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Visualizing Data

June 19, 2009 by Roy Johnson

explaining data with the Processing environment

The doyen of data presentation is Edward Tufte, but even he has (so far) only dealt with the display of static information. Ben Fry’s new book combines similar aesthetic principles with the technical knowledge of how such presentations can be made dynamically. He uses a simple programming environment and API called Processing (which he developed as part of his PhD research). This is a free downloadable open source program based on Java (processing.org).

Visualizing DataHe’s an excellent communicator, and introduces his topics in gradual stages. The first few chapters are a gentle introduction to presenting data, and then gradually he presents more technically advanced approaches. What he proposes embraces a number of disciplines – statistics, data mining, graphic design, and information visualization – but he insists at the outset that the most important thing is to ask interesting questions. It’s all very well having huge amounts of data, but you need to ask ‘What is meaningful about it?’.

The process of creating a visual presentation is a logical series of steps. First the data is acquired: (he uses the US system of zip codes as an example). Then the data is parsed: that is, changed into a format that tags each part with its intended use. Next, any unwanted data is filtered out, then the data is mined – in this case to show its maximum and minimum values.

The next stage is deciding how to present the results – as a table, bar chart, graph, or diagram. Then the results can be refined. And finally, because this entire process is conducted digitally, drawing on processing power which is now available on even a standard computer, the data can be interrogated interactively. We can zoom in on maps, or refine searches by name or size.

In the next part of the book he offers an explanation of how to use the Processing software to create your own displays and visualize your own data. This is done in a straightforward manner that even someone without programming skills could follow. He also provides guidance on the philosophy of designing this type of software. Keep your designs as small and re-usable as possible. Work with samples of your data to begin with. Don’t start by trying to build a cathedral.

Subsequent chapters deal with different types of exercise – showing data as a physical map (the population of the US in states) then a time series (national consumption of tea and coffee 1910-2000). Next comes data with complex inter-relations (national results of all baseball teams in a single season).

As he says in his introduction, he is not offering a series of ready-made programs for presenting data. Instead, he is demonstrating the general principles by which such design problems can be solved, and leaving you to create your own.

Tree maps and network graphs are shown displaying word usage in a literary text (Mark Twain) and he even shows examples of results which are not useful – in order to emphasise the point he makes over and over again: you must ask the right questions of the data you are interrogating.

He ends by returning to the earliest stages of his thesis with some quite advanced level guidance on the acquisition and parsing of data. If by this time you’re not convinced (as I was) that he knows exactly what he’s talking about, have a look at his stunning personal web site at www.benfry.com.

© Roy Johnson 2007

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Ben Fry, Visualizing Data, Sebastopol (CA): O’Reilly, 2007, pp.366, ISBN: 0596514557


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Filed Under: Information Design Tagged With: Data presentation, Information design, Visualization, Web design

Web Navigation

June 18, 2009 by Roy Johnson

navigation, structure, and usability for web design

Web sites have sometimes been described in terms of ‘generations’. David Siegel for instance describes how first generation sites were rapidly thrown together with no greater ambition than to get pages of HTML code onto the Web. The second generation added graphics, started to be concerned with page layout [even though HTML code is not designed for that purpose] and often added eye-popping special effects. Third generation sites have brought some of these excesses under control, and are designed to make the user experience more meaningful. Web Navigation is emphatically third generation.

Web NavigationThere’s no doubt that clever designers have managed to produce some visually stunning Web pages – but many information architects are now beginning to ask questions such as “Can visitors find their way around the site?” and “Is this site achieving its purpose?” The eye candy effects of flashy graphics often mask a lack of content and an incoherent maze of links which visitors are glad to leave quickly via the nearest exit. Jennifer Fleming’s Web Navigation is a serious and articulate plea for intelligent Web site design, and it is based on principles which owe more to information theory and coherent structure than to the luminous-glamour school of graphics-based design.

Like most good designers, she insists on a user-centred rather than client-centred approach to web design. What’s the difference? you might ask. Well, intelligent designers are now beginning to realise that web sites are often created to impress the commissioning clients, rather than the people who will be using them. Men in suits will applaud spiffy graphics when a new site is revealed at a presentation – but they will probably never need to log on again.

