
 Introduction 3
Table 0.1 Types of dissertation

Collected data
Primary (you) Secondary (others)

Analysis Primary 1. Normal primary research 2. Secondary data primary

(you) dissertation analysis dissertation
Secondary 3. Systematic review
(others)

2 The secondary data primary analysis dissertation involves the

researcher analysing a data set that someone else has already col-
lected. This could be data on the financial performance of organisations
or some form of textual data already available in the public domain,
such as customer comments on a product, advertising on social media
or company reports. However, this does not include published journal
articles.
3 The systematic review dissertation involves the researcher carrying
out a systematic secondary analysis of data which was collected,
analysed and published by other researchers. The main kind of data
used is published journal articles.

Both the normal primary research dissertation and the secondary data pri-
mary analysis dissertation involve carrying out a literature review before
the data is collected and analysed. This kind of review is known as a narra-
tive review as it does not follow a systematic method.
However, in the systematic review dissertation, the literature review
replaces the systematic collection and analysis of other kinds of data.
This means that the review should follow a prescribed method, known
as a protocol. The topic of a systematic review style dissertation is usu-
ally broader in scope than for the other two kinds of dissertation. For
a recent publication on business systematic reviews, please see (Paul
et al., 2021).
It is also useful at this stage to explain three common terms relating to
types of research:

• Quantitative research refers to the collection and analysis of measur-

able quantities, such as numbers and frequencies
• Qualitative research refers to the collection and evaluation or inter-
pretation of data which is often in open textual form
• Mixed methods research refers to a combination of qualitative and
quantitative research
4 Introduction
Outline of the rest of this book
The rest of this book is divided into four parts:

Part 1: Selection and presenting your topic

The first part covers the topic selection and presentation process. Chapter 1
is about how to select a topic. Chapter 2 explains how to present your topic
in what is known as its front matter.

Part 2: Academic writing

The second part covers some of the principles of academic writing. The dif-
ferent competencies involved in academic writing can be viewed as a tree,
as shown in Figure I.1.
The competencies below the red dotted line are to do with writing gen-
eral English rather than academic English (known as functional skills). For
more information on these please refer to Bailey (2018) and Gillett (2021).
All the other competencies are covered in this part except for document
genre (as proposals are a type of document genre).

Critical thinking Critical analysis

Document genre Literary subgenre

Using evidence Argumentation Reader psychology

Academic writing style Structuring

Paragraph writing

Sentence construction

Grammar

Vocabulary Spelling Punctuation

Figure I.1 The academic writing tree

 Introduction 5
Chapter 3 explains how to structure your proposal. Chapter 4 introduces
basic aspects of academic writing style. Chapter 5 covers issues of academic
integrity, including the correct use of evidence and avoiding plagiarism.
Chapter 6 explains the principles of paragraph writing. Chapter 7 Intro-
duces the two main argumentation styles and how to plan your argument.

Part 3: Writing your proposal

The third part of this book is about how to write the other essential parts of
your proposal.
Chapter 8 covers writing the other parts of the introduction, including
the background and the problem statement. Chapter 9 goes into depth on
researching and writing a proposal literature review. Chapter 10 introduces
conceptual frameworks. Chapter 11 explains how to write a methodology/
method section. Chapter 12 is about writing a project plan and Chapter 13
covers how to cite and reference correctly.

Part 4: Beyond your proposal

The fourth part of this book provides advice on the next steps after you
submit your proposal.
Chapter 14 covers time and stress management. Chapter 15 explains how
to get the most out of your supervisory relationships and Chapter 16 intro-
duces the next tasks to focus on after you submit your proposal.

References
Bailey, S. (2018) Academic writing: A handbook for international students. 5th edn.
Abingdon: Routledge.
Gillett, A. (2021) Using English for academic purposes for students in higher edu-
cation: Academic writing. Available at: www.uefap.com/writing/writfram.htm.
Paul, J., Merchant, A., Dwivedi, Y. K. and Rose, G. (2021) Writing an impactful
review article: What do we know and what do we need to know? Journal of Busi-
ness Research, 133, pp. 337–340. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.05.005.
Part One

Selecting and presenting

your topic
1 Selecting your topic

Introduction
Coming up with a good topic idea is one of the hardest parts of the proposal
writing process and maybe also the most important. The education system
in most countries is focused on developing convergent thinking. How-
ever, topic selection involves creativity which includes divergent thinking.
Selecting a good topic also involves reading, evaluating and identifying a
viable data source as shown in Figure 1.1.
We shall explore these aspects in turn in the rest of this chapter.

The creative process

As mentioned above, the creative process involves both divergent and conver-
gent thinking. It is the divergent aspect which many students find disturbing.
Creative breakthroughs often come unexpectedly. After making a break-
through there is still often a validation stage to confirm that the idea can work.
The most widely accepted model of the creative process was proposed by
Henri Poincaré (1908). It has four stages:

• Preparation – conscious work on a problem

• Incubation – unconscious work
• Illumination – a sudden insight (known as a gestalt)
• Verification – a second phase of conscious work to shape the insight

The preparation stage

For topic selection, the preparation stage involves identifying the scope
of possible dissertation topics and some key concepts or areas of interest.
These concepts or areas can lead to identifying keywords which can be
entered into Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.co.uk/) as search terms.
DOI: 10.4324/9781003285137-3
10 Selecting and presenting your topic

Identify Create
Read

Data
Topic Evaluate
source

Figure 1.1 The topic selection process

Source: (Samuels, 2021)

Figure 1.2 Output from the first Google Scholar search

Source: (Google, 2022a)

Google Scholar is a really useful tool to use at this stage. Later on in lit-
erature search we recommend using the front search engine from your uni-
versity library or specific databases. Google Scholar prioritises the sources
with the best match and also those considered to be the most important
academically as measured by the citation rate (the number of citations
obtained per year).

Example
A master’s student is interested in the implementation of new information
and communication technology (ICT) systems in small and medium-sized
enterprises (SMEs) in the Nigerian retail sector. This could lead to a Google
Scholar search using the following keywords, ict, retail, sme and nigeria,
giving the result shown in Figure 1.2.
 Selecting your topic 11
There are about 9,700 matching articles (or hits). The first hit has received
96 citations since 2011 (i.e. in 11 years). The second hit has received 25
citations since 2013. The third hit has 25 citations over five years. So the cita-
tion rate of the first article is the highest. All three articles are available as
PDFs but the first and the second ones may require creating a ResearchGate
account before you can access them. ResearchGate (www.researchgate.
net/) is an academic social networking site. The articles are about different
aspects of ICT adoption by SMEs in Nigeria. None of these three articles
seem to mention the retail sector.
In order to emphasise the need to identify articles specifically concerning
retail, a second search was undertaken with the following search terms: ict,
“retail sector”, sme, and nigeria. Putting quotation marks around the phrase
retail sector limits the search to articles which match this whole phrase. The
results of the search are shown in Figure 1.3.
This second search returned with over 2,500 hits. This first hit seems to
be a good match. It has a good citation rate, was published in the last ten
years, and is available as a PDF. It would therefore seem to be a good article
for the student to download and read. The subject is a particular kind of ICT
system (e-commerce) and seems to be limited to small retail businesses
rather than medium-sized ones. However, it would require further reading
to know exactly what definition is being used and how relevant it is to the
student’s initial idea.
The goal at this stage is not to be systematic in the literature search-
ing, but rather to find some relevant research articles to establish what has
already been studied and what is already known in the field. Clearly, the

Figure 1.3 Output from the second Google Scholar search

Source: (Google, 2022b)
12 Selecting and presenting your topic
scope of the student’s proposed research is currently too broad to be unique
as there already appears to be articles published on this subject.
The preparation phase ends with obtaining a few relevant research arti-
cles and reading the most relevant parts of them. The goal of the next two
stages is for the student to identify a unique topic that they can realistically
investigate.

The incubation and illumination stages

The incubation stage is hard to explain in detail as it involves the subcon-
scious. The best time for this is when you are asleep or relaxing, thinking
about something completely different. Talking through your ideas with other
people, writing down your reflections, or doing something recreational with a
low verbal content (such as playing sport, cooking, listening to music, playing
an instrument, or doing some physical exercise) might also help stimulate this
process.
The outcome of this process is the illumination stage. This is where your
preparation such as reading, understanding the need to be focused and origi-
nal and your practical opportunities to collect data causes an idea to come
to mind.

The importance of data

The other part of Figure 1.1 we have not yet covered is the identification
of a data source. This is critical for selecting a good topic. Dissertations
are essentially about identifying, obtaining and systematically analysing
data.

Example
Following on from the previous example, the supervisor asked the master’s
student why she was interested in the implementation of ICT systems in
Nigerian retail SMEs. She replied that it was because of her family business
and the examples of good practice she had seen in UK retail SMEs, and she
was wondering what might be applicable in Nigeria. This enabled the super-
visor to identify one source of data – the family business in Nigeria, which
could be framed as a case study. Another possible source of data would be
the retail SMEs in the UK that the student admired, but these might require
a different form of data collection.
This helps to narrow down the student’s topic onto one specific retail
SME in Nigeria along with a comparison with retail SMEs in the UK.
 Selecting your topic 13
Other topic selection strategies
Horn (2012: 12–17) suggests some other topic selection strategies:

• Career goals – if you know what career you want to get into after you
graduate, this strategy involves making contacts with people already
working in this area. It could take the form of finding out more about
what they do or how the managed to end up in their roles. Your disserta-
tion then becomes a vehicle for building a network and promoting your
interest in working in this field. This can be particularly useful in the
creative industries where many opportunities arise through relational
networking rather than traditional job advertising.
• Solving a practical problem – if you already have a part-time job, or
you are closely associated with a business, you may have identified
something which could be improved in the way this business operates.
This strategy means using your dissertation to precisely define what
the issue is that needs to be improved then designing a solution. You
might also implement and evaluate a solution; this is known as action
research. However, when you present your topic in your proposal (see
Chapter 8) it should be in the form of a problem that needs to be solved,
not a solution you have already come up with.
• Tutor-driven – if you are allowed to suggest or choose your own
supervisor, you might have access to their research profile. Looking
at what they have already published could be the basis for selecting
a topic which might be of interest to them and hence improve your
chances of a good supervision relationship.

Qualities of a good topic

Here are some qualities of a good topic (see also Horn, 2012: 19):

• It relates to theory (a theory is a recognised system of related con-

cepts which explain how something works in a general sense) – you
should not choose a topic that is entirely practical; you need to be able
to theorise what you are planning to do in some way.
• It can be defined concisely – see Chapter 2.
• It is a business topic, so it needs to relate to individuals, groups or
organisations and your potential findings should be relevant to (some
of) them.
• It should be achievable within the timeframe available.
• It should be easy to access the data – see above.
14 Selecting and presenting your topic
• It should comply with your university’s regulations (such as ethical and
safe data collection).
• It should have some element of originality – this is often achieved
through unique data being analysed. You should also search the litera-
ture to ensure that you are not replicating someone else’s work exactly.
• Finally, you should personally find it interesting – this is very impor-
tant later in the research process as interesting topics foster intrinsic
motivation which can help you to have finishing energy.

Evaluating whether your topic idea has these qualities aligns with the veri-
fication stage of the creative process introduced above.

A final word
Topic selection often feels like a somewhat random, chaotic or haphazard
process. This can be disturbing if you are used to being told what to do,
especially as it comes at the start of your research project. It is important
to do this well because the overall success of your project often depends
directly on the quality of your chosen topic.
Often your first idea will not work. It is important to be patient and give
time and space for your subconscious to work. If you realise that you have
to change your initial idea, try to modify it rather than starting over again
from scratch.

References
Google (2022a) Output from Google Scholar UK with search terms ict retail sme
nigeria. Available at: https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&
q=ict+retail+sme+nigeria&btnG=.
Google (2022b) Output from Google Scholar UK with search terms ict “retail sec-
tor” sme nigeria. Available at: https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&as_
sdt=0%2C5&q=ict+%22retail+sector%22+sme+nigeria&btnG=.
Horn, R. (2012) Researching and writing dissertations: A complete guide for busi-
ness and management students. 2nd edn. London: CIPD.
Poincaré, H. (1908) L’invention mathématique. Bulletin de l’Institut Général de
Psychologie, 8e année(3), pp. 175–196.
Samuels, P. C. (2021) Dissertations in 20 steps – a platonic discussion. Technical
report. ResearchGate. Available at: www.researchgate.net/publication/349640639_
Dissertations_in_20_Steps_-_a_Platonic_Discussion.
2 Writing your front matter

Introduction
Front matter is the name I use for the essential information that defines
your research topic. This is your title, your aim, your objectives and your
research questions. Each of these has its own style of writing (known as
its genre). They also need to be consistent with each other in meaning. The
relationship between them is shown in Figure 2.1.
We shall explore each of these in turn.

Writing your title

Your title should describe your topic clearly and concisely. It should not be
more than about 20 words long. It should also indicate the context for your
research in some way so that the reader can see that it can be achieved in
the timescale available.

Example
Table 2.1 provides an evaluation of the titles of the four example proposals
(see the Acknowledgement in the Preface for more information).

Writing your aim

Your aim should explain what you are seeking to achieve in your
research study. A good word to start your aim is “to” as this forces it
to be expressed using a verb. It should be consistent with your title but
it can explain the context of your work in a little more depth. A sug-
gested maximum length for an aim statement is two sentences or up to
40 words.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003285137-4
16 Selecting and presenting your topic

Objective
These must
be consistent
RQ Objective

Title Aim RQ Objective

RQ Objective
These might
be consistent Or these Objective
might be
consistent
Usually 1 to 5 3 to 7
only 1

Figure 2.1 Relationship between title, aim, research questions and objectives

Example
Here is Mollie’s aim:

My main aim for this research project is to research into what loopholes
people are finding in taxation policies and any ways to prevent them
from happening. I aim to get as many responses as possible from uni-
versity students, working adults and even pensioners to see what their
opinions are and how they feel about the current situations regarding
their understanding of taxation policies, loopholes in the policies and
the detrimental effect that coronavirus has had on the UK’s taxation
situation. I hope to be able to explain some methods that the govern-
ment can use to recover some of their lost taxes from the effects of the
pandemic in 2020.

Here are some observations on Mollie’s aim:

• It is consistent with her title and gives more detail (this is a good thing).
• It uses inappropriate personal language – see Chapter 4.
• It is too long for an aim statement (110 words).
• Her proposed research seems to be rather wide-ranging, involving
knowledge of loopholes, attitudes towards tax policies and tax avoid-
ance and suggestions of how the UK Government should address these
in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. One, or possibly at most two
of these would have been sufficient for a dissertation.
 Writing your front matter 17
Table 2.1 Example proposal titles and their evaluation

Proposal Title Evaluation

Kate An analysis on the effectiveness It looks like Kate will be using

of regional integration on secondary economic data. It
economic growth in the East sounds rather broad in scope so
African Community (EAC) it might not be original. Do not
introduce or use abbreviations
in titles.
Mollie What should the government do This title is written as a
to handle loopholes in their combination of two related
taxation policies and how questions. Avoid using rhetoric
has COVID-19 affected the (asking questions) in titles.
way the government should Again, the scope of this research
implement their taxation sounds rather broad based on
policies in the future? just the title.
Tappasiya Customer satisfaction towards Again, this research sounds rather
online shopping with broad in scope and unoriginal.
reference to Amazon What aspects of customer
satisfaction are being considered
(e.g. price, quality, payment,
delivery, customer service,
online experience)? What kind of
product? Are specific customer
markets being identified?
Thomas Investigating the cross-cultural This project sounds interesting
management issues within a and suitably narrow in scope.
Japanese business’ European However, it is only achievable if
headquarters: A comparative Thomas has access to a suitable
study between European and source of data (such as a single
Japanese employees in the case study organisation). It might
workplace also be helpful to identify a type
of cross-cultural management
issue, such as communication,
or different cultural values or
behaviour.

• Mollie’s project also involves a broad cross-section of adults. However,

it is good that she is thinking about data. Getting as much data as possible
is a good strategy in quantitative research but not necessarily in qualita-
tive research. Once Mollie has established her access to data, it might be
better for her to narrow her project down to one of these groups.
• Choosing a topic of current concern makes it more interesting to non-
specialist readers.
• There are so many parts to Mollie’s aim that it really also includes her
objectives.
18 Selecting and presenting your topic
Writing your objectives
Your objectives should be more specific than your aim. They should explain
how your aim is going to be achieved. This means that carrying out all of
your objectives should mean that you have achieved your aim. Like your
aim, your objectives should be written as actions, and it is best to start them
with the word “to”.
Objectives should all be specific to your context. They should also
be written in a logical order. There are two main ways this can be
achieved:

1 By splitting up the content of your aim into different aspects

2 By considering the different stages of the process of carrying out your
research

Example
Here are Thomas’ objectives:

• To conduct a secondary literature review of the Japanese and Euro-

pean professional working cultures
• To explore the cultural similarities between Japanese and European
workers in the workplace using questionnaires and interviews of
these workers in the workplace
• To examine how corporate Japanese management communicate with
European subordinates in the workplace
• To investigate the effectiveness of communication between European
and Japanese co-workers in comparison to communication within their
own culture

Here are some observations on Thomas’ objectives:

• They are written in the correct genre with four objectives in a logical
order starting with the word “to”
• Thomas starts by using the second way of writing objectives then
switches to the first way half-way through:
• His first and second objectives link to stages in the research pro-
cess as they mention doing a literature review and doing question-
naires and interviews
• His third and fourth do not and seem to be more to do with the
content of his title and aim
 Writing your front matter 19
Writing your research questions
Research questions are the questions that the study is seeking to answer. Some
studies have several research questions whilst others have a main research ques-
tion which is split into sub-questions. For a proposal, a main research question
that is consistent with the title and the aim is sufficient. Alternatively, the
research questions might be consistent with the objectives written in the
form of questions.

Examples
Kate’s main research question is:

With regards to the East African Community (EAC), what impact has
regional integration had on economic growth in the region?

This is consistent with her title (see above).

Mollie has two research questions:

1 How can the government stop people from taking advantage of loop-
holes in taxation policies?
2 How much of an impact has coronavirus has on the spending of gov-
ernment taxes?

These questions appear to only cover part of her research topic as defined
by her aim. There is no mention of what knowledge taxpayers have or what
measures the UK Government should be taking.

