Research Methodology'

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Research Methodology.

• The structure of a Report or Thesis.

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Contents of a typical Report.

• Title page abstract, contents
• Introduction
• Literature Review
• Description of work done and methods.
• Results and Discussion.
• Conclusions and Recommendations.
• References and Bibliography.
• Appendices.

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Report Foundations.
Results/discussion.
Research question.
Conclusions
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Title page.

• The initial impact is important.
• The front page tries to grab the readers
  attention.
• The layout may be prescribed.
• The most important information should be at the
  golden section.

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Fibonacci Rectangles
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The potential reader asks..

• What is the report about?
• Is it relevant to me?
• Does it contain useful and important information?
• Should I spend time reading it now?

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The initial impact is important.

• The title page must win the attention of the
  reader.
• Prominence is achieved by
• the position on the page.
• the allocated to the information
• the font and size of the type.

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Titles should be short but instructive,
distinguishing between documents.
Construction and instrumentation of an
experimental concrete road on the trunk road D7
Uxbridge by-pass to determine the effects of
omitting expansion joints. Rapid measurement of
carbon in steel. An investigation into the
suitability of CSPFA as a base material.
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Order of report in descending order of importance
for the reader.
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Contents pages should be informative.

• 1 Introduction
• 2 Method
• 3 Results
• 4 Discussion
• 5 Conclusions
• 6 Recommendations
• 7 References

• 1 Introduction
• 2 Method of treatment
• 2.1 Survey of reducing agents
• 2.2 Survey of precipitating agents
• 3 Plant requirements.
• 3.1 Pre-treatment storage
• 3.2 ..

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Introduction

• Define what the problem is
• The questions you are addressing
• Outline personal/specific considerations that
  lead to this investigation
• How it differs from previous work
• What the report will contain
• Perhaps some (hint) of the conclusions

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Conclusions

• Conclusions are those things that have been
  discovered as a result of having done the work.
• What do I know now that I didnt know before.
• A common mistake is to provide a summary of the
  work.
• Conclusions is a short section.
• When the conclusions can be written down, it is
  time to write the thesis or report.

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Conclusions - example 1
Accidents in fog totalled 192 in the three year
period 1969-71, making up 4 of the total 129 of
these occurred during daylight hours. Accidents
were on average more serious, with more
casualties per accident, than those occurring in
other weather conditions. About 45 of the fog
accidents and 22 of the non-fog accidents
occurred on about one-seventh (160km) of the
motorway network.
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Conclusions - example 2
1. If an oil-cooling system is caught at the
'incipient failure' stage but does not show
gross contamination, the oil should be changed
without flushing (section 3.4). 2. Sludge bound
oil coolers should be cleaned by a flushing
procedure (described in section 3.5) 3. Systems
that are grossly contaminated after component
failure should be stripped and cleaned on site
(section 3.7) 4. Metal-contaminated oil coolers
should be returned to the manufacturer for
complete stripping and cleaning (section 3.8)
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Results Discussion

• Do not swamp the argument.
• Place the details in Appendices.
• Decrease the detail from reports to theses to
  papers.
• Give sufficient results to support the argument.

• What is implied by the data?
• Do not simply repeat the results.
• Compare with the results of other work.
• Conclusions are drawn and justified during the
  discussion.

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Presentation of results.

• Use the format that illustrates the point to be
  made.
• Tables.
• Graphs.
• Drawings.
• Schematic diagrams.

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Method

• Describe the method or approach.
• Justify that it is appropriate.
• Establish constraints or assumptions.
• Enable others to repeat the work and check the
  conclusions.

• Link with the research question.
• Motivate the work - what is its importance?
• Establish approaches used in previous research -
  the literature search.

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The abstract.

• The abstract is a summary of the project
  outlining
• the aims
• the methods
• the results and
• the conclusions.
• Informative abstracts are best give hard
  information rather than vague generalities.

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References and Citations

• 28 Umar, A, (1997), Object-oriented
  Client/server internet environments,
  Prentice-Hall Upper Saddle River, NJ.
• Umar 28 states that
• Client/server environments 28 are important .
• Umar (1997) suggests that ...
• had significant results (Umar et al. 1998).

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References and Citations

• Lam, K Y, Hung, S L, (1995), Concurrency control
  for time constrained transactions, Computer
  Journal, 38, 704-715.
• Lam, K, Lee, V C S, (1996), Distributed real-time
  concurrency control protocol, in Proc, 4th
  International Workshop on Parallel and
  Distributed Real-time Systems, pp122-125, IEEE
  Computer Society Press, Hawaii.

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Research Methodology

• Literature Surveys.

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The hierarchy of information.
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The purpose of publication.

• Expand the body of knowledge.
• Prevent replication of effort.
• Enable independent checks on results.
• Disseminate opinions.
• Provoke discussion.
• Gain wider recognition for our work.

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Why survey the literature?

• Discover the state-of-the-art.
• Identify gaps in the body of knowledge.
• Identify relevant work.
• Locate useful expertise.
• Keep abreast of developments.

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The world of literature.

• Textbooks.
• Learned Journals.
• Conference proceedings.
• World wide web.
• Trade papers.
• Newspapers.

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Types of academic publication.

• Original paper.
• Review of a research topic.
• Bibliography.
• Thesis.
• Dissertation.
• Technical Report.

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Presentation of the literature survey 1. The
project context.

• What related work is being undertaken?
• What is the motivation for the work?
• How does it help me/science?
• Why am I studying this aspect of the problem?

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Presentation of the literature survey 2. The
area of investigation.

• What techniques are in use?
• What are the findings of other people?
• What are the views of other people?
• How do they compare with my views?

Literature surveys are a critical appraisal
rather than a simple list of papers.
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A literature survey demonstrates

• an awareness of an adequate body of knowledge,
  and
• the ability to apply that knowledge to the
  project.

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Conclusions

• Think of the report holistically
• Initial impression is very important
• Title page
• Contents
• Abstract
• Two very important parts of any report
• Introduction
• Conclusions

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Tutorial 2

• Literature Search