The book’s structure reflects the clarity of her purpose. There are six chapters on the foundations of navigation design, then in the second part an analysis of successful sites. There are four appendices: technical tips, a glossary of navigational terms, a list of web resources, and a bibliography. The accompanying CD comes with trial versions of software (including the highly praised Dreamweaver) and it has a marvellous ‘netography’ with listings of articles, web sites, and online resources covering navigation, usability and testing, organisation of information, information design, document markup and scripting. [I loaded the disk, browsed the sites she recommends, and all the links were working.]

Her advice is to provide clear, simple, and consistent navigational aids – and she offers a particularly strong warning against using metaphors such as the office or the supermarket [though curiously, the CD uses icons]. Navigation that works should:

  • be easily learned
  • remain consistent
  • provide feedback
  • appear in context
  • offer alternatives
  • be economic in action and time
  • provide clear visual messages
  • use clear understandable labels
  • be appropriate to site’s purpose
  • support user’s goals and behaviour

Now that’s an important free lesson for you! She is in favour of any interactivity, such as rollovers (‘OnMouseOver’) which provide feedback, and is sceptical of the ‘Back’ button on the grounds that users might enter a site at any page. Where would they be going ‘back’ to? She also raises other interesting navigational questions, such as ‘where will you be when you’ve finished reading a page, and where will you wish or need to go?’

She recommends multiple navigational routes and aids, plus guidance. For instance, a site might have a framed and ‘no-frames’ version, a graphics and no graphics version. It will certainly have navigation hot spots at the top and bottom of every page, maybe a contents list in left-hand frame, plus icons, labels, and anything else which helps users find their way around.

One of the interesting features of her approach is that she illustrates her argument with detailed reference to the work of other ‘information architects’ such as Jakob Nielsen, Clement Mok, Edward Tufte, and David Siegel. The reader is thereby presented with a range of approaches to this relatively new subject. There are lots of bibliographic suggestions and URLs in side-bars on the page – and those I checked were all up-to-date, which is an important feature in such a fast-changing medium.

It’s a book aimed at professionals. For instance, her descriptions of the site design process assume that there will be teams of designers in sessions at a corporate level using flipcharts, video recordings, and even team-working software. There’s lots on brainstorming and chunking in what are now called ‘focus groups’. But these principles could be followed by what I suspect is more likely to be the average reader – somebody working in a spare room at home.

This is a book for people who want to take web design seriously. It’s significant that she spends so much time discussing the thoughtful planning, research, and testing of a site, rather than the creation of flashy effects and animated gimmicks which adorn so many KEWL sites. She has powerful and revealing arguments in favour of a consistent design process (so that the arbitrary element of success or failure can be removed). This is fairly obvious when you think about it – but that’s true of many good ideas.

She includes a full account of professional designers at work, with pointers to the resources they use – such as David Siegel’s free downloadable ‘profiling’ materials at www.secretsites.com for instance.

This is the business studies version of web design manuals, packed with thought-provoking information on determining user goals and expectations. She describes the use of personal interviews, people ‘shadowing’ users throughout the working day, and ‘disposable camera studies’ where users record what they find interesting. Not many individuals will have the resources to be so thorough, and sometimes the ‘feedback-usability-testing’ approach makes this all seem like a science rather than the sales-pitch that it is – as if we can predict how many people will come to our site to buy widgets.

In the second half of the book her notions are put to work analysing the navigational methods and structure at sites built for shopping, entertainment, learning, and community services. This struck me as slightly less interesting than the first part, but still worth reading for the revealing tips and guidance notes embedded in her analysis. The observations, as before, are that successful sites are customer-oriented, and that they give extra consideration to online customers because they lack the navigational support provided during comparable user experiences in libraries, airports and shopping malls.

If there is a weakness in her examinations, it’s that these are often not much more than descriptions of sites – though they are nevertheless well-illustrated mini-lectures, with plenty of screen captures. For instance, she heaps praise on Amazon.com for their search facility and one-click ordering system. However, this doesn’t take into account that the company, despite its multi-million dollar turnover, hasn’t actually made a profit so far.

It’s worth noting that a lot of what she says about helping users through the layers of a site is based on the US-centred assumption that people are going to spend a lot of time browsing – because they have free local telephone calls. But European (certainly UK) users will not have such luxuries. They’ll hit a site, search for what they’re looking for, then disconnect quickly. This economically-driven difference in user behaviour should be taken into account by anyone theorising about navigation, browsing, and web design.

