A-manual-for-writers-of-research-papers-theses-and-dissertations

known:The relationship between secondhand smoke and heart disease is still contested.But if that gap isn't well known, such an opening can feel abrupt, like this one:Researchers do not understand how ordinary people think about risk.As a rule, writers prepare readers by describing the prior research that their research willextend, modify, or correct. If the report is intended for general readers, the context can bebrief:We all take risks every day—when we cross the street, eat high-fat food, even when we take a bath. The study ofrisk began with games of chance, so it has long been treated mathematically. By the twentieth century,researchers used mathematical tools to study risk in many areas: investments, commercial products, even war.As a result, most researchers think that risk is a statistically quantifiable problem and that decisions about itshould be rationally based.In a report intended for other researchers, this opening context typically describes thespecific research that the report will extend or modify. It is important to represent this priorresearch fairly, so describe it as those researchers would.Ever since Girolamo Cardano thought about games of chance in quantitative terms in the sixteenth century(Cardano 1545), risk has been treated as a purely mathematical problem. Analyses of risk significantly improvedin the seventeenth century when Pascal, Leibniz, and others developed the calculus (Bernstein 1996). In thetwentieth century, researchers widened their focus to study risk in all areas of life: investments, consumerproducts, the environment, even war (Stimson 1990, 1998). These problems, too, have been addressed almostexclusively from a mathematical perspective. [Detailed discussion of contemporary research follows.]Some reports, especially theses and dissertations, go on like that for pages, citing scores ofbooks and articles only marginally relevant to the topic, usually to show how widely theresearcher has read. That kind of survey can provide helpful bibliography to other researchers,especially new ones, but busy readers want to know about only the specific research that theresearcher intends to extend, modify, or correct.It is important to represent this prior research fairly and fully: describe it as the researcheryou're citing would, even quoting, not selectively or out of context, but as she would representher own work.Early in your career, you might not be able to write this review of prior research with muchconfidence, because you're unlikely to know much of it. If so, imagine your reader assomeone like yourself before you started your research. What did you then not know? Whatdid you then get wrong that your research has corrected? How has it improved your ownflawed understanding? This is where you can use a working hypothesis that you rejected: Itmight seem that X is so, but. . . . (see also 4.1.2).10.1.2 Restate Your Question as Something Not Known or Fully UnderstoodAfter the opening context, state what that prior research hasn't done or how it's incomplete,even wrong. Introduce that qualification or contradiction with but, however, or some otherterm indicating that you're about to modify the received knowledge and understanding that