Exercises
1 Turn Mollie’s title from a combination of two questions into a single
description of her topic in about 20 words
2 Rewrite Mollie’s aim so it becomes consistent with her title but includes
a little more context and is about 40 words long
3 Rewrite Thomas’ objectives so that they follow the first main way of
writing objectives and do not mention the research process
4 Add some research questions to Mollie’s front matter so that they cover
all the elements of her existing aim
Part Two

Academic writing
3 Structuring your proposal

Introduction
A proposal is a structured document. As the emphasis of this book is on
providing a clear and concise argument for your reader, we recommend that
you refer to it as containing sections rather than chapters.
We recommend only using a two-level structure of sections and subsec-
tions. A three-level structure of sections, subsections and subsubsections is
too much structure for a concise proposal. Furthermore, not every section
needs to be divided into subsections.

Essential and optional elements of a proposal

The essential elements of a proposal are:

• A title
• An introduction section including a background, a problem statement,
an aim, objectives and one or more research questions
• A literature review section
• Amethod and methodology section (either word on its own is acceptable)
• A project plan (this is sometimes included in the methodology section)
• A reference list

These are the elements covered in Chapter 2 and Part 3 of this book.
Some optional elements of a proposal are:

• An abstract
• A table of contents (this should come straight after the title page; it is
useful with longer proposals)
• A justification or rationale for the study (part of the introduction)
• A discussion on the limitations of the study (part of the introduction)

DOI: 10.4324/9781003285137-6
24 Academic writing
• A conceptual framework (and the end of the literature review or the
start of the methodology section)
• A dissemination or impact statement (at the end of the introduction or
towards the end of the proposal)
• A budget (an appendix)
• An ethics request form (an appendix)

These may vary according to the requirements of your institution. As this

book focuses on the essential elements of proposal writing, the only one of
these that it covers is conceptual frameworks in Chapter 10.

Using section numbering

We recommend using a numbering system with sections and subsections
as follows:

1 Introduction
1.1 Background
1.2 Problem statement
1.3 Aim and objectives
1.4 Research questions
2 Literature review
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Theme 1
2.3 Theme 2
2.4 Discussion
3 Method and Methodology
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Conceptual framework
3.3 Methodology
3.4 Data collection
3.5 Data analysis
3.6 Ethics or limitations
4 Project plan
References

For more details on the recommended structure of the literature review and
the method and methodology sections please refer to Chapters 10 and 12.
 Structuring your proposal 25
It is recommended that you use a different font size and a bold font for sec-
tion and subsection titles. We also recommend that you do not put any text
between a section title and its first subsection title.

Example
Kate’s proposal follows the recommended structure quite closely. There are
just a few small differences:

• She refers to her sections with a “.0” after them, for example, 1.0 Intro-
duction, rather than just 1. Introduction. However, she has used a larger,
centred bold font to make them look distinct from her subsection titles.
• She has divided her introduction into five parts instead of four by sepa-
rating her aim from her objectives (there is nothing wrong with doing
this).
• Her literature review follows the recommended structure apart from
the final subsection, which she has called a conclusion (again, this is
somewhat a matter of taste, but there are more details in Chapter 9).
• Her methodology starts with a paragraph without a subsection title as
shown in Figure 3.1. It would have been better if she had labelled this
first paragraph as 3.1 Introduction followed by 3.2 Methodology.
• She then has subsections on data collection and data analysis but not on
ethics or limitations.

Figure 3.1 The beginning of Kate’s methodology section

26 Academic writing
• This is followed by her project plan section which contains an unneces-
sary single subsection 4.1 GANTT chart. There is no need for subsec-
tions if you only have one.
• She has also numbered her references unnecessarily as 5.0 References.
4 Academic writing style

Introduction: busting a common myth

Some students think academic writing is about using long, complex words
and sentences in order to impress academics. This is not true: academic writ-
ing is about clarity and simplicity. Words, sentences and paragraphs should
be as easy to understand as possible. They should not use unnecessary words
or phrases.
The most important issue in academic writing is to convey your argu-
ment as clearly as possible. We shall be looking in more depth at
paragraph writing in Chapter 6 and argumentation in Chapter 7. We rec-
ommend watching Foster’s (2019) excellent introductory video to aca-
demic writing.

Use the third person, passive voice

It is normally good practice to avoid personal language in academic writ-
ing. This means not using I, my, you, our, etc. This is often achieved by
using the passive voice to make claims. The passive voice means a person or
object is having something done to them rather than them being the agent
of a particular action.

Examples
Kate begins the conclusion of her literature review by writing:

It can be concluded that, with application of a good export strategy,

trade liberalization can have the desired effect on growth.

By using the phrase “It can be concluded that”, Kate is hiding herself as the
originator of this conclusion.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003285137-7
28 Academic writing
Here is another sentence from Kate’s literature review:

Nevertheless, the adoption of an effective regional export strategy is

greatly stressed.

Kate is again hiding the identity of the people making this claim. In this con-
text it may be assumed to be the wider academic community, not just herself.
In the second subsection of her literature review, Tappasiya writes:

It has been stated that a price discount provided to a customer gives

them monetary gain as well as increased incentive to purchase the
product.

By using the phrase “It has been stated that”, Tappasiya is hiding the iden-
tity of the person who made this claim. However, as this claim is more spe-
cific, it would have been better for her to have written this statement more
directly by citing the most important authors – please see Chapter 5.
Mollie begins her background by stating:

Throughout this research project I will be looking into three main themes.

Whilst it is good that Mollie is using a thematic approach to writing her back-
ground paragraphs (see Chapter 8 for more details), there is no need for her to
refer to herself or even to state what she is doing. It would have been better if she
had just started introducing her first background theme without any preamble.
At the end of his research rationale and literature gap, Thomas writes:

This has prompted the author to investigate that particular literature

gap in this study.

Rather than referring to himself indirectly, it would have been better if

Thomas had written a concluding sentence highlighting what the gap in his
literature is.

Some dos and don’ts

1. Avoid contractions
Contractions are the first way in which apostrophes are used in English.
These should be avoided in academic writing. Words need to be written
in full. Contractions such as don’t, doesn’t, hasn’t, can’t and it’s should be
replaced with do not, does not, has not, cannot and it is.
 Academic writing style 29
2. Use possessive apostrophes correctly
The second use of apostrophes in English is to indicate that something or
someone belongs to something or someone. This is known as a possessive
apostrophe. These should be used in academic writing. There are three
forms of possessive apostrophe:

• A single noun not ending in s : ‘s needs to be added at the end. For

example, the organisation’s role.
• A single noun ending in s : either an apostrophe needs to be added at
the end or ‘s. For example, either the business’ aim or the business’s
aim is acceptable.
• A plural noun: an apostrophe should be added at the end. For example,
the industrialised nations’ protectionist policies. This means the pro-
tectionist policies of several industrialised nations. The protectionist
policies of one nation would be the industrialised nation’s protectionist
policies.

Apostrophes should not be used in any other way in academic writing. A

common mistake is to add them to the plural of an acronym. For example,
the plural of SME is SMEs not SME’s.

3. Introduce acronyms before you use them

An acronym is an abbreviation for a proper noun phrase. These should be
introduced in full followed by the acronym in brackets. After this the acro-
nym should be used on its own.
For example, Thomas begins his literature review by writing:

The Literature Review will firstly introduce the theme of Cross-Cultural

Management (CCM) . . .

Later he writes: The CCM field related to organisational level studies . . .

Common acronyms, such as UK, can be assumed. However, do not assume
too many technical acronyms as your proposal needs to be accessible to non-
specialist readers.

4. Avoid Latin abbreviations

Latin abbreviations should be avoided in academic writing: e.g. should be
replaced with for example or for instance; i.e. should be replaced with in
other words or that is to say; etc. should be replaced with and so on.
30 Academic writing
One Latin abbreviation that you might use is et al., which means and oth-
ers. It is used with several alphabetical referencing systems, such as APA
and Harvard. In APA it is used to indicate several authors when a publication
has more than three authors. In Harvard style it is used when a publica-
tion has more than two authors. It should only be used in the citation and
not in the reference list.
For example, Kate is using a variant of the Harvard system. At the begin-
ning of her methodology she writes:

The decisions made are informed by the research onion (Saunders et al,
2019).

This is almost correct. It should be (Saunders et al., 2019) – that is, there
should be a full stop after al.
However, if Kate was using APA style, she should have written (Saun-
ders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2019) because et al. is not used unless there are
more than three authors.
In the reference list, Kate has written:

Saunders, M., Lewis, P., & Thornhill, A. (2019). Research Methods for
Business Students.8th ed. London: Pearson.

This has a few minor errors but is generally consistent with this variant of
Harvard.
For more information on referencing, please refer to Chapter 13.

5. Be consistent when writing numbers

Small whole numbers (ten or less) should be written in words whilst larger
numbers, numbers with decimals and percentages should be written in
figures.
For example, in her background, Kate has written “With only two decades
of history”. This is correct. It should not be “With only 2 decades of history”.
Also, in her problem, Kate has written:

leading with a projected GDP growth of over 6% in 2020 . . .

This is also correct. However, over six percent would also have been accept-
able as six is a small number.
In her methodology, Mollie has written:

The questionnaire will be offered to people over the age of 18.

 Academic writing style 31
This is also correct. It would be incorrect to write 18 as eighteen as it is
larger than ten.

6. Avoid emotive or journalistic language

In academic writing you should avoid language which inspires an emotional
reaction from your reader. Do not use colourful metaphors. Avoid using
exclamation marks.
Whilst you are trying to interest your reader and you should have some
passion about what you are writing, you need to keep your language neutral
and unemotive. You are not trying to sell copies of your work as in a news-
paper, so the attraction of your writing needs to focus on the interest, clarity
and persuasiveness of your ideas, not on your colourful, emotive style of
writing about them. Instead, you are trying to provide an academic argu-
ment that is neutral, clear and concise.
For example, in the second subsection of his literature review, Thomas writes:

The urgency to focus on intercommunication efficiency within the work

environment has only dramatically increased due to the effects of the
COVID-19 pandemic on forcing many employees to work from home
and consequently reducing the productivity of team working (van der
Lippe, 2019).

Thomas’ use of the word dramatically is inappropriate in an academic con-

text as it is emotive. A better word would be significantly which does not
create such an emotional reaction from the reader. This sentence is also
rather long and might be better split into two. If the citation relates to both
sentences, then it should be presented in the first sentence, not the second
one. This is discussed in the next chapter.
In Tappasiya’s literature she writes:

Moreover, Amazon’s return policy is phenomenal . . .

The word phenomenal is inappropriate in academic writing as it evokes an

emotional response. It would have been better if she had said:

Moreover, Amazon leads the e-commerce market with its returns policy . . .

Avoiding subjective writing

Subjective writing often incorporates poor style in some of the ways already
described. However, the main issue in subjective writing is with the poor
32 Academic writing
quality of the argument. Specific claims made without evidence to sup-
port them are known as beliefs or opinions. You should also avoid making
value judgments of your own work.

Example
In her methodology, Mollie writes:

I feel that using both types of sources will allow me to answer the
research topic to the best of my ability.

Arguments based on feelings are subjective and not persuasive in academic

writing, so they should be avoided. It would have been better if she had said
something like:

Using both types of sources will increase the potential of achieving the
research aim within the practical limitations of the project.

Use hedging
Hedging is the process of using an appropriate level of caution when eval-
uating evidence already presented. This is especially important in a litera-
ture review. Phrases such as “it may be argued that” distance the writer from
the claim being made. Softening the scope of a claim by using the words
such as “some”, “often” or “most” is also useful.

Example
Kate writes in her literature review:

Despite debates on the existence of a causal link, many economists

appreciate that trade liberalization may encourage economic growth
through increases in investment, technological spill-overs and access
to a larger stock of knowledge (Dodzin and Vamvakidis, 1998).

Kate is making a cautious claim based on evidence and her evaluation of a

scholarly debate. Instead of claiming a causal link she makes a softer claim
that trade liberalization may encourage economic growth which she asserts
 Academic writing style 33
is supported by many economists, rather than all economists, and for which
she provides a citation.

Reference
Foster, Z. (2019) Constance Hale interview on how to write better [video]. Available
at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUNwRpG_5qI.
5 Using evidence

Introduction
All academic writing involves making evidence-based arguments. This is
true of proposals. In this chapter we shall look at the need to back up spe-
cific claims with evidence, the need to avoid plagiarism, and how to quote
and summarise other people’s arguments.

Backing up specific claims

Every specific claim you make should be backed up with evidence. In a
proposal, evidence takes the form of cited publications.

Examples
In her literature review, Tappasiya writes:

According to online service conducted by analysts, it has been observed

that more than 64% of e-commerce consumers wait to buy a product
until it has gone up for a discount sale, while more than 59 % of these
consumers are looking for promo-codes to buy products online (Khan,
2019).

This sentence contains specific factual information and therefore requires a

citation. Tappasiya has correctly added a citation and has used the indirect
citation style of (author name, year) at the end of a sentence. However, as
she is using an alphabetical referencing style, it might have been better if
she had used the direct style by incorporating Khan’s name directly at the
start of her sentence like this:

According to Khan (2019), more than 64% . . .

DOI: 10.4324/9781003285137-8
 Using evidence 35
It is also not completely clear what she means by an online service conducted
by analysts so perhaps this phrase needs clarifying or removing altogether.
For more information on citing, please refer to Chapter 13.

Avoiding plagiarism
Plagiarism is taking other people’s ideas, or parts of their published work,
and treating them as your own, or not properly attributing them. Plagiarism
is considered unethical, especially in many Western cultures, and may lead
to an academic misconduct investigation.
The most common form of plagiarism is cut and paste. It is particularly
tempting to cut and paste other people’s work, especially when you are
drafting your own work, but this should be avoided, unless you are planning
to use a direct quote (see below). The way to overcome this is to learn how
to summarise.
Possible plagiarism can be examined by using matching software, such as
Turnitin (www.turnitin.com/). Such software will generate a report and an
overall matching score. Many universities will use matching software such
as Turnitin to check their students’ work for potential plagiarism. They may
also allow their students to submit their draft work to it so they can check
their own work before submitting it. However, there is a skill to interpreting
the report generated by this software. There is no safe overall percentage
match score as it depends on the context of the matches. For more informa-
tion see (Turnitin.com, n.d.).

Quoting
Quoting is using someone else’s work word-for-word and providing a
citation. This is the only form of cut and paste which is permitted in aca-
demic writing. The way you quote will depend on the referencing style used
by your institution.

Examples
In her literature review Kate writes:

Wai Kit Si Tou (2020) attributes this to primary commodities holding a

large share of EAC’s exports which places the community “in the lower
rungs of global value chains” (p. 3), hence stifling regional growth.

This is a clever combination of a short summary and a direct quote. Kate

has correctly put the word-for-word part of the citation in quotation marks
36 Academic writing
and provided a year and a page number. Splitting the year from the page
number is acceptable in the Harvard referencing style that she is using. Her
only error was to include the author’s first name (Wai), which should have
been omitted.
In her literature review Mollie writes:

Gaspar, V et al has also discussed how coronavirus will affect the future
of taxation, “Taxation is profoundly affected by the pandemic. Covid-
19 will change taxation – in at least three important ways, with lasting
implications.”

Mollie has also correctly included a short direct quote (word-for-word copy)
using quotation marks and has provided an in-text citation and a reference
in her reference list. She is quoting a news article from the International
Monetary Fund, which is a lower level of academic quality than a peer
reviewed journal article. However, this was probably acceptable at the time
of writing as Covid-19 was a new phenomenon then, and there was little
peer reviewed literature written about it.
Her quote is not very long, which is also good, but the introduction to
three important ways leaves the reader wondering what they are. Mollie has
also added an initial and not included a year in the citation. As it is an online
source, there was no need to provide a page number. The correct way to cite
this in the Harvard system is:

Gaspar et al. (2020) have also discussed . . .

Also in her literature review, Mollie writes:

Collier, R et al, page 794, stated that “In the first phase, while the
lockdown is in place and countries are experiencing an acute overall
disruption, tax measures can help mitigate the impact of the crisis by
providing businesses and households with cash flow in order to avoid a
complete collapse of the economy. In the second phase, once the lock-
down is lifted, businesses and households are likely to require similar
economic support measures.”

Mollie has again correctly used quotation marks and provided a citation. This
is a slightly longer quote, which is also acceptable in the short quote style.
Again, she has added an initial and left out the year, but she has provided the
page number. The correct cite this using the Harvard referencing system is:

Collier et al. (2020: 794) stated that, “In . . .”

 Using evidence 37
You should not over-quote in your writing. It should be a tool in your tool-
box. A rule of thumb is not more than 10% of your citations should be
direct quotes. Quotes are good in your introduction and in the first para-
graph of your themes in your literature review as they enable you to borrow
someone else’s voice to give strength to your own voice.

Summarising
Summarising is the process of rewriting parts of someone else’s work in
your own words. It is the most important skill to master when using evi-
dence. Many students struggle with summarising as they feel their own sum-
maries will not be as good quality as the original writing they are using,
and they are tempted to draft their own work by cutting and pasting other
people’s work. This is a dangerous thing to do, as explained above, as it may
lead to plagiarism, even if you correctly cite the authors whose work you are
using.
The way to summarise and avoid plagiarism is to start by writing notes.
You might wish to print out electronic articles and annotate them, or just
write notes on a separate sheet of paper. You should then put the original
source to one side (so you cannot see it) and write up your notes onto your
electronic device. By doing this you are breaking the link between the lan-
guage used in the original source and your summary.
You should then check whether the content of your draft summary has the
same meaning as the part of the original source you are summarising. Finally,
you should ensure that your summary is of an appropriate length for the rela-
tive importance of this source and flows with the rest of your writing.

Example
In her literature review, Kate gives an extended summary of Adam Smith’s
theory of absolute advantage:

Adam Smith, on the other hand, found the concept to lack understand-
ing of the measure of a nation’s wealth which he defines as “the annual
produce of the land and the labour of the society” (Smith, 1776: 12).
He explains that the division of labour creates a specialised workforce
which, in turn, produces greater output and increases national wealth.
With the introduction of foreign trade, the nation becomes exposed to
the larger international market which requires the produce of labour
to exceed domestic consumption. This has the effect of enhancing the
division of labour and consequently increasing the wealth of a coun-
try (Smith, 1776). This then informs Adam Smith’s theory of absolute
38 Academic writing
advantage which states that a nation has absolute advantage over
another when it can produce one good with less expenditure on labour.

