Guides

Aims, Objectives and Questions in a Proposal

Purpose expressed in the broader context, questions that start with what, how, why or what if, and the instruction that they should be few.

Research Projects16 Aug 2026 · 7 min read

Anatomy of a Doctoral Thesis

Front matter, body, back matter - what actually appears in an examined thesis, in what order, based on the full contents pages of real doctoral work rather than a template.

Appendices and Research Instruments

From 140 pages of raw field data to a quarter of a thesis given over to questionnaires - what belongs in an appendix, and the replication test that decides it.

Assessing Research Topic Feasibility

The rigour-versus-practicality trade-off and the four practical considerations — time, ethical constraints, cooperation and cost — that decide whether a study can be done at…

Assessing the Academic Value of Sources

What counts as literature, why relevance is the operative word, and the eight credibility questions to run over anything before it earns a place in your review.

Attribute, Ordinal and Numerical Data

Categorical data, ordered scales and agreed measurement scales — the three data shapes described in the teaching source, and the classification tension the source leaves unresol…

Research Projects16 Aug 2026 · 9 min read

Bibliometric Trend Analysis as a Research Method

Coding a whole journal against an external standard to chart a field's research trends - the design, the bias-control logic, and the point where the exhibit outruns the evidence.

Choosing a Research Methodology

The source's own selection advice — read the significant papers in your field, see what they use, talk to your supervisor — turned into a repeatable selection procedure.

Research Projects16 Aug 2026 · 19 min read

Common Mistakes in Project Management Research

The failure modes the supplied source warns about, gathered from across three weeks of material — scope creep, thin literature, mismatched methods, late ethics and unbacked-up d…

Research Projects16 Aug 2026 · 20 min read

Components of a Research Proposal

The full thirteen-row component table with function and characteristics for each, plus a second nine-element outline from a different source in the same material.

Confidentiality and Anonymity

Two different privacy standards, why anonymity is stronger but often impossible, and the three-way identifiability classification an application must declare.

Research Projects16 Aug 2026 · 11 min read

Constructionism and Constructivism

People construct their own views of reality and the researcher seeks to discover this — the position, its social constructivism variant, and the naming inconsistency in the so…

Correlation and Experimental Methodologies

The two quantitative methodologies in the source — statistical association between two phenomena, and the isolation and control of every relevant condition.

Critical Inquiry and Standpoint Research

Research influenced by beliefs and values critical of the status quo — what a declared standpoint changes about design, analysis and the claims a study can make.

Research Projects16 Aug 2026 · 19 min read

Critical Summary and Paraphrasing

Combine related ideas, reflect the author's emphasis, paraphrase accurately, exclude your own opinion, and infer the main idea when the author never states it.

Critiquing a Journal Article

Relevance, how the argument is presented, and outcomes - a three-part critique that is harder than an annotation because it requires a position on the argument itself.

Data Collection Methods: Data as Evidence

Data constitutes evidence — the one principle the source states, the thirteen methods it lists without defining, and an honest map of what is and is not covered.

Database Search Technique: The Nine Steps

Concepts to keywords to database to results, plus the three diagnostic branches for no results, too many and too few - and the operators the source names but never explains.

Research Projects16 Aug 2026 · 9 min read

Declaring a Research Paradigm — Or Not

None of five examined works declares an ontology or epistemology, while the teaching material treats it as fundamental. What to do with that contradiction in your own methodolog…

Dependent Groups and Unequal Power

When participants cannot freely refuse - what an application must demonstrate, and a worked case where an approval took five rounds and more than five months.

Descriptive Research Methodology

Observation recorded for later analysis, its dependence on human responses, and the two distortions the source names: selective observation and biased interviews.

Descriptive, Explanatory and Evaluative Research

The three research purposes named in the teaching source, the verbs that signal each one, and how the purpose you choose constrains every later design decision.

Epistemology: How Knowledge Is Created

The theory of knowing, why answering epistemological questions means justifying your methodology, and the two different definitions the supplied source gives for the same word.

