Social science perspectives on climate change and development

University of Copenhagen

Xaquín S. Pérez-Sindín López

Year: 2012

  • The use of the first/third person. Qualitative evaluation of research proposal. part 3

    After having examined qualitatively the major research proposals weakness in terms of connection with theory and writing style, this post aims to highlight the importance of the person used in academic writing: Bear in mind that the writing style and the person to be used may vary from one context to another and from one…

  • Writing style. Qualitative evaluation of research proposals. Part 2

    Following the index provided in the previous post for a qualitative evaluation of the research proposals performed by the students of the subject Research methods from Faculty of Management and Economics – Gdansk University of Technology (Poland); the current post will focus the point related to writing style. Four requirements of a good writing emerge from…

  • Qualitative evaluation of research proposals. Part 1

    Apart from a more quantitative evaluation of the research proposals in the previous post What is the most common weakness in formulating a research proposal in this and in the next post you will find a more qualitative examination divided into the next points: 1. Lack of connection with theory. 2. Writing style 3. Person…

  • What are the most common weaknesses in formulating a research proposal?

    Assuming as a good research proposal the points suggested in the previous post What is a good research? (excepts those on “are you fascinated with it” and “does it match your career goals” since it depends on you) and after having examined around 17 proposals, here you can see the results obtained from a quantitative…

  • Are you a “explorer” or a “painter” researcher? #researchdesign

    If you are not entering a “undiscovered cave” in your research, that is, if you do not need to explore about the nature of some problem simply because it has already been studied before, perhaps the purpose of your research is basicly descriptive. In other words, you do not need to ask yoursefl “what is…

  • Are you entering an undiscovered cave? #researchdesign

    After thinking about your project in terms of research question here it is the turn of thinking over the purpose of your research. In other words: “how the way in which you asked your research question would result in either (1) exploratory, (2) descriptive, (3) explanatory or (4) descripto-explanatory study” (Saunders et al, 2009) The…

  • How to use theory in research

    You should have clear whether your research will adopt a deductive or inductive approach. The basic difference between both is regarding its relation to theory. Deductive approach aims to take a theory on your topic as a reference, develop an hypothesis based on such theory and then, after the collection on data, this hypothesis is…

  • Ontology in research

    Imagine all managers in a given organization leave and are replaced by new ones. Would such alteration have an important impact on the organization itself? Would the organization keep being the same? If you as researcher consider that such change is irrelevant to understand the organization itself, it means that your ontological position is rather…

  • What is your research paradigm?

    The Oxford English Dictionary defines the basic meaning of the term paradigm as “a pattern or model, an exemplar”. In terms of your own research, paradigm means the way of examining social phenomena. Burrell and Morgan (1982) suggest a taxanomy of four different paradigms as a result of crossing two variables: objectivism/subjectivism and radical change/regulation.…

  • Are you forced to assume a philosophy for your research?

    If after reading the previous post on positivism and interpretativism philosophy you think that choicing one or another is still unrealistic in practice you might be interesting on adopting the view of pragmatism. This view argues that more important than the research philosophy is the research question. The pragmatism view also argues that is perfectly…