Kate’s summary includes a direct quote and forms the majority of one of her
paragraphs. Her summary is understandable, but without checking a match-
ing report, it is unclear whether she has successfully managed to write the
part of her summary outside the quotation marks in her own words.
By using the pronoun “he” in her second sentence, Kate has cleverly con-
nected two sentences together without the need for another citation. It is good
practice to only cite a source once in a summary, so there might have been
a way she could have removed the second citation. Famous authors, such as
Adam Smith, are sometimes referred to by their first name and surname, so
this is not an error.
As this is part of Kate’s literature review, she might have gone further than
this and considered discussing deeper issues, such as: what are the strengths
and weaknesses of Smith’s theory? Is his theory still relevant or has it been
superseded by a more recent one? This might have led Kate into a critique
of Smith’s theory, or into other forms of critical analysis. These are discussed
in Chapter 9.

Reference
Turnitin.com (n.d.) Interpreting the similarity report. Available at: https://help.turnitin.
com/feedback-studio/turnitin-website/instructor/the-similarity-report/interpreting-
the-similarity-report.htm.
6 Paragraph writing

Introduction
Paragraph writing is the most important academic writing ability to acquire.
That is why it was coloured in red on the academic writing tree picture in
Figure 1 in the Introduction.

If you can learn how to write good paragraphs, you are more than
halfway to becoming a competent academic writer.

In this chapter we shall provide a definition of paragraphs, consider the

ideal length of a paragraph and explore a model structure for paragraph
writing. Then we shall look at the use of transitional words and appraise
some paragraphs from the example proposals.

Definition
Paragraphs are self-contained pieces of writing made up of sentences. They
are a bit like a mini essay, often having an introduction, a main body and a
conclusion. Paragraphs should be coherent and introduce then develop one
single topic. They should also make one clear point.
In order to allow your reader to distinguish between your paragraphs, you
should always separate them with some blank space.

Length
In academic writing, paragraphs should cover topics in sufficient depth but
not be too long so that the reader can still take them in as a single thought. The
ideal length for a paragraph is about 125 words. Paragraphs are considered
DOI: 10.4324/9781003285137-9
40 Academic writing
too short if they are less than about 60 words and too long if they are over
180 about words.
Short paragraphs can indicate you are not writing about your topics in
sufficient depth. Long paragraphs might indicate they contain multiple top-
ics or are incoherent.

Structure
Whilst paragraphs need to flow from their beginning to their ending, there
is no fixed structure. Rather, there are some general principles and guid-
ance for paragraph writing. Like essays, these principles are based on the
simple structure of an introduction, followed by a main body, followed by a
conclusion.

Introduction
It is good practice to start each paragraph with a topic sentence, which
makes a general point and introduces the subject that rest of the paragraph
will be about.
A common error students make in academic writing is to put a specific
assertion in their first sentence which is backed up with a citation. There
are two problems with doing this:

1 It is unclear what the scope of the argument in the rest of the paragraph
is going to be.
2 It is difficult to separate your voice from that of the author(s) you have
cited. This is particularly an issue in literature reviews and will be dis-
cussed later.

This is why it is a good idea to start paragraphs with general claims not
requiring a citation.

Main body
After introducing the topic of your paragraphs, you might wish to explain
this further and provide some evidence about this topic or one or more
examples. There should be some logical flow to the order you present your
sentences. You should ensure that the argument is not too long or compli-
cated, and the amount of evidence you cite is sufficient to support your
specific claims, but not too much for your reader to take in. This requires
critical thinking to have to confidence to emphasise the more important
evidence.
 Paragraph writing 41
Conclusion
You should round up your paragraphs at the end with some sort of conclusion.
Sometime, this is the best place to write the main point of your paragraphs.
You might link to the subject of the section that your paragraph forms a part
of. You might reiterate the point you made at the start of the paragraph based
on the argument you have presented, or you might create an awareness of an
issue you will explore in the next paragraph.

Using transitional words

The argument you present in your paragraphs can be organised or structured
using transitional words which often appear at the start of sentences. These
act as a ‘glue’ to stick your sentences together, although they are not required
in between every pair of sentences. Transitional words can help your reader
to understand the logic behind your argument and make it flow better.

The clearer you present your argument, the clearer your own thinking
will be about the subject.

Transitional words come in different types. Table 6.1 provides some com-
mon transitional words split into types.

Examples
Here is a paragraph from Kate’s literature review:

In the case of the EAC, the elimination of trade barriers has had clear
positive effects on regional trade. Since the beginning of the union,

Table 6.1 Examples of different types of transitional word

To signal Examples

Contrast But, whereas, yet, still, however, although, despite, on the

contrary, conversely
Addition Furthermore, subsequently, besides, next, moreover, also, similarly
Example For example, for instance, an illustration of, specifically
Time or place Afterwards, earlier, at the same time, currently, subsequently,
later, simultaneously, so far, until now, while
Conclusion Therefore, in short, in essence, thus, in other words, in conclusion,
consequently, as a result, accordingly, nevertheless
Sequence Then, next, first, second, third, etc.
42 Academic writing
intra-EAC trade has accounted for an increasing percentage of GDP
among member states. Rwanda, for example, managed to double its
total trade value to Kenya from US$207 million to US$550 million only
a year after joining the union (Umulisa, 2020). Despite this, low EAC
exports to the world remain a key constraint to growth. Wai Kit Si Tou
(2020) attributes this to primary commodities holding a large share
of EAC’s exports which places the community “in the lower rungs of
global value chains” (p. 3), hence stifling regional growth. To counter
this, he recommends boosting export performance through develop-
ment of manufactured products related to the existing production fac-
tors. Nevertheless, the adoption of an effective regional export strategy
is greatly stressed.

This paragraph is 145 words long, which is within the acceptable range.
It contains a generally understandable and coherent argument. She begins
with a general topic sentence without a citation. This indicates that her para-
graph is going to be about trade within the East African Community (EAC).
However, it is actually about trade both within and outside of the EAC, so
this might have been improved.
Her second sentence sounds more specific and might have benefitted
from a citation, although it is still fairly general. However, her third sen-
tence gives a more specific example of Rwanda and does contain a citation.
She then uses the transition word “despite” to introduce the opposite side of
her argument, which relates to trade outside of the EAC. This is explained
in the following two sentences based on a citation. She starts her final sen-
tence with the word “nevertheless” to indicate that she is drawing her argu-
ment to a conclusion. The main point of her paragraph is about the need for
a regional export strategy.
Here is a paragraph from Thomas’ literature review:

Cross Cultural Management is generally defined by Adler (2002) as

the describing and comparing of organisational behaviour within and
across both countries and cultures whilst also attempting to compre-
hend and enhance interactions between a business’ multicultural stake-
holders. The CCM field related to organisational level studies have
been researched vastly over the years (Romani, 2018) in response to
a more globalised world (Chanda, 2004). Although, Primecz (2016)
suggested that while cross cultural management has been researched
and defined widely, little research has been conducted within the power
relations of different cultures and the impact it has within the working
environment. An objective of this study aims to study the power context
 Paragraph writing 43
of Japanese management on European subordinates particularly in
terms of intercommunication.

This paragraph is 121 words long, which is about the recommended length.
However, it only contains four sentences, indicating that the sentences them-
selves are rather long and complex. However, the content of this paragraph
is generally understandable and coherent.
Thomas’ argument flows from defining Cross Cultural Management (CCM)
in the first sentence to justifying an objective of his study relating, to a par-
ticular kind of CCM in the last sentence. However, it is recommended that
the reappraisal of objectives is best left until the discussion at the end of a
literature review.
If his last sentence was therefore to be moved to the discussion, the main
point of his paragraph could be the claim he makes in the third sentence
about the lack of research on power relations between different cultures and
their impact on the working environment. Whilst this claim is well justi-
fied by a relevant citation, it might have benefitted from further discussion
which could have explored this issue in a little more depth. His main point
could then have been a more balanced and cautious conclusion about this
perceived gap in the literature and how it relates to his context.
One of the problems with Thomas’ literature review is that it is over-
structured as it contains subsections. This is not advised in a short proposal like
his. The consequence of this is his subsection on Cross Cultural Management
only contains a single paragraph. This has made it difficult for him to explore
this issue in sufficient depth. These issues will be discussed further in the next
chapter on Argumentation Styles, and in Chapter 9 on Literature Reviews.
7 Argumentation

Introduction
Arguments form the backbone of academic writing. Argument writing
complements paragraph writing. It is important to understand that there
are two main styles of arguments and when they should be used. If you
can learn how to plan your arguments in advance, then it can save you a
lot of effort.

Two styles
There are two fundamental styles of argumentation known as single argu-
ment/opinion and discursive.

Single argument/opinion style

The single argument/opinion style is adversarial. It can be likened to the
council for the prosecution or defence in a courtroom whose role is to put
forward one side of the argument. The argument presented might still con-
tain evidence which challenges the main claim being made, but this is always
argued against. The argument is usually presented as a claim from the begin-
ning when the topic is introduced. Supporting evidence is then presented
and the conclusion basically agrees with the claim made at the beginning,
although it may clarify it somewhat.
The single argument/opinion style argument should be used in most of
your proposal introduction as it should describe the background context and
provide a rationale (one-sided argument) for choosing your topic. It should
also be used in your methodology as your focus should be on explaining
and justifying the choices you have made about methodology and method
and explaining their application.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003285137-10
 Argumentation 45
Discursive style
The discursive style argument is very different. In terms of the court meta-
phor, it can be likened to the judge or the jury whose role is to weigh up
evidence on both sides of the argument. A subject is introduced neutrally
at the start, rather than a claim about it. Evidence is then presented on both
sides of the argument, then a cautious conclusion is drawn at the end which
could not be anticipated from the beginning.
The discursive style argument is very useful in literature reviews. It
enables you to distance yourself from the evidence you are presenting and
evaluate conflicting evidence in the process of exploring deeper questions.
A common error in academic writing is an over-use of the single argument/
opinion style in literature reviews.

Examples

Single argument/opinion argument

Here is an example of an adversarial argument from Mollie’s literature
review:

The government furlough schemes that have been running since the
beginning of the pandemic have resulted in massive government spend-
ing, and are going to be running up until at least the end of February
2021, (KPMG, 2020). This will result in a negative effect on other funding
that the government has got to provide in the UK. The government will
need to try and cut down on the amount of people who are avoiding taxes,
whether it is through paying into trusts, paying salaries out to people, or
even paying extra money into pensions to avoid a higher tax band.

Mollie is essentially describing government furlough schemes and making

claims about their implications rather than exploring deeper issues about
this subject, such as:

• What alternatives did the government have?

• How did the UK Government’s approach compare with that of other
similar countries going through a similar health crisis?
• Are there any positive effects of this potential reduction in government
spending in other areas?
• What other measures might the government use to try to avoid a reduction
in tax income?
46 Academic writing
Exploring some of these issues might have led to a discursive style argu-
ment being more appropriate.

Discursive argument
Kate uses a discursive style argument in one of the paragraphs in her litera-
ture review:

Modern theories offer a more dynamic and empirical approach to

the subject matter and, most importantly, acknowledge the varying
effects of trade openness on divergent economies. Despite debates on
the existence of a causal link, many economists appreciate that trade
liberalization may encourage economic growth through increases in
investment, technological spill-overs and access to a larger stock of
knowledge (Dodzin and Vamvakidis, 1998). With regards to devel-
oping economies, there is little to no evidence to suggest positive
effects of trade openness on economic growth. Spanu (2013) explains
that although countries which encourage openness tend to experi-
ence growth, developing nations find themselves in a unique situa-
tion where openness is rendered ineffective due to the industrialised
nations’ protectionist policies, which stifle their exports. Singh (2010)
adds that positive effects of trade, such as technological spill-overs,
mainly occur between developed and developing nations between
which there are technological gaps hence emphasizing the extent to
which these protectionist policies harm developing nations. Despite
this, Spanu (2013) maintains that trade liberalization could promote
economic growth in developing nations with macroeconomic stability
and good governance.

Whilst Kate’s opening sentence is a bit difficult to take in, she is making
a general claim about the topic of the rest of her paragraph, which is the
relationship between trade openness and economic growth. After present-
ing a cautious claim about the existence of this relationship, she applies
her argument to her context of developing economies. This leads her to
make a balanced conclusion in the final sentence. This conclusion could
not have been anticipated in advance, which is consistent with discursive
style arguments.

Argument planning
Keen students often waste much time by over-writing and then trying to cut
down their draft. Other students write what comes into their heads without
 Argumentation 47
a plan. This often means not knowing what you are trying to say and leads
to your paragraphs being unclear in flow and direction and not making a
single clear point.
The answer to these problems is to plan your argument in advance.
Here’s how to do it:

• For each section of your proposal, calculate an estimated wordcount

based on the overall wordcount and their relative importance. For
example, our undergraduate students need to write a 2,000-word pro-
posal, so we recommend a literature review of about 800 words.
• For sections longer than 1,000 words, decide how they will be split into
subsections and calculate an estimated wordcount for each subsection.
• For sections under 1,000 words, divide the estimated wordcount by
125 to give you an estimated number of paragraphs. For example, for
our undergraduate students, this would lead to between six and seven
paragraphs for their literature reviews.
• Now imagine you are giving a presentation to some of your fellow
students about the subject of your section or subsection and you have
one slide to present some bullet points.
• Write one bullet point for each paragraph.
• Now evaluate your points: are they in the right order and are they equally
important?
• Once you have clarified the points you are trying to make, you just
need to draft one paragraph around each point.

A diagram of this process is shown in Figure 7.1. It includes some addi-

tional advice on how to write an introduction and a conclusion for a longer
section split into themes.
By following this method, your argument will be clearer, and you will
avoid over-writing. This will also save you time. It will also help you to
socialise your writing process as you will be imagining someone listening
to your presentation of your argument.

Example
Here is an example of an argument plan presentation for the introduction
section of one of my own research papers (Samuels and Haapasalo, 2012).
This section is 1,075 words long and is split into ten paragraphs.

• There is a major problem with older students’engagement with mathematics

• There has been a rapid increase in the adoption of new (mobile) per-
sonal technologies by contemporary learners
48 Academic writing

Introduction (about 10%)

Capture your reader’s attention:
 Establish a territory - move from the general to the
specific
 Establish a niche – what is your section about? Why is it
interesting / important?
 Occupy the niche – explain how you are going to go about
it, outline the structure of the main body

Main Body (about 80%)

Think about your main body
Theme 1 like giving a presentation:
Paragraph 1
 Start with a topic sentence Slide 1: Theme 1
 Include a main point  Main point 1
 Main point 2
Paragraph 2
 Main point 3
 Start with a topic sentence
 Etc.
 Include a main point

Paragraph 3 Slide 2: Theme 2

 Start with a topic sentence  Main point 1
 Include a main point  Main point 2
 Main point 3
Etc.
 Etc.
Theme 2
Slide 3: Theme 3
Paragraph 1
 Main point 1
 Start with a topic sentence
 Main point 2
 Include a main point
 Main point 3
Etc.  Etc.

Conclusion (about 10%)

 Summarise the main points you made in the main body
 Move from the specific back to the general

Figure 7.1 The presentation writing planning technique applied to a longer section
split into themes

• But the educational sector has been slow to adapt their approaches in
view of this increase
• There is also a need to emphasise practices for informal mathematics
rather than formal mathematics
• There have been past successes with turtle graphics robots and the LOGO
programming language for teaching basic mathematics to younger
children
• Research into whether using physical robots or a virtual programming
language is better is inconclusive
• There is a potential application of robotics with older students
• It is now possible to animate virtual robots within richer mathematical
environments
 Argumentation 49
• Aim of paper: to combine real and virtual robotics with older students
to motivate mathematics engagement and learning
• Outline: rationale; pedagogical approach; evaluation criteria; feasi-
bility and technological evaluation; pedagogical evaluation

This example is slightly on the long side for this technique, but you should
be able to follow this argument even if you do not know very much about
the subject. It is best to use this technique to plan arguments between three
and seven paragraphs long.

Exercise
Based on the suggested proposal outline from Chapter 3:

1 Introduction
1.1 Background
1.2 Problem statement
1.3 Aim and objectives
1.4 Research questions
2 Literature review
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Theme 1
2.3 Theme 2
2.4 Discussion
3 Method and Methodology
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Conceptual framework
3.3 Methodology
3.4 Data collection
3.5 Data analysis
3.6 Ethics or limitations
4 Project plan

Use your total wordcount that you are aiming to write for your proposal to
estimate the number of paragraphs you need for each section and subsection
based on an average paragraph length of 125 words.
Then create a draft presentation with one bullet point per paragraph to
provide the argument structure for your whole proposal.
Then use your plan to draft your proposal.
50 Academic writing
Reference
Samuels, P. C. and Haapasalo, L. (2012) Real and virtual robotics in mathematics
education at the school-university transition. International Journal of Mathemati-
cal Education in Science and Technology, 43(3), pp. 285–301.
Part Three

Writing the rest of your

proposal
8 Writing the rest of your
introduction

Introduction
Now that we have covered topic selection and the basics of academic
writing, we can focus on writing the rest of your proposal. In this chap-
ter we will look at writing the rest of your introduction. We have already
covered front matter writing in Chapter 2, so we just need to cover the
remaining elements. The most important of these are the background
and the problem statement. Together they form your rationale. We
begin by discussing these elements and then move on to the other
optional elements which you might choose to present later on in this
section.

Writing your background

Your background should provide your reader with a basic understanding of
the key concepts which are being combined together or applied to create
your research topic. You should write one paragraph for each concept which
should include a definition and a basic factual description.
A useful metaphor for background writing is the What 3 Words app
(https://what3words.com/). This app allows you to pinpoint any three-
metre-sided square on the earth’s surface using a unique combination
of three English words. In the same way, it should be possible for you
to define a unique research topic by combining three, or at most four,
distinct fundamental concepts. You should aim to write one paragraph
on each concept.
Another metaphor for background writing is a big cat scent marking its
territory. Each paragraph in your background and its associated topic is
like a tree or rock that you need to “scent mark” by demonstrating that you
have a good basic understanding of that subject.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003285137-12
54 Writing the rest of your proposal
Example
Kate’s proposal title is, “An analysis on the effectiveness of regional inte-
gration on economic growth in the East African Community”. Her back-
ground contains three paragraphs covering the following topics:

• Regional integration in developing nations and associated trade agree-

ments post-World War II
• The East African Community (EAC) regional integration agreement
• The aims of the EAC and how they are being achieved

Her choice of first paragraph topic makes sense as it provides a more gen-
eral context for her research topic. Her second and third paragraph topics
are also relevant, but they are similar, and it might have been better to com-
bine these together.
What is missing is a background paragraph on evaluating the relation-
ship between trade agreements and economic growth. This should only be
descriptive at this stage. A deeper discursive style evaluation can be left for
the literature review.