Ethical Issues at Each Research Stage

Five issues at proposal stage and six at design stage, whose rights are in play at each, and the four stages the supplied source never covers.

Ethics Application Failures: What Goes Wrong

Three real cases from the supplied source - a skipped training video, a wrong submission route and a dependent group - and what each cost the researcher.

Ethics Review and Approval Processes

Why review panels exist, what dual approval means when your workplace hosts the study, and the one thing you must never do before clearance arrives.

Evaluating an Article Before You Cite It

Ten questions to answer about every piece of writing you read - from what school of thought it follows to what data backs its argument - and how to record the answers usefully.

Evaluation and Action Research Methodologies

Participants as equal partners in design and interpretation, and research carried out in the real world with little or no control over independent variables.

Exploratory, Constructive and Empirical Research

The three forms the research process takes — identifying a problem, testing theory and proposing solutions, and gaining evidence from observation — and how a project moves betwe…

Five Journal Article Research Designs

Econometric evaluation, mathematical modelling, comparative survey, single case study and formal theory - five published designs, only one of which collects data from people.

Formulating and Testing a Hypothesis

The supposition to be tested, the precise difference between rejecting and supporting, and why a hypothesis is never proved - only supported until superseded.

Functionalism, Feminism and Postmodern Frameworks

The other philosophical frameworks named in the source and the pyramid — functionalism, symbolic interactionism, feminism, critical theory, post-structuralism and postmodernism …

Harvard Reference Anatomy: Journal Articles and Books

Every element in a journal reference and a book reference, in order, with what is italicised and what is quoted - and an honest list of the source types the supplied material ne…

Historical and Comparative Research Methodologies

Synthesising evidence about the past through where, who, when and what — and the comparative extension across societies in the past or in parallel in the present.

How Real Literature Reviews Are Organised

Emergent, two-chapter, standalone-paper, funnel and no-review-section - five published solutions to the same problem, and how to tell which one your project needs.

Research Projects16 Aug 2026 · 20 min read

Identifying the Gap in the Literature

The gap is what justifies your study existing. How to find one, how to state it so it can be checked, and five real gap statements from published research compared.

Inductive and Deductive Reasoning in Research

Generating explanations from data against collecting data to test a prior proposition — the two directions of inference and how each shapes sampling, analysis and claims.

Research Projects16 Aug 2026 · 11 min read

Interpretivism and Phenomenology

People provide their own accounts of situations and behaviours — the interpretive position and the six associated traditions the source groups beneath it.

Interview Design in Project Research

Semi-structured, in-depth and expert interviews across four studies - how many, how selected, how recorded, and the deliberate tactic of never asking the headline question direc…

Research Projects16 Aug 2026 · 20 min read

Literature Review Quick Reference

Every checklist, question set and structure from the literature review material on a single page - the search rules, the credibility tests, the reading questions and the writing…

Research Projects16 Aug 2026 · 9 min read

Literature Search Strategies

Lower case, synonyms, most important word first, quotation marks, wildcards and advanced filters - six search rules that decide whether you find the work that already answers yo…

Methodological Coherence: Making Every Step Fit

The four things every step must be appropriate to, the two 'fit' rules the source states, and a coherence audit you can run over your own design before you defend it.

Mixed Methods Design: A Worked Example

Sequential explanatory design in practice - survey first, interviews second, with the qualitative sections deliberately mirroring the quantitative ones so the strands actually m…

Narrowing and Scoping a Research Topic

Narrow enough to be interesting, broad enough to find adequate information — the boundary problem, the mind-map sequence, and how to write a title that states its own scope.

Note-Taking and Bibliographic Records

Capture the full reference the moment you find it, skim before you read, and build a record that survives to the write-up - plus the one instruction in the source worth arguing …

Ontology: Assumptions About the Nature of Reality

Questions about the nature of being, why they sit beneath your method choice, and how to surface the reality assumptions you brought to the project without noticing.

Peer Review and Blind Review

How blind review works, what it does and does not guarantee, and why the source tells you to weight blind-reviewed journals most heavily when you start a search.