But there are many good tips offered en passant – including some which might seem obvious, but which are often ignored by site designers. For instance, I’ve noticed that in the UK, quangos and government departments are very often reluctant to display their postal address [possibly reflecting the arrogant nature of these organisations].
But she insists that

Making your street address, phone number, and email address easily available is not only about completing an online sales pitch…It’s about other elusive qualities: trust and community.

Similarly, many UK universities would do well to heed her advice on making themselves more accessible and well-presented. How many times have you visited a university site and found no lists of courses on offer or staff who teach them? She points to the short-sightedness of this approach:

A large percentage of visitors to a university site are applicants for admission, or are thinking of becoming applicants…If a university can answer their questions fairly easily, it bodes well for the entire process. A positive experience on the Web – especially for college applicants, who tend to make decisions on gut feelings – is a powerful factor in decision-making.

It’s good that she chooses different (and challenging) types of sites to analyse. Searching for information is quite a different matter to being entertained or pushing round a virtual shopping trolley. The section on information sites [Lycos, Computers.com] is particularly interesting, because she forces us to think about different types of questions which might be asked of a site, and the different approaches to searching users develop.

Until recently, just providing information via the Web was a laudable pursuit. It was enough to be one of the forward-thinking few who recognised the power of the Web for mass communication. Those days are gone, replaced with a new challenge: providing increasingly complex layers of information, and making it all seem simple.

Very near the end of the book she presents a simple formula for successful sites. Aspirant site designers would do themselves a favour by writing her tips on Post-It notes and sticking them on their monitors:

  • keep every page below 20K
  • recycle headers
  • keep graphics small and simple

Jennifer Fleming has a background in library and information science, and her advice and observations strike me as more seriously well-founded than most of the web design manuals I have ever seen. This is a wonderfully rich and thought-provoking study which anybody analysing or building web sites should put on their list of essential reading.

© Roy Johnson 2000

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Jennifer Fleming, Web Navigation: Designing the User Experience, Sebastopol: O’Reilly, 1998, pp.253 plus CD-ROM, ISBN: 1565923510


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Filed Under: Information Design, Web design Tagged With: Experience design, Information architecture, Information design, Navigation, Usability, Web design, Web Navigation

Web ReDesign: Workflow that Works

June 19, 2009 by Roy Johnson

managing large scale web site makeovers

This is a book about managing Web re-design projects – but in fact the general principles could be applied to any large project. And the details could be applied to any first time Web design. The authors make it clear that they are not offering a Web design manual. It’s about project management. But the issues of what makes an efficient site can’t help keep cropping up again and again in the advice they offer. The main import of their strategy is to suggest timelines, planning schedules, and checklists for project teams involved in big site re-designs.

Web ReDesign: Workflow that WorksIt’s all fairly logical and obvious when you see it written down, but of course many businesses don’t work in this manner. There’s a relentlessly detailed approach to identifying and documenting every smallest feature of the client’s business and requirements. The problem with this approach is that it would cost an enormous amount in person-hours just to gather the information, irrespective of how useful it proved to be. I wonder how many consultancies could afford to factor in such workloads without fear of pricing themselves out of the contract.

The book is packed with worksheets and checklists, most of which are downloadable from the book’s own Web site. They even show examples of how to set charges and create a commercial agreement. There are useful definitions of the roles undertaken by various members of a project team – from the manager to designers and ‘backend engineers’.

There’s a good chapter on designing the structure of a site, naming its parts, and labelling its contents. They also deal with colour as a navigational and design aid, then finish with advice on preparing for and delivering a site launch, before maintaining it.

Almost every page has a screen shot or a diagram, and there are plenty of pullout boxes with tips and advice on everything from style sheets and file sizes, to testing, upgrading, and evaluation. It’s a bit like looking at a Web site in print form.

Two of the nicest features of the book are that their chapters and interspersed with examples of site makeovers, and there are mini essays from design and usability gurus every few pages. These make excellent reading.

This is all very thorough, and it will be of most use to designers and consultants working on big sites – but many of the detailed points of advice will be just as useful to serious small and home-based site designers.

© Roy Johnson 2003

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Kelly Goto and Emily Cotler, Web ReDesign: Workflow that Works, Indianapolis (IN): New Riders, 2002, pp.253, ISBN 0735710627


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Web Site Design is Communication Design

June 19, 2009 by Roy Johnson

“This book is not a book about web technology … [it’s] about the design of web sites, studied as a communication process” Thea van der Geest makes it plain from the start that her approach is focussed on information architecture and communication design issues. In fact her work is an academic summary of ten case studies based in the Washington area of the US – an interesting mix of public services, local government, and state transport – as well as local web giants such as Amazon and Microsoft (who she refers to as ‘the Internet Bookstore’ and ‘The Software Corporation’).