Writing your problem statement

Your problem statement should connect your background with your cho-
sen research topic. It should be shorter than your background, so two
paragraphs might be sufficient. The argumentation style of your problem
statement should be adversarial as you are providing a rationale for why
your topic is interesting, relevant, original, and viable, as explained in
Chapter 1.
One technique for problem statement writing is to combine together
the concepts introduced in two of the paragraphs from your background.
Another technique is to include the context of your research associated with
the data you are proposing to collect.
The conclusion to your argument in your problem statement should
be your aim. You should not mention your proposed study until this point.

Example
Thomas’ proposal is entitled “Investigating the Cross-Cultural management
issues within a Japanese Business’ European headquarters: A comparative
study between European and Japanese employees in the workplace”. After
his background, his proposal has two paragraphs in Section 1.3 entitled,
“Research Rationale & Literature Gap”:
 Writing the rest of your introduction 55
• In his first paragraph he introduces cross-cultural management research
• In his second paragraph he explores differences between organisational
culture and national culture with reference to his chosen data collection
context (multinational Japanese companies with European employees)

Here is Thomas’ second paragraph:

However, research has suggested that organisational culture can dif-

fer from national culture depending on the size of the business among
other factors (Nazarian, 2014). This study will attempt to contribute
to the cross-cultural management literature by investigating the cross-
cultural issues focusing within a multinational company between Japa-
nese and European employees. When searching the CCM literature in
this area, few studies have been fulfilled in relation to comparing Jap-
anese and European co-workers in the same workplace, particularly
in Japanese multinational businesses. Of the studies that exist, many
are respectively too old such as Lincoln’s (1995) Cross cultural case
studies of Japanese companies across Germany and Brannen’s (2000)
research into culture within Japanese-German joint ventures. Accord-
ing to Søderberg (2002), Literature within cross cultural management
needs to be rethought in a fast-changing globalising world, suggesting
more recent 21st century studies are necessary to rejuvenate the CCM
research pool, punctually outdating many of the studies from the year
2000 and older. This has prompted the author to investigate that par-
ticular literature gap in this study.

Whilst both paragraphs are well written and relevant, their topics are not
ideal choices for a problem statement. This may have been because Thomas
was not writing a problem statement, although his assignment brief stated
that he should.
His first paragraph topic is a bit too general for a problem statement and
might have been better placed in his background. Perhaps a better choice
of first paragraph could have been something about his context, such as a
description of Japanese businesses with European headquarters (addressing
questions such as: when did they start? how many of them are there? how
much are they worth? what business sectors are they mostly in? and what
are the most influential examples?)
His second paragraph provides a very good summary of his research gap,
but his topic is a bit complex – it might have been better to move his first
sentence to the background and to focus the rest of paragraph in the prob-
lem statement on organisational culture with reference to Thomas’ chosen
context.
56 Writing the rest of your proposal
Also notice how Thomas refers to his study near the start of his second
paragraph. In a problem statement such references should only come right
at the end. His last sentence should also be rephrased as it is not good prac-
tice to refer to yourself in the third person as “the author” – you should
provide an objective argument using the passive voice to hide the person
proposing to undertake the research.

Additional parts
Additional subsections of an introduction you might include are:

• A rationale or justification for your study – however, there is no real

need for this if you write your background and problem statement well.
If your institution requires you to write it, then it should just be a short
section that reiterates the argument you have already presented in these
sections.
• Thesis – a statement of what you are trying to show. This is not appro-
priate in all studies, and you should be careful not to sell a solution as
you need to focus on the problem you have identified in your proposal
introduction, not a solution to it. This might be a single sentence, or
it might be up to one paragraph. Furthermore, I would strongly rec-
ommend not including hypotheses in an introduction as these make
assumptions about the type of research you are proposing to undertake
and the type of data you are planning to collect, which can only be
adequately explored in your methodology section.
• Limitations – you might want to reflect on potential limitations to your
achievement of your aim. However, these might be better placed in
your methodology section.
• Significance or potential impact – these might be relevant here. You
should write these modestly using phrases such as “It is hoped that this
research will be of some benefit to . . .”, or “. . . make a small contribu-
tion to . . .”.
• Outline of the rest of your proposal, although there is no real need for this
as your primary readers should already know the structure of proposals.

Example
The only example of an additional part in the example proposal introduc-
tions is Mollie’s limitations subsection:

When working through my research project there will no doubt be

things that limit my investigation and I will have to try and overcome
 Writing the rest of your introduction 57
them as best I can. The first being the participants in my questionnaire.
Some people may wish to withdraw from the questionnaire, which they
can do at any point – however I will need to ensure that I have enough
information to make reasonable conclusions. I will also have people
who wish to remain anonymous throughout the process, which will
not be a limitation, however it will be harder to categorise the find-
ings. Another limitation may be that people may not be giving accurate
information, which could make my findings incorrect. The question-
naires will be made so that they are easy to understand and complete
so that people do not lose interest.

Mollie’s argument would have been better placed in her methodology as

the issues she has identified are mainly to do with her proposed data collec-
tion. She has also used first person language extensively (“I”, “my”), which
should be avoided in academic writing.
9 Literature reviews

Introduction
The purpose of your proposal literature review is to provide your reader
with a focused critical discussion of the most relevant research relating to
your chosen topic. The literature review is perhaps the most complex sec-
tion of your proposal to produce, so this is the longest chapter in the book.
However, as your introduction will be read first and contains the front mat-
ter defining your project, it might be considered even more important. Nev-
ertheless, writing a good literature review demonstrates your understanding
of the most relevant published research literature in your field, which is one
of the important things proposal markers are looking for.
A literature review in a business research proposal should be more than
an annotated bibliography, which is simply a sequence of single paragraph
summaries of research studies. Instead, it should be organised into a few key
themes, which are broader research areas than your chosen research topic. Your
choice of themes could be similar to your paragraph topics in your background.
The process of creating a thematic literature review is illustrated in Figure 9.1.
We continue this chapter by considering some general principles of cre-
ating a literature review. Next, we explore how you can obtain suitable
research evidence. Next, we will discuss how to choose your themes. It is
important to include some theory within your review so after this we look
at different ways of doing this. The main thing that distinguishes a literature
review from a background is the inclusion of critical analysis, so what this
is and how to do it is explored next. Finally, we consider how best to con-
clude your literature review.

General principles
It is important to capture your reader’s attention at the start of your lit-
erature review. You could consider including answers to questions such as,

DOI: 10.4324/9781003285137-13
 Literature reviews 59

Identify Read Summarise

Thematic literature
review

Design
Evaluate
(themes)

Figure 9.1 The thematic literature review creation process

Source: (Samuels, 2021)

“Why do you find this research project interesting?” and, “Why do you
think it is important?” (although your answers should use the third person
passive voice).
Your review should start with an introduction which states its purpose
and scope and introduces the themes you are going to include. One of the
secrets of academic writing is to answer the question that is in the mind
of your reader without stating what it is.
It is important to have a plan of how you are going to write your review.
Apart from the steps mentioned below, this should include:

• Moving from a general context to the specific context of your research

• Using subsection headings to structure your review; however, this
should not be overdone as it is important to get into a flow in your writ-
ing in order to explore deeper issues
• Including relevant theories
• Using visual representations, such as tables which combine evidence
from different sources, or illustrative figures; these will assist your
readers who are more visual thinkers than verbal thinkers
• Finish with a discussion that refocuses on your research questions

Obtaining evidence
With the advent of the internet, most literature searching is done online nowa-
days and does not require entering a physical library. Ways of doing this include:

• Using Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.co.uk/). As already men-

tioned in Chapter 1, the Google Scholar search engine is very useful in
60 Writing the rest of your proposal
the topic selection process, but it can also be used at the start of the liter-
ature search process. Some institutions provide deep links to documents
available in their e-library provided that you first log in to them in your
internet browser. As already mentioned in the example in Chapter 1, you
should use a variety of keywords for the same concept, narrow searches
down with quotation marks to create phrases and consider restricting
the years of publication, such as in the last 20 years. Once you identify
research of interest, the cited by link is useful for measuring the relative
importance of published research and finding additional articles which
cite this article that were published more recently.
• Using your library’s meta search engine. Most UK universities pro-
vide a front end to all their electronic resources, known as a meta
search engine. This will link to their databases and electronic journals.
The same principles apply as for Google Scholar; you may find that the
interface has additional features, but it may be slightly more difficult
to use. You may have been trained or there may be training materials
available, or you may wish to seek out your subject area librarian to
help you use this tool effectively.
• Your library may also subscribe to some research databases. These
are normally specific to certain subject areas. Business databases may
contain other forms of business publications, such as company reports
or marketing reports. The same search principles apply as for Google
Scholar above.
• Once you start to obtain some relevant sources you might also start to
identify some electronic journals which are particularly relevant to
your topic area by identifying common places where these sources are
published. You might then search directly within these journals. A suit-
able timeframe for such a search is the last ten years.

You also need to consider what you are looking for and how to choose the
best literature to include. The first thing to decide is the overall purpose of
your review. Secondly, you need to decide on the scope you will be looking
at.

Example
Kate’s proposal is about regional integration and economic growth in the
East African Community. Should she limit her literature research to articles
published about regional integration in Sub-Saharan Africa or should she
look at similar regions in other continents which include developing coun-
tries? The answer may depend on how much literature is available about
the former.
 Literature reviews 61

Evidence found but Less important evidence

eventually not used 50% used: generally assert or
quote

40%

10%

More important evidence used:

generally summarise or critique

Figure 9.2 The 50–40–10 principle

Once you have identified a sufficient amount of relevant literature, you

need to decide how to choose what to look at in more depth and then eventu-
ally what to include using some type of citation. I like to use a rule of thumb
for this which I call the 50–40–10 principle, as illustrated in Figure 9.2.
A mistake made by some keen students is to find and read too much
evidence in detail. They end up confused, work too hard and do not get the
mark they deserve. The 50–40–10 principle indicates that you should aim to
only find about twice as much evidence as you eventually use.
A second mistake some students make is to treat all citations at the same
level of importance, such as in an annotated bibliography. This will also not
lead to a good mark as it does not demonstrate critical thinking. You should
not aim to write the same amount of text about each reference. The most
important evidence should have a longer form of citation, such as a sum-
mary or a critique. The less important evidence should have a shorter cita-
tion, such as an indirect citation backing up a factual claim, a direct quote
or a single sentence summary. The ratio of the most important evidence to
the less important evidence should be about 4:1.
Another issue to consider is how many references you should have in
your literature review. My advice is as follows:

• Your literature review should be about 35%–40% of your proposal

wordcount.
• The density of citations in a literature review as normally higher than in
other forms of academic writing. I would recommend about 20 refer-
ences per 1,000 words.
62 Writing the rest of your proposal
Example
In the school where I work in my university, our undergraduate students
are required to write 2,000-word dissertation proposals. We recommend
their literature reviews to be 800 words long (40% of their total wordcount)
and contain about 15 references. Using the 50–40–10 principle, this would
mean identifying about 30 relevant references of which 15 were used. Three
of these 15 would be summarised or critiqued whilst the other 12 would
have a shorter form of citation.

Deciding on your themes

Whilst proposal literature reviews should be quite concise, it is still a
good idea to split them into themes. Themes are broader areas than your
chosen topic. They are often similar in scope to the topics of paragraphs
in your background (see Chapter 8). Themes can also be viewed as per-
spectives which have their own literature base. They should be distinct
from each other, or they should not overlap very much. The combination
of your themes should provide alternative perspectives for viewing your
topic.
You may already have an idea of which themes you want to include, or
they may become clear from your literature review. A technique I recom-
mend is to draw a concept map of your literature review and create a post-
it note for each of your references (including the author, year and a brief
description), then try to stick the post-it notes to the concept map – see
Figure 9.3. The clustering of the notes on the map might indicate possible
themes.
Your themes should also have an appropriate scope with a sufficient
number of references, but not too many.

Example
Kate’s literature review is divided into two themes entitled Trade openness
and growth and The case of East Africa. Both themes are about 350 words
long. She also has a short introduction at the start and a short conclusion at
the end. This is appropriate for an 800-word literature review.
However, the main way Kate could have improved her themes would
have been to consider regional integration and economic growth separately
in two themes. Then she could have explored the application to East Africa
in a longer discussion at the end. She might also have limited her literature
review in each theme, such as only looking at economic growth in Sub-
Saharan Africa.
 Literature reviews 63

Figure 9.3 Example concept map with post-it notes (from my own research)

Including theory
Literature reviews should also include theoretical perspectives. A theory is
a collection of concepts which explain how a phenomenon works. They are
usually well regarded in the research community and remain relevant for a
longer period of time than most primary research studies (which are known
as empirical literature).
You can include theory in different ways:

• A theory might be relevant to your whole review. You could then begin
your review with a theoretical framework, which would become your
first theme. You should try to move beyond simply introducing and
describing a theory by attempting to answer deeper questions about it,
such as “how does it apply to my context?”, and “what are its strengths
and weaknesses?”. Please see the next section for more information.
• There may be one or more theories relevant to one of your themes. You
might then discuss these in the first paragraph of your theme.
64 Writing the rest of your proposal
• You might refer to a less important theory in passing within your
argument.

Example
The first theme of Kate’s literature review contains a theoretical perspective
in her second paragraph.

Adam Smith, on the other hand, found the concept to lack understand-
ing of the measure of a nation’s wealth which he defines as “the annual
produce of the land and the labour of the society” (Smith, 1776: 12).
He explains that the division of labour creates a specialised workforce
which, in turn, produces greater output and increases national wealth.
With the introduction of foreign trade, the nation becomes exposed to
the larger international market which requires the produce of labour
to exceed domestic consumption. This has the effect of enhancing the
division of labour and consequently increasing the wealth of a coun-
try (Smith, 1776). This then informs Adam Smith’s theory of absolute
advantage which states that a nation has absolute advantage over
another when it can produce one good with less expenditure on labour.
Therefore, for better use of resources, each country should specialise in
the production of the good which it has absolute advantage in (Schum-
acher, 2012).

Kate has adopted an interesting approach in this paragraph by arguing

against the first paragraph in her theme, which appears to be mainly sup-
ported by empirical literature. Although Smith’s theory of absolute advan-
tage is very old, it is still viewed as being relevant. It would be interesting
for the reader to know more specifically whether Schumacher has updated
Smith’s theory or applied Smith’s theory to her context. Perhaps it might
have been better if she had started this theme with Smith’s theory, then cri-
tiqued it, then considered alternative perspectives.
Kate also includes a second time-proven theory in the third paragraph
of this theme by David Ricardo. She would have received credit for intro-
ducing and discussing relevant theories as well as empirical literature. But
perhaps she could have brought her argument to a clearer conclusion at the
end of this theme.

Including critical analysis

Many students ask me what critical analysis is and whether their writ-
ing includes it. A common criticism of literature reviews is that they lack
 Literature reviews 65
critical analysis. There is a debate amongst researchers and educators on
this subject. There are different perspectives on what critical analysis is. My
view is that critical analysis is different in nature between different subject
areas, but it has some common features across all subjects.
Critical analysis is a specific type of critical thinking. Ennis (2011)
defines critical thinking as, “reasonable and reflective thinking focused on
deciding what to believe or do”. Critical analysis is the application of criti-
cal thinking to the evaluation of research evidence. A popular study book
on critical thinking is by Cottrell (2017). However, if you are looking for
a less skills-orientated approach to critical analysis, I would recommend
Moon’s (2007) book.
When including critical analysis in a proposal literature review, a very
useful device is a discursive style paragraph. This is a single paragraph
argument which introduces a subject area, presents evidence from different
perspectives, then evaluates this evidence in the form of a cautious conclu-
sion, which uses hedging. Please refer to Chapters 5, 7 and 8 for more
information on hedging, paragraph writing and discursive arguments.

Example
Here is an example of a discursive style paragraph from an unpublished
extract from one of my own pieces of writing. I have annotated each sen-
tence to explain its purpose.

[Topic sentence] There is disagreement between researchers over the

appropriateness of a deep approach to studying within STEM sub-
jects. [First view] There is some alignment between the deep learning
construct and relational understanding construct in Skemp’s (1962)
schematic learning theory, which he promotes as being particularly
effective in mathematics education, providing evidence of improved
retention of concepts. [Evidence] In a study of 236 first year under-
graduate mathematics students in Australia, Crawford et al. (1993)
demonstrated a significant (p < 0.001) association between a cohesive
conception of mathematics (similar to Skemp’s relational understand-
ing) and a deep approach to studying, and a fragmented conception
of mathematics (similar to Skemp’s instrumental understanding) and a
surface approach to studying. However, [Alternative view] Kirschner
et al. (2006) argue against the effectiveness of discovery-based learning
and constructivism, providing evidence that students learn more deeply
from strongly guided learning experiences. In addition, [Another view]
Beattie et al. (1997) also argue against the universal appropriateness
of a deep approach to studying where learning requires the practising
66 Writing the rest of your proposal
of skills and processes, as is common in STEM subjects. In summary,
[Evaluation] a deep approach to studying does not appear to be uni-
versally appropriate in STEM contexts.

There are many features to this paragraph which are instructive:

• It is a little bit long but just about acceptable

• It starts with a topic sentence that introduces the scope of the paragraph
• It then presents evidence from different sides of the argument
• It uses transitional words and phrases (however, in addition, in sum-
mary) to indicate to the reader how the argument is developing
• It is evidence based and makes a distinction between theory (Skemp)
and an empirical study based on a theory (Crawford et al.)
• It has a cautious conclusion at the end which evaluates the presented
evidence (using hedging)
• The conclusion leaves the reader thinking, “why doesn’t this approach
always work?” – this could be explored in more depth in another para-
graph, such as in the final dissertation

There are other forms of critical analysis, but I believe the discursive style
paragraph is the most useful technique for presenting critical analysis in a
proposal in a concise manner.
Another important way of viewing critical analysis is to consider the
depth of questions behind your writing. As I already mentioned, one of the
secrets of academic writing is to answer the questions in your reader’s mind
without stating them:

• Shallower questions often start with who, what, where and when
• Deeper questions often start with how and why
• It is recommended that you should start with shallow questions then
move towards deeper questions

Example
Tappasiya’s literature review contains a brief theme entitled Consumer
behaviour in regards to offers and discounts. If her theme was to be expanded
into several paragraphs, it might cover answer to questions such as:

• What are special offers and discounts?

