Dr Burlbaw's Advice for literature review part

Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them

Another Advice for Introduction

The purpose of the introduction is to provide the background for all that is to

follow. It is generally very focused, with the goal of convincing the reader of the

importance of your problem. There is no particular formula for doing this, as it

varies somewhat from subject to subject. In general, though, it will include a

historical basis for the problem, some discussion of the missing pieces of

information that will prove pertinent to your problem, and perhaps a development

of the research question itself by following specific developments in the literature.

The Literature Review section may or may not

be folded into the Introduction, but you must be careful not to lose sight of the

goal of this section; i.e., to focus the reader on the reason for conducting your

proposed research.

(NCSU, 2011)

YES, YOU CAN DO IT

LET'S START - INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

The introduction describes the broader context and issues

that surround the topic. It links the broader context, in a gen-

eral sense, to the problem that you investigated. This is

where you place the topic in perspective by providing data

and a rationale documenting the need for the study

(Walonick, 2005). The introduction may also contain the

background of the study. In some cases, a researcher may

choose to embed the background of the study into the intro-

duction; in other cases, the background of the study is sepa-

rate from and follows the introduction.

Dissertation Examples

1. “The 1903 meeting of a group of deans of women has

been cited as the first organized activity of what was to

become the profession of student affairs . . . and as an im-

portant milestone in the entry of women into the admin-

istration of higher education in the United States. . . .

However, little has been written about the groups them-

selves. This study provides a description of the groups

from the first general meeting in 1903 to the last confer-

ence’s assignment as a subcommittee of the National As-

sociation of Deans of Women in 1922, using maturation

variables of the Maturation Model for Professional Asso-

ciations. . . . The resulting study builds upon past re-

search to provide detail and clarify our knowledge of the

early history of the profession of student affairs.” (Gerda,

2004, p. 12)

2. “The aim of this study is to describe the direct or instru-

mental use of policy-relevant information in the policy-

making process of the Chilean secondary education re-

form carried out between 1995 and 2000. This is a very

peculiar setting because of the strong background in social

research of the policymakers who were in charge of

the design and implementation of the reform policy. The

result of this study provides a better understanding of the

type of relationship between information and policymak-

ing that occurs when researchers who are involved ex-

tensively with planning and carrying out underlying re-

search also play the role of policymakers who both

identify relevant problems and devise appropriate solu-

tions.” (Tellez, 2004, p. 1)

Comments About Gardner and Beatty's Advice

If you remember, I shared with you an advice on Sunday. It is simply says that "If your advisor does not like the topic or considers the scope too global, be willing to consider a change or prepare yourself for an uphill battle" (Gardner and Beatty, 1980, p.6). One of my friends addressed a cartoon after reading my posting titled "Stubbornness". I will share this cartoon separately.

Also, there is a story about the importance of your advisor's opinion about your dissertation.

If you google "Rabbit's thesis" you are able to read the hole story. But in this posting, I want to share only the moral of the story. Basically, the moral of the story is

The title of your dissertation does not matter,

The subject does not matter

The research does not matter

All that matter is who your advisor is.

If you want to read the hole story, here is the link

http://www.gerstlauer.de/andreas/fun/rabbit.html