Web Site Design is Communication Design What the reports offer is first-hand accounts from the designers of these sites, indicating the development of their policies, strategies, and techniques. After a couple of ground-clearing chapters dealing with the advantages of using the Web as a communications medium, she gets down to the heart of the book. This is a detailed breakdown of the stages of the design process – from the original conception of a web site, through to testing, revision, and maintenance. Here there is a wealth of information for information architects, web designers, project managers, and anybody else who needs an organisational overview of the design process.

She points to the unpredictable effects which the establishment of a web site can have on individuals and organisations – changes to job descriptions, increased costs, shifts in policy, the sudden need for response to new customers.

The last part of the book is concerned with evaluating web site effectiveness by analysing log files and the information from cookies. There is not much detailed technical information here: she is more concerned with larger strategic issues – such as the fact that once data on user profiles reaches a certain size, it becomes part of marketing strategy. She also discusses the problems of dealing with email feedback, focus groups, and questionnaires.

The final chapter is a series of checklists which are process-oriented. They cover all the stages of web design. They assume a large-scale organisation, with lots of personnel resources, but the principles she illustrates will be of use to anybody who wants to make a web site efficient and maybe even profitable.

This study is mainly aimed at communications professionals. It’s a web design manual without a single line of HTML code, but it should be on the reading list for anyone involved in a serious web project.

© Roy Johnson 2001

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Thea M. van der Geest, Web Site Design is Communication Design, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2001, pp.165, ISBN: 9027232024


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Web Style Guide

July 5, 2009 by Roy Johnson

principles of good design, navigation, and usability

This is a guide to Web site design, not to HTML coding. In fact, it will be entirely suitable for someone who has a basic grasp of HTML, but who wants to learn about the strategic issues of how to communicate via this amazingly cheap and democratic medium. The Web Style Guide began its life as advice to users at the Centre for Advanced Instructional Media at Yale University. Lynch and Horton start out with basic design concepts and information architecture, and wisely advise following the principles of good navigation which arise out of centuries of print culture – whilst making plenty of subtle distinctions between different applications and user groups, such as web sites for training, teaching, and reference.

Web Style GuideThey deal with issues of page length, typography, information chunking, and the use of frames; and they spell out the advantages of cascading style sheets. There is even a chapter on editorial style – on how to write most effectively for Web pages: summary first, short sentences, and chunked information. They go into a lot of detail on graphics and multi-media, and they end up with really useful tips on animation, audio, and compression.

Even though they take a ‘No HTML’ approach, it might have been useful to show how some of the effects can be created. On the control of vertical and horizontal white space on the page, they are fans of the David Siegel one-pixel spacer trick, where a small graphic spacer is stretched out to create indents, half line spacing, and even empty vertical columns. It’s a shame that Yale University Press has not decided to do justice to the original of this publication by reproducing some of the pages in colour. The section on graphics for instance is undermined by grey-toned pictures.

There is a consistent stress on user-friendliness and web-centred design, and their advice comes in the form of compressed wisdoms which suggest they’re based on a lot of experience. The style is wonderfully concise: almost every sentence is a well-crafted digest of advice.

Hypertext links pose two fundamental design problems. They disrupt the flow of content in your site by inviting the reader to leave your site. They can also radically alter the context of information by dumping the reader into unfamiliar territory without preambles or explanation.”

I first read most of this book by downloading PDF files from their website. At that time the text actually looked more attractive on screen than it did in print. However, this has been rectified in the latest edition. This is now a very attractive book, and an excellent publication which combines the basic principles of information architecture with well-informed tips on website design.

© Roy Johnson 2002

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Patrick J. Lynch and Sarah Horton, Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites, New Haven: Yale University Press, second edition 2002, pp.164, ISBN 0300088981


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Word Hacks

July 17, 2009 by Roy Johnson

Industrial-strength tricks for getting more out of Word

Microsoft Word is the world’s most popular word-processor – yet many people never use some of the powerful tools it has to offer. They might jiggle around with a few font choices and toolbar options, but there is a lot more under the bonnet which isn’t immediately apparent. Andrew Savikas’s new book Word Hacks offers tips and guidance for harnessing these hidden strengths. The tips are graded at beginner, moderate, and expert level – so you can work in a way which is comfortable for you. He starts off by telling you how to deal with all the menu options to make Word work as you want it to. Then it’s on to macros – a list of commands which you can store, to save you the problem of boringly repetitive keystrokes and menu choices. He also shows you how to hack your shortcut menus, and how to customise Word.