• When were they invented and by whom?
• What are the most common types of special offer and discount relevant
to Tappasiya’s context (Amazon)?
 Literature reviews 67
• Why does Amazon use these approaches?
• What are the most relevant theories which explain consumer behaviour
regarding discounts and special offers? What are their relative strengths
and weaknesses?
• How could these theories be applied to the context of Amazon to evalu-
ate their approaches and suggest improvements?

Concluding your review

You should conclude your review with a critical discussion which focuses
on your chosen topic. You can begin this by summarising the findings
from each of your themes and then applying them to your specific context.
There should be a smaller number of references which are directly relevant
to your own research which you should cite here.
The summary of the relationship between the main concepts in your criti-
cal discussion could be represented in the form of a figure, known as a con-
ceptual framework. This is explored in the next chapter.
Finally, you can reappraise your research questions from your intro-
duction. This will connect your introduction to the findings of your litera-
ture review and create a rationale for carrying out your research project
which will lead into your next section.
In other words, you should be arguing:

• This is what I said I wanted to answer (as stated in my introduction)

• This is what is already known about the subject (the findings of your
literature review, which are often inconclusive, or from a different
related context)
• Therefore, this is why I need to carry out this research

Obviously, you should not use first person language like this, but this is
essentially what you should be trying to argue in order to persuade your
reader of the importance of your study.

Example
Thomas’ proposal has the most extensive conclusion to his literature review.
It contains three short paragraphs:

• His first paragraph makes an interesting claim of a research gap amongst

Western scholars which appears to summarise the findings of his sec-
ond theme.
68 Writing the rest of your proposal
• In his second paragraph, he returns to the subject of power relations
which he introduced in his first theme and combines this with his cur-
rent context of doing research during the Covid-19 pandemic.
• His final paragraph contains a discussion of an appropriate theoreti-
cal framework for exploring disputes in cross-cultural management.
Whilst this is interesting, this argument might have been better placed
earlier in his review.

Thomas could have written a clearer conclusion to his review by following

the principles explained above, which would have made it easier for the
reader/marker to have understood his initial findings and how this justifies
the need for his research.

Exercise
Use the evaluation sheet in Table 9.1 to assess your draft literature review.

Table 9.1 Literature review evaluation sheet

Aspect Evaluation

Overall length about 35–40% of total wordcount

Starts with an introduction
Purpose and scope explained in introduction
Rest of structure: two themes followed by a discussion
Appropriate choice of themes
Choice of themes introduced/justified in the introduction
Each theme introduced/explained at the start its subsection
Paragraphs have clear topics
Paragraphs make clear points
Paragraphs are the right length (60–180 words)
Use of transitional words within paragraphs to indicate argument
development
Use of hedging (cautious conclusions based on evidence
presented)
Each claim backed up with evidence
Length of citations distinguishes between more and less
important evidence
Use of a variety of citation styles (indirect, quotes, short
summaries and longer summaries)
Inclusion of theory (e.g. theoretical framework, theme-specific
theories, or localized theories)
Inclusion of critical analysis (discursive argument addressing
deeper questions)
Conclusion of themes
Overall discussion at the end summarising findings
Reappraisal of research questions
 Literature reviews 69
References
Cottrell, S. (2017) Critical thinking skills: Effective analysis, argument and reflec-
tion. 3rd edn. London: Plagrave.
Ennis, R. H. (2011) The nature of critical thinking: An outline of critical thinking
dispositions and abilities. Available at: https://education.illinois.edu/docs/default-
source/faculty-documents/robert-ennis/thenatureofcriticalthinking_51711_000.
pdf.
Moon, J. (2007) Critical thinking: An exploration of theory and practice. London:
Routledge.
Samuels, P. C. (2021) Dissertations in 20 steps – a platonic discussion. Technical
report. ResearchGate. Available at: www.researchgate.net/publication/3496406
39_Dissertations_in_20_Steps_-_a_Platonic_Discussion.
10 Conceptual frameworks

Introduction
A conceptual framework is more specific to your context than a theoreti-
cal framework. It summarises the findings of your literature review and
presents them in the form of a diagram. This diagram should represent your
evaluation of how the most important concepts relating to your study inter-
connect. For a more detailed discussion on the distinction between concep-
tual frameworks and theoretical frameworks, please refer to Varpio et al.’s
(2020) useful paper.
Conceptual frameworks are generally an optional extra in proposals.
If you are planning to collect primary data, they can form a useful visual
bridge between the findings of your literature review and the design of your
data collection instrument.

General advice
The best place to put a conceptual framework is either towards the end of
your literature review or near the start of your methodology/method section.
Conceptual frameworks come in two main forms:

• Process diagrams which connect concepts with arrows

• Tree diagrams which split an overall concept into areas and sub-areas

There is no hard and fast rule about how to present a conceptual framework.
It is best to read relevant research articles relating to your own study and
get an idea on an appropriate format from any of these which contain a
conceptual framework.
However, if you are planning to carry out quantitative research, it is
important to bear in mind that conceptual frameworks contain concepts
which may not be measurable. It is only once you have discussed how you
plan to measure these concepts in your methodology/method section, and
DOI: 10.4324/9781003285137-14
 Conceptual frameworks 71
whether this is valid and reliable, that you should present a quantitative
model or hypotheses based on them.

Examples
The only conceptual framework presented in one of the example proposals
is the model cited at the end of Tappasiya’s introduction which is shown in
Figure 10.1.
This model is in the form of a process diagram with purchase intentions
depending upon other concepts as indicated by the arrows. It has been taken
from a paper published by other researchers. Whilst it is good that Tap-
pasiya’s conceptual model was informed by someone else’s work, it would
have been better if she had adapted or applied this to her context based on
the findings of her literature review. The different concepts represented in
this diagram could then be measured either by closed questions in a ques-
tionnaire or from other secondary sources of information.
Tamvada (2020) has developed a conceptual framework for the relation-
ship between different elements of corporate social responsibility as shown
in Figure 10.2.

Figure 10.1 Conceptual model in Tappasiya’s proposal

Source: (Lee and Chen-Yu, 2018: 5)

Figure 10.2 Conceptual framework for the relationship between different elements
of corporate social responsibility
Source: (Tamvada, 2020: 7)
72 Writing the rest of your proposal
Her framework is in the form of a tree diagram. There are two main areas
of responsibility, one of which is split into two sub-areas. Each of these
areas could be translated into one or more questions in a data collection
instrument, such as an interview or a questionnaire.

Exercise
Create a diagram which describes the relationship between the main con-
cepts relevant to your chosen topic. How does this compare with conceptual
frameworks in studies similar to your own?

References
Lee, J. E. and Chen-Yu, J. H. (2018) Effects of price discount on consumers’ percep-
tions of savings, quality, and value for apparel products: Mediating effect of price
discount affect. Fashion and Textiles, 5(1), pp. 1–21.
Tamvada, M. (2020) Corporate social responsibility and accountability: A new
theoretical foundation for regulating CSR. International Journal of Corporate
Social Responsibility, 5(1), pp. 1–14.
Varpio, L., Paradis, E., Uijtdehaage, S. and Young, M. (2020) The distinctions
between theory, theoretical framework, and conceptual framework. Academic
Medicine, 95(7), pp. 989–994.
11 Writing your methodology/
method section

Introduction: why the name confusion?

Methodology and method go together. Methodology refers to theory of
how research should be undertaken, including its philosophical underpin-
nings, the approach to generating new knowledge and the strategy used to
obtain suitable data. Method refers to the techniques and procedures used
to collect and analyse data. Unfortunately there is no suitable single word
which refers to them both at the same time.
Methodology/method sections in proposals are often poorly written. This
is mainly due to misunderstandings about the technical terms they involve
or a failure to understand what the target audience is expecting to read. This
is another long chapter as there are many issues that need to be explained,
which you might find unfamiliar.
Methodology and method can be viewed as concentric layers as shown
in Figure 11.1.

Purpose and argumentation style

The purpose of a methodology/method section in a proposal is to present
a credible plan for the choices you intend to implement in your research.
This means the style of argumentation should be single argument/opinion
rather than discursive.
There is a temptation in a methodology/method section to explain the
meaning of different basic concepts. This should not be your emphasis
as you may assume that your reader already understands them. However,
what they do not know is what methodology/method you have chosen,
why you believe it is appropriate in your context and how you intend to
implement it. The choices you make need to be consistent and presented
in a logical order. The length of your methodology/method section should
be about 25% of your total wordcount.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003285137-15
74 Writing the rest of your proposal

Philosophy
§2
Approach Conceptual
framework
Strategy
§3
Data source Methodology

Data collection §4, §5

Method
Data
§5 Validity,
analysis
reliability and
hypotheses

§6 Ethics or
limitations

Figure 11.1 Overview of the main elements of methodology and method

Source: Adapted from (Saunders et al., 2019: 130)

Structure
The recommended structure of a methodology/method section is:

§1 Introduction
§2 Conceptual framework
§3 Methodology (including philosophy, approach and strategy)
§4 Data collection
§5 Data analysis
§6 Ethics or limitations

The introduction should mainly explain how the rest of your section has
been organised.
For conceptual frameworks, please refer to the previous chapter. For lon-
ger proposals the methodology subsection can be subdivided further into
 Writing your methodology/method section 75
philosophy, approach and strategy. For shorter proposals, you may need to
choose between presenting a conceptual framework and details about your
philosophical choice.
The other parts of this structure are described in the following sections
below.

Philosophy
A philosophy is a theoretical way of viewing research and the new
knowledge it constructs. According to Saunders et al. (2019: 144–145),
there are five main philosophies relevant to business contexts:

Positivism: This is the philosophy associated with the scientific method;

it involves observable facts; the researcher remains objective, neutral
and detached from the research; it is suitable for quantitative research.
Interpretivism: The focus of this philosophy is on narratives, per-
ceptions and interpretations; the researcher is seen as part of
research, and needs to be able to articulate how their identity may
have affected their interpretations (known as being reflexive); this is
the standard philosophy for qualitative research.
Critical realism: In this philosophy, knowledge is viewed as being rela-
tive and socially constructed; the researcher needs to acknowledge
their identity, remain as objective as possible and try to minimize bias.
Postmodernism: This philosophy focuses on oppressed and repressed
meanings; the researcher is usually embedded within the power rela-
tionships so needs to be reflexive; this is a useful perspective when
investigating gender issues, ethnic minorities, disabilities or potential
mistreatment of employees.
Pragmatism: The emphasis of this philosophy is on practical mean-
ings, problem solving and relevance to enable successful action; it is
initiated by researcher’s doubts and beliefs and also requires reflexiv-
ity; it is useful when attempting to improve a process in a working
environment or solve a problem in a business context.

As already mentioned above, with a concise proposal, you may need to

choose between explaining your choice of philosophy and including a
conceptual framework.

Approach
Approach refers to the way in which new knowledge is generated. There
are three main approaches:
76 Writing the rest of your proposal
Deductive: the use of data to decide whether a pre-existing theory or
hypothesis is true or false; this is associated with quantitative research.
Inductive: the process of establishing new knowledge from collected
data; this is associated with qualitative research.
Abductive: a process of moving back and forth between deduction
and induction, for example, using interviews to establish the ques-
tions to be included in a closed questionnaire; this approach is
associated with mixed methods research where two techniques are
used one after the other.

For more information, please refer to (Saunders et al., 2019: 152–158).

Strategy
Your strategy is your systematic means of obtaining data in order to
achieve your objectives or answer your research questions. There are seven
main research strategies. I will start by exploring the most common busi-
ness research strategies in more depth:

Strategy 1: Surveys
A survey is a systematic collection of information from a sample of
people from a larger population. In business research this often refers to
a company’s employees or consumers. There are three main types of data
collection instrument for carrying out a survey:

• A questionnaire where the same written questions are given out

asynchronously
• Interviews where individuals are asked the same or similar questions
synchronously
• Focus groups where a group of six to ten people meet together to col-
lectively explore a research issue

With a survey it is important to state what your population is and how you
are sampling it. This is the process of identifying your data source. There
are two main kinds of sampling:

• Random: which involves having access to all individuals in your

population and choosing a sample from them using a randomized
process
• Non-random: where you select sample using some other means
 Writing your methodology/method section 77
Examples
Mollie is planning to conduct a survey. In her Theory and Strategy subsec-
tion, she states:

The questionnaire will be offered to people over the age of 18 who

have an interest in the current situation regarding the government
taxes and the effect that coronavirus has had on the taxation situation
in the past year.

The population for her survey sounds rather vague. Presumably it refers to
any adult in the UK who is not considered vulnerable. Her description of
them having an interest in certain issues sounds difficult for her to establish
before approaching them unless she has a strategy involving some kind of
interest group, such as via social media.

Vague data source choices lead to vague findings which are of little
value.

Thomas is planning to conduct two separate surveys. In his Data Collection

subsection, he states:

Questionnaires and semi-structured interviews will be used to collect

ethnographic data from employees working for the research’s case
study business, Kyocera Document Solutions Europe, a Japanese busi-
ness based in the Netherlands. Managers and employees alike from
both European and Japanese nationalities will be researched within
this business to compare the attitudes, behaviours and beliefs of differ-
ent national cultures and the cultural issues that arise from the coop-
eration of these co-workers in the workplace.

His statement is much more specific as it relates to managers and employees

within a certain international organisation. However, Thomas was eventu-
ally unable to undertake this primary data collection and later switched to
secondary data collection only.
Neither Thomas nor Mollie explained whether their sampling was ran-
dom or non-random. As Mollie’s population is so vague, she probably could
only adopt a non-random sampling approach, such as purposive sampling
(where you choose the sample) or snowball sampling (where you start with
people you can identify as relevant then ask them for more contacts).
78 Writing the rest of your proposal
From these two examples we observe that it is important to be specific
about your population for a survey, but you also need to do some informal
groundwork before deciding to carry out a survey so that you can be confident
that you will be able to collect the data that you are hoping to.

Sample size recommendations for surveys

For undergraduate and master’s research projects it is recommended that
you should aim to collect between 50 and 100 questionnaires, carry out
between six and ten interviews, or organise two focus groups containing
six to ten members.
Questionnaires tend to mainly have closed questions which lead to quan-
titative analysis. Quantitative analysis works best when you compare groups
or answers to different questions. In order to detect differences and relation-
ships you will need a reasonably large sample. There are no hard and fast
rules about this, but quantitative analysis becomes increasingly difficult and
less useful with smaller sample sizes. On the other hand, it is often difficult
to obtain a large sample size in the short time period of undergraduate or
master’s level research.
Even if you include some open-ended questions, it is often difficult to
get your respondents to reply in depth. Whilst online or email question-
naire require less resources to administer, the main challenge is often low
response rates and the possibility of bias (your sample not reflecting the
views of the whole population). You therefore need to distribute more
questionnaires than you expect to receive back, and have a strategy to
maximise your response rate. This should be discussed in your proposal.
Interviews and focus groups lead to the collection of textual data which
will require a qualitative analysis technique. It is important to have a suffi-
ciently large sample to allow some variation between individuals or groups,
but not too much data so that your analysis can focus on depth of interpre-
tation rather than description.

Strategy 2: Case studies

A case study is a systematic attempt to account for the complexity and
depth of one or more cases. In business research the cases usually refer
to one or more business organisations. It is recommended that you only
research a single case or a comparison between two cases which has a clear
rationale behind their choices.
It is sometimes difficult to decide whether to frame a research project as a
survey or as a case study. The population associated with a survey might be
 Writing your methodology/method section 79
staff employed in a single organisation which might also lend itself to a case
study. However, the main distinction between a survey and a case study is
that case studies seek to look at a context from the viewpoint of multiple
stakeholders, for example employees, managers, customers, shareholders
and regulatory authorities. Therefore, case studies might include surveys as
part of their strategy.
For more information, please refer to (Farquhar, 2012).

Strategy 3: Ethnography
Ethnography is the systematic study of people and cultures. In business
research this usually refers to business cultures, such as those experienced
by a researcher who is on a work placement, such as an employee, or intern
or a charity worker.

Strategy 4: Secondary data

Secondary data is the systematic search, selection and analysis of data
collected by others. This is either raw data which you analyse yourself or
published research articles for which you conduct a secondary analysis,
known as a systematic review.

Other less common strategies

There are three other relevant strategies which are less common in a busi-
ness research context.

Strategy 5: Action research: A systematic, reflective and cooperative

process of progressive problem solving; in business research this
involves collaboration with other stakeholders such as fellow employ-
ees in an organisation; this might be appropriate during or after a
work placement if you already have an idea of some process which
could be improved.
Strategy 6: Experiments: An orderly procedure carried out to test a
hypothesis. Experiments are more common in scientific contexts.
Strategy 7: Grounded theory: A systematic approach to analyse,
explain and theorise everyday experiences. This strategy is differ-
ent from the grounded theory approach to analysing qualitative data
as it focuses on collecting sufficient data for a new theory about
a phenomenon to be generated. It is only recommended for more
advanced studies, such as doctorates.
80 Writing the rest of your proposal
Data collection
Once you have explained your methodology you should describe your data
collection plans. There are four main primary data collection techniques
in a business context:

• Questionnaires – a collection of written questions, usually responded

to at a different time to when they are asked (asynchronously) – see
(Frazer and Lawley, 2000; Oppenheim, 2000). The questions can either
be open or closed. Open questions lead to textual data. Closed ques-
tions lead to categorical or numerical data.
• Interviews – a series of structured question-based live meetings with
one person at a time. The recommended style is a semi-structured
interview in which the interviewer prepares a series of questions in
advance but allows the respondent to give additional information, pro-
vided that it is still viewed as relevant to their overall research aim – see
(Rubin and Rubin, 2005).
• Focus groups – a collective approach ideally by a group of six to ten
people, to discuss and solve a specific issue or problem – see (Krueger
and Casey, 2014).
• Observations – a systematic personal approach to data collection involving
prolonged engagement in a social setting, recording your observations
using predefined notations, improvisations to develop a full understanding,
and paying attention in a standard way – see (Cohen and Crabtree, 2006)

For each technique you choose you should explain what it is, why you have
chosen it, and how you are planning to implement it. With questionnaires,
interviews and focus groups, the choice of questions could be linked to the
findings of your literature review through a conceptual framework. In addi-
tion, if you are planning to undertake a questionnaire, you should explain
and justify your choice of format, such as paper-based, email or online.
For secondary data collection you should explain your sources of data
and your selection methods.

