Urdaneta City University

GRADUATE SCHOOL
METHODS OF RESEARCH

STUDENT: JOSEFINA S. MENESES

PROFESSOR: ALEXANDER PATACSIL

METHODS OF RESEARCH
A REACTION PAPER

There are a lot of different methods of conducting research, and each comes with its own
set of strengths and weaknesses. While most researchers are exposed to a variety of
methodologies throughout graduate training, we tend to become engrossed with our own
specialty. This makes sense, at least to me, as there are so many nuances that it can take years to
become truly proficient in conducting research in our own areas. Specialization seems necessary;
however, this is exactly why effective communication and collaboration is key. Nevertheless,
they all follow the same structure. Each part coherent with each other producing a conclusion
that brings the desired impact to the reader.

First is the abstract. For longer research papers, dissertations and theses, writing an
abstract is an essential part of the process, as it summarizes the entire research paper.The abstract
allows a researcher to quickly evaluate the content of your paper, and judge whether it’s relevant
to their research. As a result, an abstract needs to convey a complete synopsis of the paper, but
within a tight word limit. This restriction is where the difficulties lie.You will be given a
maximum word count for an abstract, such as 200 words, and it is essential that you remain
within this limit. Nowadays, scientific papers are generally placed onto a database, with strict
limits on the number of words, meaning an overlong abstract risks the entire paper becoming
rejected. Writing an abstract includes briefly introducing the general topic of the work and then
explaining the exact research question, including the aims. It should then include a brief
description of the methodology, the results and the discussion. You should try to stick to the
exact research question answered, and avoid including your own personal interpretations - if
people believe that your paper is relevant they will come across those in due course.

The second part is the introduction. In the introduction, you are attempting to inform the
reader about the rationale behind the work, and to justify why your work is essential in the field.
The introduction does not have a strict word limit, unlike the abstract, but it should be as concise
as possible. It can be a tricky part of the paper to write, so many scientists and researchers prefer
to write it last, to make sure they haven’t missed anything important. For a longer research paper,
where you use an outline, it can be useful to structure your introduction around the outline.
 The introduction gives an overall review of the paper, but does address a few slightly
different issues from the abstract It works on the principle of introducing the topic of the paper
and setting it in a broader context, gradually narrowing the topic down to a research problem,
thesis and hypothesis. A good introduction explains how you mean to solve the research
problem, and creates ‘leads’ to make the reader want to delve further into your work.You should
assume that your paper is aimed at someone with a good working knowledge of your particular
field.

For example, a paper about evolutionary adaptations need not go into too much detail
about Darwin – it’s assumed your reader already has this knowledge. A behavioral science paper
only needs to mention Pavlov and Skinner in passing, as their theories are standard for any first
year undergraduate.

The next part is the methodology which makes it different from all other types of paper.
Outlining your methodology lies at the core of your paper, and fulfills one of the basic principles
underlying the scientific method. Any scientific paper needs to be verifiable by other researchers,
so that they can review the results by replicating the experiment themselves and testing the
validity. To encourage this, you need to give a completely accurate description of the equipment
and the techniques used for gathering the data. Finally, you must provide an explanation of how
the raw data was compiled and analyzed.

A well laid out and logical methodology section will provide a solid backbone for the
entire research paper, and will lead to a strong results section.The only real difficulty with the
methods section is finding the balance between keeping the section short, whilst including all the
relevant information.The other problem is finding the correct style of writing: APA guidelines
suggest that you should use 'I' and 'We', but most supervisors still prefer an impersonal passive
tense.

The next part, the fourt part, is the results section. In theory, this is the easiest part to
write, because it is a straightforward commentary of exactly what you observed and found. In
reality, it can be a little tricky, because it is very easy to include too much information and bury
the important findings.The results section is not for interpreting the results in any way; that
belongs strictly in the discussion section. You should aim to narrate your findings without trying
to interpret or evaluate them, other than to provide a link to the discussion section.

For example, you may have noticed an unusual correlation between two variables during
the analysis of your results. It is correct to point this out in the results section. Speculating why
this correlation is happening, and postulating about what may be happening, belongs in the
discussion section. It is very easy to put too much information into the results section and
obscure your findings underneath reams of irrelevance. If you make a table of your findings, you
do not need to insert a graph highlighting the same data. If you have a table of results, refer to it
in the text, but do not repeat the figures - duplicate information will be penalized. Perhaps the
best way to use the results section is to show the most relevant information in the graphs, figures
and tables.
 Fifth is the discussions section. Writing a discussion section is where you really begin to
add your interpretations to the work. In this critical part of the research paper, you start the
process of explaining any links and correlations apparent in your data. If you left few interesting
leads and open questions in the results section, the discussion is simply a matter of building upon
those and expanding them.In an ideal world, you could simply reject your null or alternative
hypotheses according to the significance levels found by the statistics. That is the main point of
your discussion section, but the process is usually a lot more complex than that. It is rarely clear-
cut, and you will need to interpret your findings. For example, one of your graphs may show a
distinct trend, but not enough to reach an acceptable significance level. Remember that no
significance is not the same as no difference, and you can begin to explain this in your discussion
section.