Word HacksThis ranges from trivial things such as changing the icons and buttons on your toolbars, to getting rid of the annoying and very unpopular Help assistant (Mr Paperclip). He then moves on to more useful tricks such as increasing the number of most recently used files (MRU) listed at the bottom of the File menu, and shows you how to mess with the number of font options available.

He shows you how to display samples of your fonts instead of just a list of their names; how to create bar graphs using tables; how to repeat a chapter heading across multiple pages; and how to increase the number of styles you can apply to footnotes ands captions.

Most of these tips only require you to type out a short macro (which he supplies) or to hack gently at the regular menu options. Any of the longer procedures are then saved as macros and assigned a keyboard shortcut of your choice.

You’ve probably noticed that Web addresses typed in Word turn automatically into hyperlinks – underlined and coloured blue. For those people (like me) who find this annoying, he shows you how to change the appearance and even get rid of them.

For serious and industrial strength writing he shows you how to do powerful search and replace edits, how to add custom (and temporary) dictionaries for special projects, how to take control of the way Word deals with bulleted lists, and how to make the most out of Word’s outlining feature.

There’s a whole chapter devoted to troubleshooting common Word problems – such as missing toolbars, repeated freezes and crashes, and the proliferation of unwanted temporary files. Then he finishes with some fairly advanced suggestions on forms and fields, plus how to get Word to perform calculations using tables, and using Word to work in XML and XSLT.

My guess is that this is one for people who like Word, who are committed to staying with it, and who want to get more from it in terms of power and productivity. It will also be useful to writers and editors working on book-length projects and reports. As usual with O’Reilly publications, the layout and presentation are impeccable.

© Roy Johnson 2004

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Andrew Savikas, Word Hacks: Tips and Tools for Taming your Text, Sebastapol: CA, 2004, pp.372, ISBN: 0596004931


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Writing a Research Proposal

April 21, 2014 by Roy Johnson

tutorial, instructions, and a sample research brief

What is a research proposal?

At post-graduate level of education (after a first degree) it is quite common for research tasks to be part of the curriculum. Don’t worry – you are not expected to unearth some hitherto unknown secret of the universe. The research skills you will learn are simply part of the intellectual equipment required by your subject of study.

The research itself may be preceded by the exercise of writing a proposal for the task you are going to undertake. This research proposal is rather like an extended written preparation for the work you are going to do. Its purpose is to show that you can construct a coherent plan which demonstrates that you are aware of what is required.

Your tutor or supervisor will see from your research proposal that you have prepared efficiently for a long piece of work, and that you are conscious of the disciplines required by your subject. It is also important that what you are proposing is capable of being successfully completed in the time and the circumstances at your disposal.

Here are the steps that should be followed in producing a good, sound research proposal – though some of the smaller details will vary according to the subject being studied.


1. Study the research brief

A research brief is the written instructions for the task you have been asked to complete or a description of the project you have been invited to propose. The number of words will be specified. The issues which you are required to discuss or include will be outlined, and any limitations on the scope of the exercise might be flagged up.

Copy out this research brief and its instructions completely in your preparatory notes. Write out the instruction accurately and in detail to show that you have read all the requirements – some of which it might be easy to miss in a casual reading.

The research brief and instructions will not be included in your final research proposal, but they are an integral part of the materials required to produce it.

2. Identify the formal structure of the proposal

You should demonstrate a clear understanding of the structure required in your research proposal. This might be specified by the department in which you are studying, it might be a matter of tradition in your subject, or you might need to create your own structure.

Look at examples of previous proposals that have been successful. Make a note of the principal headings and sub-headings that have been used. Your own headings should be based on and should refer to everything that has been asked for. Construct the outline headings to start planning your proposal.

3. Choose suitable topic(s) for research

Choose a research topic in which you are genuinely interested, otherwise the project work might become tedious. Make sure the topic of the proposal is something that you can actually accomplish. Do not be over-ambitious. The purpose of the research is a check that you can identify an issue or a hypothesis, then test its validity. You are not being asked to be innovative at this level.

Think ahead to the practical problems you might face in gathering your data. Choose a topic that can be modified slightly in case problems arise.