Example
Kate specifies her sources of secondary data in her Data collection subsection:

The majority of data will be collected on the six member countries

of the EAC. Data concerning changes in international trade will be
collected from the World Trade Organisation (WTO), EAC archives
and the respective nations’ government archives. Data concerning
 Writing your methodology/method section 81
changes in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Foreign Direct Invest-
ment (FDI) over time will be obtained from Our World in Data and the
World Bank.

Kate’s paragraph provides specific information on where she is planning to

obtain her data and what data she intends to obtain from each data source.
However, it could have been improved in the following ways:

• Rather than stating data sources, it would have been better if she had
used a word such as “including” to indicate specific choices whilst
leaving room for possible future changes
• Whilst the specific data sources sound authoritative, some simple descrip-
tions could have been added to indicate why they are perceived as being
authoritative. For example, an argument could have been provided indi-
cating that the World Trade Organisation is the main recognised world
authority on international trade which keeps accurate, open and accessible
records on individual countries.
• A citation should be given for each data set.

Validity, reliability and hypotheses

With quantitative data, it is also often important to discuss the measure-
ment of your concepts and how this might lead to testing your theory:

• Measurements are valid if they measure what they are supposed to

measure.
• Measurements are reliable if the same or similar results are obtained
when they are re-measured, or a group of questions can be shown to
measure the same thing.
• A hypothesis is a statement about the relationship between measurable
quantities. These may follow on from the relationship between concepts
in your conceptual framework. Statistical testing is the quantitative data
analysis process leading to the acceptance or rejection of a hypothesis.

Data analysis
Data analysis will depend on the type of data you intend to collect:

• Numerical and categorical data will lead to quantitative analysis

• Textual data will lead to qualitative analysis
• A combination of the two will lead to mixed methods analysis
82 Writing the rest of your proposal

Quantitative:
Qualitative: Mixed: Numbers and
Text Both frequencies of
categories

Figure 11.2 Relationship between data types and data analysis

This is illustrated in Figure 11.2.

Quantitative analysis
This can broadly be divided into descriptive analysis and statistical testing:

• Descriptive analysis involves the presentation of tables, charts and

summaries of data sets, known as summary statistics, for example,
means and standard deviations. You should choose an appropriate repre-
sentation of your data, provide a narrative to go with it and an informal
interpretation of its meaning. You should aim for your choice of tables
and charts to represent relationships between your concepts rather than
just a single concept. To this end, representation such as multi series
tables, percentage frequency bar charts and scatter plots are useful.
• Statistical testing is the process of making a decision about a hypoth-
esis you have stated in advance. There are many different types of
statistical testing depending on the design of your study, including:
• Tests which compare a measured quantity against different groups
• Tests which compare one measured quantity against another
• Tests which assume data comes from a predetermined distribution
• Tests which do not make this assumption

For more information, please refer to (Samuels, 2020).

Qualitative analysis
If qualitative data is very brief, which is typical of answers to open ended
questions in a questionnaire, then a frequency-based approach can be adopted.
This often involves counting the frequency of words or synonyms.
 Writing your methodology/method section 83
For longer pieces of text, qualitative content analysis should be used.
This can be conceptualised in three stages:

• Primary analysis: informal notes made when reading transcripts, similar

to the process of critical reading – see (Seyler, 2014: Chapter 1).
• Category formation: this is a more formal process involving identify-
ing types of information in transcripts, known as categories, and giving
them a name. Categories may then be combined together into themes.
In order for the research to be inductive, the names of the categories
and themes should be new and therefore different from the concepts
identified in your literature review and conceptual framework.
• Theory generation and comparative analysis. This is an optional
final stage in which a theory is generated which explains how a phe-
nomenon works across different people or situations.

For general information on qualitative data analysis, please refer to (Saun-

ders et al., 2019: 636–705; Woods, 2013). For business specific advice,
please see (van den Berg and Struwig, 2017).
Ideally, qualitative analysis should be undertaken from a theoretical
perspective, such as grounded theory (O’Reilly et al., 2012). For general
information on theory-based qualitative data analysis, see (Schutt, 2012).

Ethics
You might also wish to discuss ethical issues towards the end of your meth-
odology/method section. These include:

• Measures to protect participants and researchers from potential harm

• Right of participants to withdraw
• Collection of appropriate data
• Measures to protect the identity of participants, such as anonymisation
• Protection of stored data

Example
Thomas provides a brief ethical statement about protecting the anonymity
of his participants towards the end of his methodology/method section:

The qualitative data achieved through both the semi-structured interviews

and questionnaires about employees’ experiences with cross-cultural
conflicts at the workplace will be analysed and interpreted by the author
of this study, who will maintain questionnaire participant anonymity
84 Writing the rest of your proposal
throughout to reduce researcher bias. Additionally, in analysis, inter-
viewee names will be redacted by the author to protect anonymity.

Limitations
You might also wish to discuss potential limitations to your research at the
end of this section, such as non-random sample selection, low response rates
to online questionnaires, potential difficulties in organising interviews or
focus groups and contingency plans you might adopt to ensure you obtain a
sufficient amount of data.

Common mistakes
• Focusing too much on what different stages and choices of methodology/
method mean rather than focusing on your choices and your reasons
for them. There is no need to try to educate your reader about things they
already understand.
• Misusing the generic descriptors quantitative and qualitative to refer
to your research in general, vague terms. It is probably better to avoid
these descriptors in this section, or only use them very sparingly.
• Only explaining your choices rather than the reasons for them or
how they are going to be implemented. For example, with a choice
of a questionnaire, it is important to know why this data collection
method has been preferred to others, how the question design will
relate to the findings of the literature review, what the population and
sampling approach will be, and what format it will take (e.g. paper-
based or online).
• Over-structuring your section. For example, explaining your choice
of research design often overlaps with other methodology subsections
introduced above and is not recommended. Also, nearly all undergrad-
uate and master’s research is cross-sectional (i.e. data is collected over
a single short time period) so discussions about time horizon are usu-
ally irrelevant and have been omitted above.
• Making inconsistent choices, such as an inductive approach and a
closed form of data collection.
• Only citing a single reference, such as (Saunders et al., 2019). You
need to read about methodology and method more widely and cite
several authors, such as some of those recommended in this chapter.
• Including too much critical discussion. Your focus should be on
presenting your plan for data collection and analysis within your
methodological context.
 Writing your methodology/method section 85
Evaluating methodology/method sections: DECJAD
The mnemonic DECJAD stands for:

• Describe – does the subsection explain briefly what the subsection

means?
• Evidence – does the subsection contain evidence to back up the claims
made?
• Choice – does the subsection clearly explain the choices made?
• Justify – are the choices justified with a persuasive argument?
• Apply – are the choices made applied to the context?
• Discuss – does the subsection include some limited discussion towards
the end?

You should not expect a yes answer for each question for each subsection
as the choice of writing will be selective. However, DECJAD can help you
to understand and evaluate what kinds of writing each subsection contains.

Example
Kate’s methodology/method section have been evaluated in Table 11.1.
Kate’s methodology/method section contains subsections on Methodology,
Data collection and Data analysis. Her Methodology subsection covers her
philosophy and approach. Her strategy choice of secondary data is provided
under her Data collection subsection. However, she also mentions it being a
case study, which is probably inappropriate as she is not investigating the East
African Community in depth or from multiple perspectives.
Overall, Kate clearly explains her choices and mostly provides a persua-
sive justification for them based on her context. However, the main weakness
in her section is her lack of evidence to back up her choices. For example,
whilst there is no need for her to explain what a philosophy is, it would have
been useful if she had provided a brief definition of her chosen pragmatic

Table 11.1 Evaluation of Kate’s methodology/method section

Subsection Describe Evidence Choice Justify Apply Discuss

Philosophy      
Approach      
Strategy      
Data collection      
Data analysis      
86 Writing the rest of your proposal
Table 11.2 DECJAD checklist

Subsection Describe Evidence Choice Justify Apply Discuss

Philosophy
Approach
Strategy
Data
collection
Data
analysis

philosophy and backed this up with a citation. Her lack of discussion in each
subsection is less important and would not have been expected in a concise
methodology/method section such as this.

Exercise
Evaluate the subsections of your draft methodology and methods using
DECJAD using the checklist in Table 11.2.
Finally, reflect on your evaluation of your draft section in the light of
Kate’s example above so that you have an idea of how to improve it.

References
Cohen, D. and Crabtree, B. (2006) Observation. In Qualitative research guidelines
project. Princeton, NJ: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Available at: www.
qualres.org/HomeObse-3594.html.
Farquhar, J. D. (2012) Case study research for business. London: SAGE.
Frazer, L. and Lawley, M. (2000) Questionnaire design and administration: A prac-
tical guide. Chichester: Wiley.
Krueger, R. A. and Casey, M. A. (2014) Focus groups: A practical guide for applied
research. 5th edn. London: SAGE.
Oppenheim, A. N. (2000) Questionnaire design, interviewing and attitude measure-
ment. New edn. London: Continuum.
O’Reilly, K., Paper, D. and Marx, S. (2012) Demystifying grounded theory for busi-
ness research. Organizational Research Methods, 15(2), pp. 247–262.
Rubin, H. and Rubin, I. (2005) Qualitative interviewing: The art of hearing data.
2nd edn. London: SAGE.
Samuels, P. C. (2020) A really simple guide to quantitative data analysis. Available at:
www.researchgate.net/publication/340838762_A_Really_Simple_Guide_to_Quan-
titative_Data_Analysis.
Saunders, M., Lewis, P. and Thornhill, A. (2019) Research methods for business
students. 8th edn. Harlow: Pearson.
 Writing your methodology/method section 87
Schutt, R. K. (2012) Qualitative data analysis. In R. K. Schutt, ed. Investigating the
social world. 7th edn. London: SAGE [pdf]. Available at: www.sagepub.com/
sites/default/files/upmbinaries/43454_10.pdf.
Seyler, D. (2014) Read, reason, write: An argument text and reader. 11th edn. New
York: McGraw-Hill Education.
van den Berg, A. and Struwig, M. (2017) Guidelines for researchers using an
adapted consensual qualitative research approach in management research. Elec-
tronic Journal of Business Research Methods, 15(2), pp. 109–119. Available at:
https://academic-publishing.org/index.php/ejbrm/article/download/1361/1324.
Woods, P. (2013) Qualitative research. The Open University. Available at: www.
open.edu/openlearnworks/mod/resource/view.php?id=5 1902.
12 Producing a schedule

Gantt charts
A final common section in the main body of a proposal is a schedule of
tasks. The recommended way of representing this is with a Gantt chart.
This has one row for each task and the period for doing the research
project is split up equally into columns. The time span over which each
task is active is then shown by filled cells in its respective row.

Example
An example of a Gantt chart is shown in Figure 12.1.
Some points to note about this example Gantt chart are:

• There is a manageable number of tasks which split the research project

up in sufficient detail. It is recommended that you have between ten
and 20 tasks.
• Each task is output orientated – you can tell when it is complete as it
relates to a specific output.
• There are a manageable number of columns. This example is for a
master’s dissertation which is undertaken over a single semester, so
the columns are weeks. For two-semester dissertations you might use
fortnights or half-month columns. For a doctorate you might use two-
month columns. You should aim for between 12 and 25 columns.
• Several tasks are being conducted in parallel at different times.
• There are dependencies between some of the tasks; for example, the
data cannot be analysed until data collection has started, and this cannot
start until the research instrument has been designed and the ethics
request has been approved.
• There is a one-week contingency at the end in case there is a delay in
the completion of some of the tasks.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003285137-16
 Producing a schedule 89
Figure 12.1 Example Gantt chart
90 Writing the rest of your proposal
I recommend that you use a simple spreadsheet package, such as Excel, to
create your Gantt chart rather than a more sophisticated project management
package. All you need to do is colour the cells relating to the time periods
over which the tasks are scheduled to be active.

Research phases
In addition to providing tasks, it might also be useful to add research
phases to your chart. A common characterisation of these is:

• Conceptual – coming up with an initial idea, formulating it and writing a

proposal – this might be left out from a Gantt chart if you are submitting
it with your proposal as it will already have completed
• Critical – carrying out your main literature review, writing your metho-
dology chapter, obtaining ethics approval, and designing your data col-
lection instrument
• Action – collecting your data and preparing it for analysis
• Analysis – analysing your data and writing up your findings
• Creative – writing your discussion, conclusions and putting your final
report together

These phases should be viewed as overlapping; for example, you may start
the critical phase before you complete the conceptual phase.

Example
Kate has provided research phases at the bottom of her Gantt chart as shown
in Figure 12.2.
Her choice of phases and associated tasks seems to make a lot of sense.

Accompanying narrative
In addition to providing a Gantt chart, you should write a short narrative
explaining your chart. This can describe your tasks, explain why they are in
the sequence and of the length shown, then discuss possible issues relating
to managing your research project.

Example
Mollie has written two paragraphs to accompany her Gantt chart:

In the Gantt chart that I have created I have identified the main tasks that
I am aiming to do week by week, along with some of the more important
 Producing a schedule 91
Figure 12.2 Kate’s Gantt chart
92 Writing the rest of your proposal
tasks, such as deadlines and supervisor meetings. On my chart the date
is displayed across the top, and then there are different tasks listed down
the left-hand side. The boxes that I have marked in blue are the tasks of
high importance, which include supervisor meetings and deadlines for
the proposal hand in and the completed research project hand in. The
rest of the chart is coloured in pink and shows weekly tasks that I intend
to complete in order to get my research project handed in on time.
This chart shows the plan that I am going to follow throughout the
course of this project, and has some time left over at the end in case any
issues are encountered throughout the process. This will make sure that I
don’t run out of time to complete the project. If any problems arise whilst I
am working towards completing my research project, then at least I have
left enough time to correct my work before I have to hand it in.

Whilst her first paragraph explains the meaning of her chart, she could have
assumed some of this and focused more on explaining what the key tasks
or phases were in her research project. Her second paragraph justifies her
contingency plan of extra time at the end and is rather repetitive. She could
also have explored other potential difficulties with managing her project,
such as critical dependencies or possible non-availability of resources at the
scheduled times.

Exercise
Use a spreadsheet package to create a draft Gantt chart like the example above
that represents the tasks in your research project, then draft an accompanying
narrative that explains it and discusses potential problems that you might
encounter and how you plan to manage them.
13 Referencing

Introduction
Referencing is the process of giving attribution to external sources and pre-
sented data (tables and charts) within your proposal. Attributing external
sources commonly involves citing in the main body of the text followed
by a reference list at the end. In social sciences this often means using an
alphabetical style referencing system, such as Harvard or APA. This means
the references in the list should be given in the alphabetical order of the
author(s) or institutions who created them.
You should be given specific guidance on how to reference at your insti-
tution. For general principles on referencing, please refer to (Pears and
Shields, 2022) and its associated website (www.citethemrightonline.com/).
For additional guidance on some common referencing systems, please refer
to the referencing resources in the Purdue Online Writing Lab (https://owl.
purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/resources.html).

Citing
With alphabetical referencing systems, the author’s surname is used in the
citation. This can be done at the end of a sentence by putting the name and
the year of the publication in a bracket, which is known as an indirect cita-
tion. Alternatively, the author’s name can be put in a sentence and just the
year is put in a bracket, which is known as a direct citation. Generally,
direct citations are preferred as they make the writing appear more personal
and allow you to provide a more accurate citation. However, the downside
is that they use more words.
There are also rules about sources with multiple authors, which depend
on the system being used, and how to present quotations (word-for-word
citations).

DOI: 10.4324/9781003285137-17
94 Writing the rest of your proposal
Examples
The second half of Kate’s opening paragraph illustrates these issues:

While such agreements originally focused on trade integration,

RIAs have become multidimensional and may incorporate other
common institutions such as a monetary union or shared political
establishments (Katembo, 2008). The most successful example of
an RIA would be the European Union (EU) which has achieved “a
process in which units move from a condition of total or partial iso-
lation towards a complete or partial unification” (p. 5), which De
Lombaerde and Van Langenhove’s (2005) describe to be the mea-
sure of integration.

• (Katembo, 2008) is an indirect citation. This has been done correctly.

• which De Lombaerde and Van Langenhove’s (2005) describe . . . is a
direct citation with two authors. The only problem with this is the ‘s
after Langenhove, which appears inappropriate.
• “a process in which units move from a condition of total or partial
isolation towards a complete or partial unification” (p. 5) is a quotation.
It is correctly followed by a page number, but it is unclear which citation
this quotation relates to.

Mollie has attempted a direct quote citation with several authors in her lit-
erature review:

Collier, R et al, page 794, stated that “In the first phase, while the
lockdown is in place and countries are experiencing an acute overall
disruption, tax measures can help mitigate the impact of the crisis by
providing businesses and households with cash flow in order to avoid a
complete collapse of the economy . . .”.

Et al. means and others and is the correct way to cite a source with
more than two authors in Mollie’s referencing system. However, she has
incorrectly included an initial and left out the year. She should also have
page number after a colon without the word “Page”. Her quote itself is
also rather long, especially for a proposal. Quotes should generally be
kept to about 30 words or one sentence maximum. Longer passages
should be summarised.
Mollie should have cited this quote using:

Collier et al. (2020: 794), stated that, “. . .”

 Referencing 95
Tables and figures
Tables and figures should be labelled consistently and referred to in the text
before they are presented. If they contain data from an external source, this
should be acknowledged including the page number, where it exists.

Examples
Kate has included a figure in her Introduction section which she labelled
like this:

Figure 1.0 Members of the East African Community (EAC) with their
respective 2019 GDP figures (in Billions).
Source: World Bank Data 2020.

• Kate has labelled her figure correctly, and also provided the source
document from which it was obtained
• However, she has not referred to this figure in her text before she
presented it
• It would be better if her figure was larger so that the text could be read
more easily, and it was centred in the middle of the page
• The source citation should be in brackets and include the page number
of the figure (if one exists)

Later on, in her Literature Review, Kate presents a table which she has
labelled like this:

Table 1.1 Global trade: exports, 2015–2018 (percentage growth).

