AssessmentPoint-BriefandGuidelines2
Creating a tort of deceit Legal Framework for Addressing Paternity Fraud in Britain
LC4S174- Research Methods
LC4S174 – Research Methods
Week 8 – Assessment Point – Guidelines
Week 8 – Assessment Point: 100% of the overall module marks
Assessment Point
The individual assignment of this module is about the comprehension of how formulate a
research proposal for a dissertation. Students are called to demonstrate their understanding
of how the research proposal has developed and its precise ambit of application.
Content and Structure
Your Final Research Project is an 18-20 page (5000-6000 word) research paper (plus a works
cited list). Your assignment is to provide a clear and direct answer to a question that is
currently at issue within your chosen topic. Locate and review recent issues of the most
important professional publications (i.e. scholarly journals) within your question topic in
order to figure out what people in your field are talking about and what they are saying about
it. What topics, controversies, theories, and issues are currently shaping the field? Develop
an original answer to your research question in the form of an argument- based essay. The
style and content of your writing should be based on expectations in your field of
study and/or intended profession and the rubric provided in the course syllabus.
The paper must feature an original and engaging thesis, smooth transitions, varied sentence
structure, fresh diction, strong voice, appropriate tone, and something memorable. The
research proposal should evidence depth of reasoning and textured writing that thoughtfully
integrates pertinent quotations from the source material. A minimum of ten direct quotes
from your source texts are required. Include a final works cited list of at least ten sources.
Clarify what scenario it has opened in order to successfully complete the assignment.
LC4S174 – Research Methods
Finally, it is necessary to provide your critical evaluation of the topic under your research
proposal. Consider what to include in the body of your research proposal and demonstrate a
sound level of text synthesis. Essential information must be included in the body of the
research proposal and will be counted in the word count. Extra illustrative information may
be included in the appendices.
Students will decide on the appropriate structure and content. However, we expect to see
the following elements:
1. Abstract:
The abstract is a brief summary of your Research Proposal, and should be no longer than 200
words. It starts by describing in a few words the knowledge domain where your research
takes place and the key issues of that domain that offer opportunities for the scientific
innovations you intend to explore. Taking those key issues as a background, you then present
briefly your research statement, your proposed research approach, the results you expect to
achieve, and the anticipated implications of such results on the advancement of the
knowledge domain.
2. Introduction:
The introduction gives an overview of the research project you propose to carry out. It
explains the background of the project, focusing briefly on the major issues of its
knowledge domain and clarifying why these issues are worthy of attention. It then
proceeds with the concise presentation of the research statement, which can take the form
of a hypothesis, a research question, a project statement, or a goal statement. The research
statement should capture both the essence of the project and its delimiting boundaries, and
should be followed by a clarification of the extent to which you expect its outcomes to
represent an advance in the knowledge domain you have described. The introduction should
endeavor, from the very beginning, to catch the reader’s interest and should be written
in a style that can be understood easily by any reader with a general science
LC4S174 – Research Methods
background. It should cite all relevant references pertaining to the major issues described,
and it should close with a brief description of each one of the chapters that follow. Many
authors prefer to postpone writing the Introduction until the rest of the document is finished.
This makes a lot of sense, since the act of writing tends to introduces many changes in the
plans initially sketched by the writer, so that it is only by the time the whole document is
finished that the writer gets a clear view of how to construct an introduction that is, indeed,
compelling.
3. State of the Art:
The State of the Art, also known as the Literature Review (or Foundations), serves a cluster of
very important aims. First of all, it demonstrates that you have built a solid knowledge
of the field where the research is taking place, that you are familiar with the main issues at
stake, and that you have critically identified and evaluated the key literature. On the
other hand, it shows that you have created an innovative and coherent view integrating
and synthesizing the main aspects of the field, so that you can now put into perspective the
new direction that you propose to explore. The State of the Art must give credit to the
authors who laid the groundwork for your research, so that when, in the following chapter,
your research objectives are further clarified, the reader is able to recognize beyond doubt
that what you are attempting to do has not been done in the past and that your research will
likely make a significant contribution to the literature. The State of the Art is usually the more
extensive part of a research proposal, so it will expectedly develop over various paragraphs
and sub-paragraphs. It should be accompanied by comprehensive references, which you list
at the end of the proposal. Ideally, all influential books, book chapters, papers and other texts
produced in the knowledge domain you are exploring, which are of importance for your work,
should be mentioned here and listed at the end of the proposal. You should follow very
strictly the appropriate referencing conventions and make sure that no document you refer
to is missing in the final list of references, nor vice versa. The choice of referencing
conventions may depend on the specific field where your research is located.
LC4S174 – Research Methods
3.1. First paragraph
3.1.1. First sub-paragraph of first paragraph
As the State of the Art is likely to extend for some pages, it may need to be split into various
paragraphs, with appropriate titles, and these paragraphs may need to be broken up further
into sub-paragraphs. The paragraphs and sub-paragraphs should comply with the format
used here.