4. Follow academic conventions

Make sure you know the academic conventions of presentation for the subject. Some popular style guides include the Harvard, the Chicago, the PMLA, and the MHRA conventions.

These style guides on academic referencing and citation are designed to show that you can make accurate and consistent use of other people’s work in your own writing. They will also help you to avoid any suggestion of plagiarism.

Follow the conventions required by the system down to the smallest detail. It is easy to lose marks for not following the conventions, because mistakes are easy for tutors and examiners to spot.

5. Organise your materials

Create a separate folder for each part of your written materials and your data. This applies to both paper and digital files. Keep clearly labelled storage systems for your written arguments, data, bibliography, questionnaires, tables, and data analysis. Don’t keep everything in one long document or one folder.

Long pieces of written work deserve to be handled with respect and good organisation. You will also be able to find your work and control it if it’s well organised.

6. Use cloud storage

Create an account with iCloud or Dropbox or Microsoft Drive and store your materials in the cloud. This will reproduce the system of separate folders that exist on your own computer. Dropbox (and the others) will synchronise the work on your computer with copies stored in the cloud, keeping both up to date as you work on them. The copies are stored safely on remote servers. They can be accessed from any computer – including mobile devices. This means you can access your up-to-date documents wherever you happen to be. This system also keeps your materials safe in the event of computer breakdowns.

Copies stored in the cloud are normally password-protected and available only to the account owner (you). However, it is also possible to have shared folders, so if you happen to be working on a joint project, access can be granted to co-workers.

7. Design an outline plan

Use your list of headings (3) to create an outline plan of the research proposal. The proposal does not need to have any substantial content yet, but the outline is a reminder of all the topics you should keep in mind. The order of the items in the plan can be changed later if necessary. You can also work on the generation of your written proposal in any order you wish. It does not have to be composed in the same order as the research will be conducted.

You might find it useful to translate your proposal into some sort of visual flow chart or diagram of events. This will help you to conceptualise the work you are proposing, and it can make clear your intentions for the people who will be assessing your proposal.

Research Proposal

a workflow diagram

8. List background reading

At all times, keep a full bibliographic record of any materials you consult whilst designing your proposal. The bibliography will include text books, articles, journals, web sites, and other sources from which you have quoted or which you have consulted during the composition of your proposal. You should include page numbers for easier retrieval and checking of quotations at a later date. Follow the conventions of bibliographic presentation specified by the style guide you are using (4).

9. Acknowledge the ethics of research

Many types of research now require a formal recognition of the ethical issues which might be involved. This applies to such things as conducting surveys amongst the public; using other people’s data; asking people to complete questionnaires; observing people’s behaviour; or taking samples of public attitudes on controversial topics.

You need to show that you are aware of the possible ethical implications of your research and its methodology. You will also need to indicate what practical steps you intend to take.
Examples of any questionnaires or surveys should be included in your final research proposal submission. A successful proposal might also include a contract of agreement or consent to be used with participants.

10. Make a timetable

Work backwards from the submission deadline. Make a calendar that shows the exact number of days available to you. Allocate time in proportion to the task, and make sure you include all stages of composition – from data gathering and background reading, to writing, editing, and checking the finished proposal.


Sample research proposal brief

Extended research proposal and rationale

Submission date: May 9th, 2014.

Word limit: 4,000 words

Decide on a research question related to Linguistics, Applied Linguistics or Language Teaching, which you would like to explore in your MA dissertation. Bear in mind that the research project needs to be small-scale and realistic to complete within the 3-month dissertation period.

Devise research questions/hypotheses and a research methodology that will allow you to gather data needed to answer your research question/test your hypotheses.

Design and produce appropriate research instruments and data collection procedures.

Write up the research proposal as a short paper with an emphasis on:

  • justification/motivation for your choice of research area
  • research context: understanding of work in the area
  • explanation of the research questions/hypotheses
  • justification for the methodology used
  • reliability and validity issues
  • research ethics
  • timescale for the research
  • awareness of possible limitations of the research

You should make reference to research methodology literature in order to justify your choices throughout the paper. The paper will serve as the basis for a research proposal for the MA dissertation to be undertaken in Semester 3.

Please include a copy of your research instruments in an appendix to your proposal.

© Roy Johnson 2014



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Filed Under: How-to guides, Study Skills, Writing Skills Tagged With: Academic writing, Information design, Reports, Research

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