Source: EAC Trade and Investment Report 2018.

• Again, she has labelled the table correctly and provided the source
citation
• But again, there is no reference to Table 1.1 in the text before she
presented this table
• And again, the source citation should contain the page number and be
presented in a bracket

Reference lists
With in-text citation styles of referencing, a reference list should be provided
at the end of the proposal which includes all the sources cited in the text. With
alphabetical in-text style systems, these should be presented in alphabetical
96 Writing the rest of your proposal
order of the first author. Only one reference should be provided for each
source even if it has been cited several times. The sources should not be split
up according to the type of publication.
Each type of citation (for example, journal articles, books and elec-
tronic reports) has a different citation style, but they have common fea-
tures. You should not simply cut and paste citations of your cited sources
from someone else’s work as these may not conform to your institu-
tion’s style. However, you can use these as the basis for creating your
own references. Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.co.uk/) also has
a double-quote button which you can use to obtain citation details in
standard formats.

Examples
Kate has included a reference in her reference list as follows:
De Lombaerde, P. and Van Langenhove, L., 2005. Indicators of regional
integration: Methodological issues.
Putting the authors’ names, year and title into Google Scholar, I managed to
identify this publication. It is also freely available as a PDF – see Figure 13.1.
Opening the PDF it became clear that this was a technical report. Some of
the details in Kate’s reference were missing. As the PDF was not available
from an official site the correct way to reference this publication at Kate’s
institution would be for a paper version as follows:

De Lombaerde, P. and Van Langenhove, L. (2005) Indicators of Regional

Integration: Methodological issues. IIIS Discussion Paper No. 64. Dub-
lin: Institute for International Integration Studies.

Figure 13.1 Google Scholar output after searching for Kate’s source publication
Source: (Google, 2022)
 Referencing 97
In Mollie’s reference list there is the following entry:

Collier, R. Pirlot, A. Vella, J. (2020) ‘Covid-19 and Fiscal Policies: Tax Policy
and the COVID-19 Crisis, Volume 48 (Issue 8), Page 794.

She has mistakenly not referred to a whole article, but only the page from
which she has taken a quote. The journal title was also missing. Again, by
using Google Scholar, I was able to check this reference and discovered
that that author names and the issue number were also incorrect. She should
have referenced this journal article at her institution like this:

Vella, J. and Collier, R. (2020) COVID-19 and Fiscal Policies: Tax Policy and
the COVID-19 Crisis. Intertax, 48(8/9), pp. 794–804.

Thomas included the reference to a book in his reference list as follows:

Adler, N.J. (2002) International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior,

4th edn.

This was nearly correct for his institution. The only issues were the lack
of a publisher, which I was able to find by using Google Books (https://
books.google.com/), a place of publication, which I found by Googling the
publisher’s name, and not putting the title in italics. The correct way for
Thomas to cite this book at his institution would be:

Adler, N. J. (2002) International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior,

4th edn. Cincinnati OH: South-Western.

Tappasiya generated her reference list automatically using the Harvard style
in the Word References function. Unfortunately, she was not aware that
there are many different variants of Harvard, so the version she used was not
completely correct for her institution. One of the references she generated
was for a website:

Corcoran, D., 2018. Three Customer Experience Lessons From Amazon.

[Online]
Available at: https://thefinancialbrand.com/70509/banking-customer-
experience-cx-lessons-amazon/
[Accessed 31 August 2020].

For her institution, the year should have been in brackets, the word [Online]
should be omitted, the URL link should work, and the reference should be
displayed on a single line like this:
98 Writing the rest of your proposal
Corcoran, D. (2018) Three Customer Experience Lessons from Amazon.
Available at: https://thefinancialbrand.com/70509/banking-customer-
experience-cx-lessons-amazon/ [Accessed 31 August 2020].

Otherwise, her reference was correct.

References
Google (2022) Google Scholar UK search result for De Lombaerde Van Langen-
hove 2005 Indicators of regional integration: Methodological issues. Available
at: https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=De+Lombaer
de+Van+Langenhove+2005+Indicators+of+regional+integration%3A+Methodo
logical+issues&btnG=.
Pears, R. and Shields, G. (2022) Cite them right. 12th edn. London: Bloomsbury
Academic.
Part Four

Beyond your proposal

Introduction
Now that we have covered everything involved in deciding on, research-
ing and writing your proposal, the remainder of this book provides three
chapters containing concise information on your next steps as a dissertation
research student. There are many other resources written on these subjects,
which no doubt you will be accessing, but these chapters provide some
initial guidance and some pointers of where to look for more information.
Chapter 14 covers planning and managing your research, including stress
management. Chapter 15 focuses on your relationship with your supervisor
and how to get the most out of it. Finally Chapter 16 introduces the tasks
you will be undertaking after submitting your proposal, commonly referred
to as the critical phase of doing a dissertation (see the Research phases
section of Chapter 12).

DOI: 10.4324/9781003285137-18
14 Time and stress management

Time management

General principles
Here are some general time management tips, some of which are based on
the advice available from Coaching Positive Performance (2018):

• Try to address and resolve any emotional or social distractions before

you try to start working as these can affect your ability to concentrate.
You will need to spend some time investing in developing effective
working relationships with those around you.
• Use critical thinking to identify and evaluate the tasks you need to
complete; write them down and assess their relative levels of urgency
and importance. For example, you could write them on post-it notes
and place them on a grid – see Figure 14.1. Make sure you leave enough
time for important tasks which are less urgent (Priority 2) as these can
often bite you if you focus too much on urgent tasks which are less
important (Priority 3).
• Based on your task list and evaluation, and the amount of time you
have available, choose the right task to do first then focus on it; you
will have a better overall outcome if you focus on and spend enough
time doing high priority tasks well.
• It is good to be aware of your own self-motivation and use this to
improve your performance. For example, do you enjoy finishing tasks?
Do you like to keep your information tidy? Would a picture help you
to get your thoughts down on paper before focusing on a writing task?
What is your next social commitment relating to your research project
and how do you need to prepare for it?
• Doing a research project requires discipline. You may need to be a little
ruthless and forego some of your other interests and responsibilities for

DOI: 10.4324/9781003285137-19
102 Beyond your proposal

Figure 14.1 Task ranking by urgency and importance

a period of time, and learn to say “no” to some new demands on your
time. Do you really need to be doing them now? Can someone else
handle them?
• However, you still need to have a life outside of your research proj-
ect. Make sure you get sufficient rest, eat well, and don’t withdraw
socially. You will perform better overall if you don’t overdo things as
you can easily wear yourself out.
• Try to maintain accurate, organised records, as these can help you
when you need to refer back to what you have already done. One strat-
egy is to keep a research log – a general book of notes accounting for
your research project.

Getting started
One major challenge you may face is how to get started on a big new task,
such as those covered in Chapter 16. Here are some tips for getting started
and improving your productivity based on McMillan and Weyers (2011):

• Think about your study environment: Is it tidy? Is it too noisy? Could

you change location and work more productively?
• Try to avoid social distractions – find a place and time where you can
concentrate. This might mean switching off social media or your email
inbox for a while.
 Time and stress management 103
Table 14.1 Example work breakdown structure

Task no. Description Effort Who Resources/comment

3.1 Develop pilot interview 6 hrs Me

questions
3.2 Supervisor to check 1 hr Supervisor Arrange meeting
questionnaire for 20th Feb
3.3 Arrange 3 interviews 2 hrs Me
3.4 Carry out 3 interviews 10 hrs Me Arrange payment
3.5 Analyse interview data 10 hrs Me Make comments in
reflective journal
3.6 Send improved interview 2 hrs Me
questions to supervisor

• Work in short bursts rather than pressuring yourself to achieve too

much over a longer period.
• Find a way to start; even if it is not the task at the top of your list, do
something relating to your research project that you feel comfortable
with. Reject displacement activities – unrelated tasks which suddenly
seem important because you are trying to face something difficult.
• Focus on positives, such as what you have already achieved, rather
than what you haven’t yet accomplished.
• Use a non-linear approach to writing; you can outline or draft some
chapters whilst you refine others. You cannot hope to complete your
chapters in linear order before starting the next one as you will surely
run out of time.
• Break down large tasks; whilst Gannt charts are good for seeing the big
picture, they lack the detail required to manage larger tasks. One way of
managing this is through a work breakdown structure, which enables
you to split a big task up and consider how much work is involved in
each subtask, and by whom. An example is shown in Table 14.1.
• Work alongside others: whilst dissertation work is normally indi-
vidual, there are ways that you can take advantage of other people’s
activities, such as your university friends or other people studying a
research project. If you were to go to a study location together and
take breaks at the same time, you could set goals and report back on
your progress.
• Ask for help: if you get stuck, don’t suffer on your own, but speak out
to someone about it, such as your supervisor, a fellow student, or your
dissertation coordinator. You can waste a lot of time and heartache by
104 Beyond your proposal
keeping quiet when someone else might be able to assist you or at least
point you in the right direction to find help.
• Don’t be a perfectionist: some students find it hard to let go of their
draft work because they are worried that it is not good enough and their
supervisor might criticise them. It is your supervisor’s job to give you
feedback on your draft work and this is perhaps the most important
thing that they do. They are not trying to criticise you – they are trying
to help you to improve your work, and also to develop as a researcher
and as an academic writer. This means that you need to have the cour-
age to trust them with your draft work at the right moment. If you
leave it too late you will not have enough time to make changes and
you might already think your work is better than it actually is.

Finishing on time
According to Horn (2012) these are some common causes of delay in
research projects:

• Problems accessing data or participants

• Illness
• Unavailability of resources
• Slow ethics approval, especially if your topic has been viewed as
medium or high risk
• A difficult academic area – maybe the area you have chosen is rela-
tively new and appropriate methods for undertaking research are not
yet agreed
• A family or work crisis
• Delays in receiving feedback from your supervisor, or their feedback
unexpectedly requires you to rewrite chapters or sections

The moral of all these common causes of delay is to leave some con-
tingency time in your schedule. Failure to do so will make you feel
stressed and mean that you will not do yourself justice as you will not
be able to finish all the tasks involved in doing your dissertation to an
adequate standard.
Here is some advice from some successful medical students (Rivera et al.,
2005) on how to complete your dissertation on time:

• Start early
• Set aside adequate (protected) time each week
• Stick to your timeline
• Get the most out of your supervisory relationship
 Time and stress management 105
• Choose a topic that genuinely interests you
• Keep your project simple yet innovative

Stress management

Definition
Emotional, or human, stress is a concept derived from the concept of
stress of physical objects. Strain means the amount of tension an object
is placed under. Stress is the reaction of an object to being placed under
strain.
Emotional stress occurs when you believe you can’t cope with a
problem or situation you perceive to be stressful (Lazarus and Cohen,
1984).

Causes
Here are some causes of stress relating to dissertations according to Fontana
(1991):

• Insufficient support or leadership

• Long or unsociable hours
• Uncertainty or insecurity
• Unrealistically high expectations
• Inability to influence decisions (caused by a lack of assertiveness)
• Conflicts with your supervisor
• Poor communication
• Inability to finish a job

Stress and productivity

Students often feel stressed because they are putting themselves under
too much strain as they are trying to achieve too much in the time they
have allocated. With better planning and lower expectations of what you
are trying to achieve over time, you can actually achieve more, especially
in the long run.
If you feel you are working near to your limit, you need to be kind to
yourself, pull back and get some rest. You cannot maintain maximum
productivity over an extended period as your productivity will start to drop
off. Once you get into a mindset of trying too hard you can do yourself
physical harm such as exhaustion, ill health or even a breakdown, as well
as not achieving as much.
106 Beyond your proposal
Signs
Here are some possible signs of stress:

• Panic attacks
• Always feeling pressured and hurried
• Unable to take in new information, forgetful
• Being irritable, constantly in a bad mood
• Headaches, chest pain, and stomach problems
• Allergic reactions (e.g. skin conditions or asthma)
• Difficulty going to sleep
• Overeating or not eating properly
• New addictions or substance abuses
• Depression, constant sadness
• Being withdrawn

Please note that these are only indicators. They should not be trusted for
self-diagnosis. On the other hand, you would not expect all these signs to be
present in someone who was feeling stressed.

Tips on managing stress

• Try not to worry about things outside of your control
• Instead, try to identify the sources of stress in your life (known as
stressors)
• Talk to someone about it (such as a friend, your supervisor, or a university
counsellor)
• Start a stress journal: it may make it easier to write things down and
reflect on how you are feeling, then start to deal with your situation
• Reflect on how you currently cope with stress: there are healthy and
unhealthy ways – try not to start new unhealthy habits
• Do some exercise
• Have a good diet
• Find a relaxation technique that works for you

The 4 As of stress management

• Accept: When you can’t change a situation, sometimes you just need to
just accept it for what it is.
• Avoid: Plan ahead to rearrange your surroundings. For example, avoid
taking on more than you can handle.
• Alter: Changing stressful situations may allow you to evade the stress
all-together:
 Time and stress management 107
• Manage your time better
• Learn to be more assertive (see Chapter 15)
• Adapt: By anticipating the stressors in your life and making plans to
adapt, you can save yourself a lot of aggravation:
• Change your thinking
• Change your feelings
• Change your actions
Source: (Mayo Clinic Health System, 2022)

References
Coaching Positive Performance (2018) 17 Essential time management skills. Available
at: www.coachingpositiveperformance.com/17-essential-time-management-skills/.
Fontana, D. (1991) Managing stress. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Horn, R. (2012) Researching and writing dissertations: A complete guide for business
and management students. 2nd edn. London: CIPD.
Lazarus, R. and Cohen, J. (1984) Stress, appraisal and coping. 3rd edn. New York:
Springer.
Mayo Clinic Health System (2022) Need stress relief? Try the 4 A’s. Available at:
www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/the-4-
as-of-stress-relief.
McMillan, K. and Weyers, J. (2011) How to write dissertations and project reports.
2nd edn. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Rivera, J., Levine, R. and Wright, S. (2005) Completing a scholarly project during
residency training: Perspectives of residents who have been successful. Journal
of General Internal Medicine, 20(4), pp. 366–369.
15 Your supervisory relationship

Introduction

The dance metaphor

Your supervisory relationship is like performing a dance together (Derounian,
2011):

• The content of your writing is like dance steps

• Like dance steps, these need to be executed correctly (e.g. academic
writing conventions, referencing, etc.)
• There needs to be an overall message which comes through in your
writing (like choreography)
• Just as in dancing, there is a personal relationship between you and
your supervisor which will affect the quality of the outcome
• Finally, just as there is another intangible “X-factor” in dancing (some-
times referred to as grace or poise), you need to develop your “voice”
as an academic researcher and writer, demonstrating your confidence
to communicate from your identity as a researcher

Supervisor styles
Supervisor approaches can be measured in terms of the level of structure
and the level of support that they provide (Gatfield, 2005) – see Figure 15.1.

• A pastoral supervisor is high in support but low in structure.

• A directorial supervisor is low in support but high in structure.
• A contractual supervisor is high in both structure and support.
• The fourth supervisory style is called laissez-faire and refers to super-
visors who are both low in structure and low in support. It has been
written in grey text because it is viewed as being unprofessional.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003285137-20
 Your supervisory relationship 109

Contractual Potential conflict

(high support, high structure) when your preferred
style is opposite to
your supervisor’s style

Pastoral Directorial
(high support, (low support,
low structure) high structure)

Laissez-faire
(low structure, low support)

Figure 15.1 Dimensions of supervisory relationships

Source: Adapted from Gatfield (2005: 317)

The main point of the diagram is to explain that conflicts between students
and supervisors can arise when a supervisor’s preferred style is different
from a student’s preferred style.

Have correct expectations

Supervisors
You should expect your supervisor to:

• Be available for supervisory meetings to:

• Assess your progress honestly
• Provide you with verbal or written feedback
• Agree on next steps for your research and help you set goals for
your next meeting
• Advise you about reading and research, and help you to develop your
ideas
• Help you to improve your research and writing ability
• Provide you with guidance and support throughout
• Review whether your research is manageable, suitably focused, and
clearly prescribed
110 Beyond your proposal
• Advise you on the preparation of your dissertation document (in terms
of its structure, content, coherence and presentation)

However, you should not expect your supervisor to:

• Provide you with a “ready-made” research area

• Take responsibility for the progress of your dissertation
• Chase you to make an appointment with them
• Tell you in advance whether you will ultimately succeed, even if they
approve of your current level of progress
• Respond to your emails immediately, out of hours, on annual leave or
over the weekend
• Read your work at short notice or without an appointment
• Assist you with continual revisions of draft chapters
• Proofread or edit your work

Students
You should:

• Work conscientiously and independently, following your supervisor’s

guidance and feedback
• Be proactive by raising problems or difficulties with your supervisor
early on
• Give your supervisor sufficient notice of requested meetings and send
your draft work in advance
• Prepare for supervisory meetings having addressed prior action points
with a clear agenda for the meeting
• Take notes during supervisions and send your supervisor a meeting
summary soon after the meeting
• Take responsibility for your own progress by regularly reviewing
your personal timeline (e.g. Gantt chart) to ensure your research is on
track

Preparing for supervisions

• Focus on one main subject in each meeting.
• Organise your paperwork before, during and after the meeting.
• Agree on actions and dates. This is a form of public goal setting which
will improve your outcomes (see Hayes et al., 1985).
• Let go of your draft at the right moment.
 Your supervisory relationship 111
• Send your work enough time in advance for it still to be fresh in your
mind but so that your supervisor has enough time to schedule produc-
ing helpful feedback. The ideal amount of time is usually about two to
three working days.

After the meeting, you should send a meeting summary sheet to your super-
visor via email within three days. This should include a summary of your dis-
cussion, agreed actions by both of you, and the agreed date of next meeting.

Learn to be assertive

Introduction
Many students fail to get what they need in supervisory relationships because
they either stay quiet or they don’t know how to ask without appearing rude
or aggressive. Three approaches to relationships are shown in Figure 15.2.
Submissive or non-assertive people respect others, but they do not respect
themselves. This means they do not get what they need. Aggressive people
respect themselves, but they do not respect others. This means they may
antagonise others and not get what they need. However, assertive people
respect others and also respect themselves. This enables them to get what
they need.