3.1.2. Second sub-paragraph of first paragraph
This is an example of the second sub-paragraph of the first paragraph of the introduction.
3.2. Second paragraph
3.1.3. First sub-paragraph of second paragraph
This is an example of the first sub-paragraph of the second paragraph of the introduction.
3.1.4. Second sub-paragraph of second paragraph
This is an example of the second sub-paragraph of the second paragraph of the introduction.
4. Research Objectives and Approach
The chapter Research Objectives and Approach clarifies the research objectives of your
project, taking as its background your description of the state of the art, and describes
the methodological approaches you have in mind to face the key research challenges of
your project. The clarification of the research objectives should build solidly on the State
of the Art and relate your research to the work carried out by others. It should elucidate
the measure to which your work develops from their work and the extent to which it
diverges from theirs to open up new and yet unexplored avenues. In essence, the
LC4S174 – Research Methods
chapter Research Objectives and Approach explains what you plan to do to tackle your
research problem, why you plan to do it that way, and how you are going to do it. The “how
to” component of the proposal is called the Research Methods, or Methodology, component.
It should be detailed enough to let the reader decide whether the methods you intend to use
are adequate for the research at hand. It should go beyond the mere listing of research tasks,
by asserting why you assume that the methods or methodologies you have chosen represent
the best available approaches for your project. This means that you should include a
discussion of possible alternatives and credible explanations of why your approach is the
most valid.
5. Current Work and Preliminary Results
This chapter of the research proposal gives a concise outline of the work you have carried out
so far and of the progress, you have made toward the aims of the project. You should
concentrate on the parts that contribute specifically to the goals of the proposal, avoiding
detailed descriptions of digressions you may have attempted in the earlier, more
exploratory, phases of your work. If you have already obtained preliminary results, this is the
chapter where you should provide them, in a structured manner that helps supporting the
rest of the proposal.
6. Work Plan and Implications
Not all research proposals lend themselves easily to the creation of detailed work plans. In
some cases, namely when the work fits the broader plans of a research group that is
progressing steadily, it is possible do build a detailed description of what the researcher
plans to do (literature to explore in depth, principles or theorems to formulate and prove,
experiments to carry out, sub-systems to build, systems integrations to perform, tests to
accomplish). In these cases, it is possible, and desirable, to establish specific milestones and
timelines and a Gantt diagram. The plan should anticipate the problems likely to be found
along the way and describe the approaches to be followed in solving them. It should
also anticipate the conferences and journals to which the work in progress is expected to be
LC4S174 – Research Methods
submitted along the way, and schedule it in a Goals for Publication section of the work plan.
In other cases, when the topic to be researched is exploratory and elusive, or when the
research approach establishes that each step should build on the, still unanticipated, results
of previous steps, it may be impossible to work out a detailed plan. Even in these cases,
however, it is advisable to establish a section on Goals for Publications that gives a rough
schedule of the publications to be produced (submission to the doctoral consortium of a top
conference, submission to a national conference, publication in a secondary journal,
submission to a reputable international conference, submission to the top conference or top
journal in the field). In spite of its contingency, this list may work marvels in keeping
the researcher focused, motivated and beneficially under pressure. Whatever its nature,
comprehensive or sketchy, your work plan should be able to put in perspective the
implications of the successive steps of your work, reinforcing, in the mind of the reader,
the conviction that your approach is solidly oriented toward results, that the topic is timely
and relevant, and that the outcomes of the project will contribute significantly to the
enhancement of the field.
7. Conclusions
The Conclusions briefly restate the objectives of your research project, recap the research
approach you plan to follow, and clarify in a few words what you expect to find out, why it is
scientifically valuable to find it out, and on what basis you expect to evaluate the validity of
your results.
8. References
In this section, you should list all the references you have made throughout the
research proposal, making sure that you comply with the referencing conventions or
citation styles that have been established for your specific field.
LC4S174 – Research Methods
The following points should be noted for this part of the assessment:
● This is an individual assessment, not a group task.
● Your research proposal should be submitted on the due date by 11.00 p.m.
(23.00 hours) VLE (UTC) time at the latest. To submit your assignment, please use
the submission link titled “Assessment Point ” that is located on Week 8 on the VLE
page of your module.
● Literature should be sourced from a range of journal articles and textbooks. A limited
range of readings will be made available.
● The word count is 6000 words +/- 10%. This does not include the reference list and
any appendices the assignment may include.
● Accurate referencing of sources is crucial in this coursework. The referencing system
used in this module is the OSCOLA Reference system. Please make sure you are
familiar with this. Marks will be deducted for inaccurate referencing.
● The assessment must be submitted electronically via “Turnitin”