You should always put your findings into the context of the previous research that you
found during your literature review. Do your results agree or disagree with previous research?
Do the results of the previous research help you to interpret your own findings? If your results
are very different, why? Either you have uncovered something new, or you may have made a
major flaw with the design of the experiment. Finally, after saying all of this, you can make a
statement about whether the experiment has contributed to knowledge in the field, or not. Unless
you made so many errors that the results are completely unreliable, you will; certainly have
learned something. Try not to be too broad in your generalizations to the wider world - it is a
small experiment and is unlikely to change the world.

Once writing the discussion section is complete, you can move onto the next stage,
wrapping up the paper with a focused conclusion which is the sixth part. Writing a conclusion is
the final part of the research paper, drawing everything together and tying it into your initial
research. If you remember, a research paper starts with a broad look at the research and narrows
down to the results, before the discussion opens it out again. At the beginning of the research
paper, you looked at all of the previous research and boiled it down into a research question.

In the discussion, you assess how the results answer to this question and discuss its
relevance to the existing knowledge in the field. When writing a conclusion, you should try to
answer a few questions, as succinctly as possible. You will have already answered some of these
in your discussion, but the key is to leave some questions that another researcher can expand
upon for their research project. If you are planning a long career as a scientist, it is something
that you can return to in the future. A good research project, whatever the results, will generate
leads for others to follow.

Finally to give credit to every resource you've used to aid you in your paper, you will
make a reference list, the last part of any good research paper. For any research paper, writing a
bibliography is essential to preventing any accusations of plagiarism, and to give fair credit to the
work of previous authors in the field. Writing a reference list also allow the reader, or the person
marking the paper, to check the original sources if they require more detail. Your bibliography
(often called a citation list) always comes at the end of the paper, and it must include all of the
direct sources that you referred to in the body of the paper. For the vast majority of scientific
papers, APA or MLA style references are used, alphabetically ordered by the surname of the
author. For any sources with no author, use the name of the organization or website or, if there is
no other choice, use the title of the work. As with in text citations, it is important to stick to one
style and avoid confusing the reader. All entries in the bibliography should be in alphabetical
order, and they should use a hanging indent. If you use more than one source from the same
author, you should order them by date and then by the first letter of the title, if the year of
publication is the same. But always remember, many academics have their own preferred style,
and since they will be the ones marking your research paper, it’s best to understand their
requirements beforehand.

Whilst your results may not be enough to reject the null hypothesis, they may show a
trend that later researchers may wish to explore, perhaps by refining the experiment.

The title or cover page contains the paper's title, the author's name, address, phone
number, e-mail, and the day's date. Not every research paper requires an abstract. However, for
longer, more complex papers abstracts are particularly useful. Often only 100 to 300 words, the
abstract generally provides a broad overview and is never more than a page. It describes the
essence, the main theme of the paper. It includes the research question posed, its significance, the
methodology, and the main results or findings. Footnotes or cited works are never listed in an
abstract. Remember to take great care in composing the abstract. It's the first part of the paper the
instructor reads. It must impress with a strong content, good style, and general aesthetic appeal.
Never write it hastily or carelessly.

A good introduction states the main research problem and thesis argument. What
precisely are you studying and why is it important? How original is it? Will it fill a gap in other
studies? Never provide a lengthy justification for your topic before it has been explicitly stated.

Indicate as soon as possible what you intend to do, and what you are not going to attempt.
You may limit the scope of your paper by any number of factors, for example, time, personnel,
gender, age, geographic location, nationality, and so on.

Discuss your research methodology. Did you employ qualitative or quantitative research
methods? Did you administer a questionnaire or interview people? Any field research
conducted? How did you collect data? Did you utilize other libraries or archives? And so on.

The research process uncovers what other writers have written about your topic. A
research paper should include a discussion or review of what is known about the subject and how
that knowledge was acquired. Once you provide the general and specific context of the existing
knowledge, then you yourself can build on others' research.

The main body of a research paper or the argument is generally the longest part of the
paper. It's where the author supports the thesis and builds the argument. It contains most of the
citations and analysis. This section should focus on a rational development of the thesis with
clear reasoning and solid argumentation at all points. A clear focus, avoiding meaningless
digressions, provides the essential unity that characterizes a strong education paper.

After spending a great deal of time and energy introducing and arguing the points in the
main body of the paper, the conclusion brings everything together and underscores what it all
means. A stimulating and informative conclusion leaves the reader informed and well-satisfied.
A conclusion that makes sense, when read independently from the rest of the paper, will win
praise.

Research papers often contain one or more appendices. An appendix contains material
that is appropriate for enlarging the reader's understanding, but that does not fit very well into the
main body of the paper. Such material might include tables, charts, summaries, questionnaires,
interview questions, lengthy statistics, maps, pictures, photographs, lists of terms, glossaries,
survey instruments, letters, copies of historical documents, and many other types of
supplementary material. A paper may have several appendices. They are usually placed after the
main body of the paper but before the bibliography or works cited section.

These are the parts usually seen on a research paper. These parts are very essential as it
forms a coherent whole of ideas. Indubitably, every researcher gains very many ideas and
insights from their work and most of the time he gets tangled up with all these ideas. The parts of
a research paper will help the researcher greatly in demarcating these ideas knowing what are the
essentials in order to make a preecise, logical, and meaningful conclusion.