Respect for others

Figure 15.2 Approaches to relationships

112 Beyond your proposal
Definition
Assertive people:

• Believe in:
• Respecting others and themselves
• Their values and rights
• Believe they have a right to:
• Ask for what they want
• Have an opinion
• Make decisions
• Make mistakes
• Celebrate their successes
• Change their mind
• Be independent
• Be respected
• Refuse to do something (especially if they believe it would be
unhelpful to their overall success)
Source (Smith, 2011)

Techniques
There are three main assertiveness techniques (Larsen and Jordan, 2017):

• Broken record: Find a suitable phrase to express yourself then repeat

it without becoming emotional or justifying yourself further until you
are listened to. For example, “This item is faulty. Under the sale of
goods act I am entitled to my money back.”
• Empathy: Express how you feel and that you are trying to understand
how the other person feels. For example, “I understand you need help
but I’m sorry I can’t this time because . . .”.
• Offer a compromise whilst maintaining your self-respect.

A combination of all three techniques is often best. The skill is to know

which technique to use in which situation.

Tips for a successful relationship

How to nurture your supervisor

• Establish norms of how you will work together, such as the length and
regularity of your meetings and how far in advance you should send
your draft work
 Your supervisory relationship 113
• Incorporate your supervisor’s recommendations into your revisions
(at least in part), otherwise they might become discouraged and not
invest so much effort in giving you as detailed feedback another time
• Respect the time constraints of your supervisory meetings
• Take the initiative, but expect guidance
• Maintain contact.
Source: (Roberts, 2010)

Remember: it is your dissertation, not your supervisor’s. They do not give

you instructions, they give you advice. You have the right to say “no” and
to make your own decisions. When you change your work based on their
advice, you are not making corrections, you are learning to become a better
researcher and writer, and putting it into practice.
Here is some further advice from Vitae (2022):

• Keep things in perspective – you are both human so either of you might
have a bad day leading to a bad supervision meeting
• Any criticism your supervisor makes is almost always directed at your
actions, not you personally (even when it seems personal)
• Be professional – accept criticism positively
• Ask for feedback – don’t wait to be told what to do
• Show your enthusiasm
• Meet deadlines – set a good example

Dealing with criticism

• Try to take criticism of your work objectively, not personally – get
over your emotional reaction then come back to it later so that you can
evaluate it more objectively. Ask yourself:
• Are the points made valid?
• Can they help me to improve my work and become a better
researcher or writer?
• Remember that your supervisor wants you to succeed.
• Also realise that having feedback is much better than not having it,
even if it appears critical and negative.

If things become difficult

If you have tried the above techniques but none of them have worked and
you feel you have a problem with your supervisor, this is what you should do:

• Contact your dissertation coordinator (informally at first):

114 Beyond your proposal
• Ask them for advice.
• Ask them what the procedures are. This will help you to empower
yourself, so you realise that you are not a victim, and that you have
choices.
• Keep a record of all issues: by this stage you may be required to present
factual evidence, such as email threads.
• Seek a resolution: there may be an existing procedure, such as a meeting
between you, your supervisor, your programme leader and your student
representative.
• There are four possible outcomes:
• You realise that you are to blame and change.
• Your supervisor accepts they were at fault, and they change.
• You both realise that there is blame on both sides and you both
change.
• You are unable to reach an agreement. This is the point at which
trust has broken down even though you have done your best to
resolve the situation so this is when your dissertation coordinator
should consider changing your supervisor.

As a dissertation coordinator of about 800 students per year, I never cease

to be amazed at how many students ask me for a new supervisor for the
smallest reason when they have not got anywhere near this stage. However,
a few students genuinely reach this point and I do my best to intervene and
help them.

References
Derounian, J. (2011) Shall we dance? The importance of staff – student relationships
to undergraduate dissertation preparation. Active Learning in Higher Education,
12(2), pp. 91–100.
Gatfield, T. (2005) An investigation into PhD supervisory management styles:
Development of a dynamic conceptual model and its management. Journal of
Higher Education Policy and Management, 27(3), pp. 311–325.
Hayes, S. C., Rosenfarb, I., Wulfert, E., Munt, E. D., Korn, Z. and Zettle, R. D.
(1985) Self-reinforcement effects: An artifact of social standard setting. Journal
of Applied Behavior Analysis, 18(3), pp. 201–214.
Larsen, K. L. and Jordan, S. S. (2017) Assertiveness training. In: V. Zeigler-Hill and
T. Shackelford, eds. Encyclopedia of personality and individual differences. New
York: Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_882-1.
Roberts, C. (2010) The dissertation journey: A practical and comprehensive guide
to planning, writing and defending your dissertation. 2nd edn. London: SAGE.
 Your supervisory relationship 115
Smith, M. J. (2011) When I say no, I feel guilty. New York: Bantam.
Vitae (2022) Supervision and key relationships. Available at: www.vitae.ac.uk/
doing-research/doing-a-doctorate/starting-a-doctorate/supervision-and-
key-relationships.
16 Next steps in your research

Introduction
Once you have submitted your proposal, you are moving from the concep-
tual phase to the critical phase of your research project (see Chapter 12). In
this final chapter, we shall briefly explore the common tasks you will need
to work on during your critical phase.

Responding to your proposal feedback

At some point, you should receive written feedback on your proposal. It is
important that you get beyond your emotional reaction to your mark for course-
work, or an accept/reject decision for proposals requiring formal approval.
Once you are in a more objective mindset you should read the feedback
you were given in detail and see what you can learn about how to improve
your work, your understanding of the research process and your ability as
an academic writer.
The most important thing to focus on is to get your topic right for your
dissertation. This is your main opportunity to receive detailed feedback on
your topic and to decide whether it needs changing. You should be prepared
to make changes and not be wedded to your proposal idea. However, as
mentioned in Chapter 1, it is much better to adapt an existing idea than
start again from scratch. From my experience, most proposal topic ideas
are criticised for being too broad in scope. In addition, your supervisor
may have thought that your plan for collecting and analysing data to inves-
tigate your chosen topic was not viable.
You will need to agree with your supervisor on a viable topic, then
rewrite your front matter to make it consistent with your revised topic.
The other advice you have received in your feedback can help you with
drafting the first few chapters of your dissertation. Make use of this good
opportunity to improve your writing.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003285137-21
 Next steps in your research 117
Drafting your introduction chapter
Your introduction chapter to your dissertation should be an extension of
your introduction in your proposal. Many of the principles explained in
Chapter 2 and Chapter 8 can be applied to it. You will need to go into more
depth in your background and problem statement, but they should follow the
same principles with unique distinct paragraph topics in your background
being combined together and focused in your problem statement. Again,
the combination of your background and your problem statement form your
rationale for choosing your research topic.
The number of objectives and research questions might increase slightly,
but their style is essentially the same as for your proposal. There may be
some additional sections that you need to add to this chapter, such as your
potential contribution.

Doing and drafting your full literature review

As for your dissertation introduction, your full literature review chapter
should be an extension of your literature review in your proposal. Again,
the style will be similar to that of a proposal literature review which was
explained in Chapter 9.
You may have slightly more themes. They will no doubt be longer, and
they may be divided into subsections, but you should not over-structure
your review so that you leave plenty of opportunities for deeper, critical
writing. You will need to obtain more references, but the ones you have
already obtained for your proposal can form the basis of your research.
Your argument needs to be evidence-based and flow from one paragraph
to the next. You should show critical thinking in your choice of supporting
evidence and the length and style of your citations. The topics and points of
your paragraphs need to be clear, and your paragraphs should be between
60 and 180 words long. You need to include theoretical perspectives and
critical analysis. All these issues were discussed in Chapters 5, 6, 7 and 9.
Dissertation literature reviews tend to be about 25% of the total word-
count. They should have a discussion at, or near, the end that is focused
on your context and draws together the findings from the themes you have
already presented. You might then finish your review with a conclusion in
which you reappraise your research questions in the light of your findings.
Doing a full literature review is a complex task, so you may need to break
it down with a work breakdown structure as explained in Chapter 14. You
may also need several versions of your literature review as tasks on your
Gantt chart, so it is clear when you plan to complete them and what feed-
back you are hoping to obtain from your supervisor.
118 Beyond your proposal
Drafting your methodology/method chapter
As for your first two dissertation chapters, your methodology/method chap-
ter should also be an extension of your methodology/method section from
your proposal. It will probably be about 15–20% of your total wordcount.
The main difference between the proposal and the dissertation versions is
the tense and style: your dissertation version should be written in the past
tense with a more definite rationale style of argument as the research will
have been undertaken by the time this chapter is read.
As for your proposal, the methodology/method chapter should start with
an introduction and be divided into sections which follow a logical order,
as explained in Chapter 11. You are also advised to include a conceptual
framework (see Chapter 10) as they are very helpful and there should be
sufficient wordcount for this. However, you should be careful not to explain
things to the reader that they already know, or add more sections which
overlap in content and make the overall rationale and plan for carrying out
your research project less clear.
Nevertheless, there may be sufficient wordcount for more discussion
towards the end of some of your sections. This could address issues such as:
your choices compared with viable alternatives, how these choices have been
implemented, and potential limitations or issues you may face when carrying
out the research. If you are carrying out quantitative analysis, you may have a
longer discussion about validity, reliability and your hypotheses for statistical
analysis. Again, please refer to Chapter 11 for an initial explanation.
There is no need for a conclusion at the end of this chapter.

Requesting ethics approval

Before you carry out primary data collection, most institutions require you
to have first obtained ethics approval, so this will need to be completed dur-
ing your critical phase.
Ethics approval works like an insurance policy: in the unlikely event
that something goes wrong during your you have ethics approval then your
institution is responsible; if you do not have ethics approval then you are
personally liable.
The elements of the ethics approval process will be specific to your insti-
tution, and you should receive advice and training on this. For general infor-
mation on the ethics process, please refer to www.ukri.org/councils/esrc/
guidance-for-applicants/research-ethics-guidance/.

Designing your data collection instrument

If you are undertaking primary data collection during your research project,
you will also need to design your data collection instrument during this
 Next steps in your research 119
phase. This should be based on your research questions and objectives and
your conceptual framework.
You need to think carefully about what questions you wish to include
here so that you can obtain the most useful data to answer your research
questions and achieve your objectives. Try not to ask complicated ques-
tions. For questionnaires, data analysis is often based on a research design
which involves a combination of question answers.
Your supervisor should give you feedback on your draft data collection
instrument. You can also show some of your fellow students a draft version
to see whether it makes sense to them.
For more information, please refer to the sources in the bibliography list
below.
I hope you have found this book useful. I wish you every success with
your proposal, your dissertation and your future career.

Bibliography
Alvesson, M. (2013) Constructing research questions: Doing interesting research.
London: SAGE.
Fink, A. (2009) How to conduct surveys: A step-by-step guide. 4th edn. London:
SAGE.
Frazer, L. and Lawley, M. (2000) Questionnaire design and administration: A practical
guide. Chichester: Wiley.
Hammersley, M. and Atkinson, P. (2007) Ethnography: Principles in practice. 3rd
edn. London: Routledge.
Oppenheim, A. N. (2000) Questionnaire design, interviewing and attitude measurement.
New edn. London: Continuum.
Rea, L. M. and Parker, R. A. (2005) Designing and conducting survey research: A
comprehensive guide. 4th edn. San Francisco: Wiley.
Rubin, H. and Rubin, I. (2005) Qualitative interviewing: The art of hearing data.
2nd edn. London: SAGE.
Index

4 As of stress management 106 charts see quantitative analysis,

50-40-10 principle 61 charts
citation rate 10
abduction see approach, abductive citing: direct 34, 93–94; indirect 34,
academic writing 27; clarity 27; 93–94; see also referencing, citing
functional skills 4; grammar 4; claims 34
hedging 32, 65; passive voice 27, 56; concept map 62–63
simplicity 27; tense 118 conceptual framework 24, 67, 70–72
academic writing style 27; acronyms conclusion see literature review,
29; apostrophes 29; contractions conclusion
28; emotive language 31; Latin contingency planning 84, 88
abbreviations 29–30; personal contractions see academic writing style,
language 27–28 contractions
academic writing tree 4 creativity see topic selection creativity
acronyms see academic writing style, critical analysis 64–66
acronyms critical realism see philosophy, critical
aim 15; evaluation 16–17; writing 15 realism
annotated bibliography see literature critical thinking 65; questioning
review, annotated bibliography approach 66–67
apostrophes see academic writing style,
apostrophes dance metaphor 108
approach 75–76; abductive 76; data analysis 81–83; mixed methods
deductive 76; inductive 76 81–82; primary 2–3; qualitative
argument 44–49; clarity 2, 27, 31, 47; 82–83; quantitative 82; secondary 3
planning 46–49 databases see literature searching,
argument style 44–46; discursive 45, databases
46, 54, 65–66; single argument/ data collection 80–81; focus groups
opinion 44, 45–46, 73, 118 80; interviews 80; observations 80;
assertiveness 111–112 primary 2–3, 80–81; questionnaires
80; reliability 81; secondary 3,
background 53–54 80–81; validity 81
bear eating fish x data types 81–82
DECJAD 85–86
career goals see topic selection strategy, deduction see approach, inductive
career goals descriptive analysis see quantitative
case study see strategy, case study analysis, descriptive
 Index 121
discursive style argument see argument Latin abbreviations see academic
style, discursive writing style, Latin abbreviations
discursive style paragraph see limitations 56, 84
paragraph, discursive style literature review 58–68, 117; annotated
dissertation 2–3, 12 bibliography 58; conclusion 67–68;
dissertation phase see research phase including theory 63–64; narrative 3;
dissertation types 2–3 systematic 3, 79; thematic 62–63
literature searching 10–12, 59–61;
emotive language see academic writing databases 60; electronic journals 60;
style, emotive language search engines 59–60
empirical literature 63
ethics 83–84 method 2, 80–83, 118; data analysis
evidence 34–38 81–83; data collection 80–81
methodology 73–79, 118; approach
feedback 104, 109–111, 113, 116 75–76; philosophy 75; strategy
figures 95 76–79
finishing energy 14 mistakes 84
focus 101 mixed methods 3, 76, 81–82
focus groups see data collection, focus motivation 14, 101
groups
front matter 15 narrative literature review see literature
functional skills see academic writing, review, narrative
functional skills numerical data 81–82

Gantt charts 88–90 objectives 15–16, 18; evaluation 18;

genre 4, 15 writing 18
getting started 102–104 observations see data collection,
Google Scholar 9–11, 59–60, 96–97 observations
grammar see academic writing, outline 49, 56, 103
grammar
grounded theory see qualitative paragraph 39–43; definition 39;
analysis, grounded theory discursive style 46, 65–66; length
39–40; structure 40–41
hedging see academic writing, hedging passive voice 27–28
hypotheses 81 personal language see academic writing
style, personal language
illumination see topic selection philosophy 75; critical realism 75;
creativity, illumination interpretivism 75; positivism 75;
impact 56 postmodernism 75; pragmatism 75
incubation see topic selection creativity, plagiarism 35, 37–38
incubation plan evaluation 2, 90–92
interpretivism see philosophy, planning 88–92; contingency 88, 92,
interpretivism 104; dependencies 88
interviews see data collection, Poincaré, H. 9
interviews population 76
introduction 53–57, 117 positivism see philosophy, positivism
postmodernism see philosophy,
journals see literature searching, postmodernism
electronic journals pragmatism see philosophy,
justification 56 pragmatism
122 Index
presentation technique see argument, Saunders, M. N. 74–76, 83
planning schedule 88
primary analysis 3 scope see topic evaluation, scope
primary data 3, 80 search engines see literature searching,
primary research dissertation 2–3 search engines
problem solving see topic selection secondary data 3
strategy, problem solving secondary research dissertation 3
problem statement 54 section numbering 24–26
proposal 1 sections 23
protocol see method semi-structured interviews 80
purpose 1, 58, 60, 73 significance 56
purposive sampling see sampling, single argument/opinion see argument
purposive style, single argument/opinion
snowball sampling see sampling,
qualitative analysis 82–83; categories snowball
83; grounded theory 83; primary 83; statistical testing see quantitative
themes 83; theory generation 83 analysis, statistical testing
qualitative content analysis 83 statistics see quantitative analysis,
quantitative analysis 82; charts 82; summary statistics
descriptive 82; statistical testing 82; strategy 76–79; action research 79;
summary statistics 82; tables 82 case study 12, 78–79; ethnography
questionnaire: closed questions 80; 79; experiment 79; grounded theory
open questions 80; see also data 79; secondary data 79; survey
collection, questionnaires 76–78
questions: deep 66; shallow 66 stress management 105–107
quoting 35–37 structure 23–26; two level 23
student expectations 110
random sampling see sampling, random subjective writing 31–32
rationale 2, 56 summarising 37–38
reader psychology x, 4 summary statistics see quantitative
referencing 93–98; alphabetical 93; analysis, summary statistics
citing 34–37, 93–94; reference list supervision meetings 110–111
95–98 supervisor relationship 108–114;
relevance see topic evaluation, difficulties 113–114; expectations
relevance 109–110; handling criticism 113
reliability see data collection, reliability supervisor styles 108–109
research: mixed methods 3; qualitative survey: focus groups 76; interviews 76;
3; quantitative 3 questionnaire 76; see also strategy,
research design 84 survey
ResearchGate 11 systematic literature review see
research phase 90; conceptual 90; literature review, systematic
critical 90, 116 systematic review dissertation 3
research question evaluation 19
research question writing 19 tables 82, 95
research questions 19, 67 task ranking 101–102
response rate 78 tasks 88, 101–102
tense see academic writing, tense
sample size 78 textual data 81–82
sampling 76–77; non-random 76; thematic literature review see literature
purposive 77; random 76; review, thematic
snowball 77 theoretical framework 63–64
 Index 123
theory generation see qualitative topic selection strategy 12–13; career
analysis, theory generation goals 13; data 12; problem solving
thesis 56 13; tutor driven 13
third person 27–28 transitional words and phrases
time horizon 84 41, 66
time management 101–105 Turnitin 35
title writing 15, 17
topic evaluation 13–14; interest 14, 54; validity see data collection, validity
originality 2, 14, 54; relevance 13,
54; scope 2; viability 2, 54 What 3 Words 53
topic modification 14, 116 work breakdown structure 103
topic selection creativity 9–12; writing numbers 30–31
illumination 9, 12; incubation 9, 12; writing style see academic writing
preparation 9–12 style; genre