1. Research Perspectives
• Identifying a Research Topic
• Format for a Proposal
• Writing Tips
• Publishing Your
Results
• Ethical Issues

2. Identifying a Research Topic
• Read, read, read (record notes)
• Observation (record notes)
• Talking with others (record notes)
– Mentors
– Colleagues
– Stakeholders
• Seek to identify a problem
– Something causing a problem for people, resources
– Phenomena that are not well understood

3. Format for a Proposal
• Introduction
– Statement of the problem
• Problem stated in one concise sentence
• Significance
– Who would be interested in your study?
– Place your study in the context of bigger problems

4. Format for a Proposal
• Introduction (continued)
– Purpose and objectives (or research
questions)
• Overall purpose stated in one sentence
• Itemize objectives (specific tasks) that must be
achieved
• Objectives could be replaced by research
questions

5. Format for a Proposal
• Introduction (continued)
– Research questions or hypotheses
• Research question: what do you want to know
(could be redundant with objectives)
• Hypotheses: predictions
– Null hypotheses vs. alternate hypotheses
– Directional vs. non-directional alternate hypotheses

6. Format for a Proposal
• Introduction (continued)
– Definition of terms
• Define all terms in proposal: title, problem
statement, purpose & objectives, theory,
research questions & hypotheses, literature
review, methods
• Define when first used

7. Format for a Proposal
• Introduction (continued)
– Delimitations and limitations
• Delimitations: narrow scope of your study
(variables, location, approach)
• Limitations: potential weaknesses of your
study

8. Format for a Proposal
• Review of the literature
– Organize your note-taking by “central
argument”
– Write-down ideas in your words
– Demonstrate that you are familiar with the
literature on this topic
– Summarize what is already understood and
what is still NOT well understood
– Do competing schools of thought exist?

9. Format for a Proposal
• Review of the literature
– Has the topic been studied anywhere? If
so, what was found? What remains to be
understood?
– Has it been studied in your study area? If
so, previous findings? If not, what might
be different about your study area?

10. Format for a Proposal
• Methods
– General research approach
• Quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods
• Field, lab, maps, remotely sensed imagery,
archival…
– Techniques of data acquisition
• What variables: how many samples, where, how
often

11. Format for a Proposal
• Methods (continued)
– Techniques of data analysis
• lab work, statistics, computer analyses, etc.
– Justify why each procedure is needed and
why that particular method is best suited

12. Format for a Proposal
• Expected Results
– Preliminary studies, pilot studies
– How will raw data be reported?
• Tables, maps, figures, descriptive statistics,…
– How will data interpretations appear?

13. Format for a Proposal
• References Cited
• Appendices
– Timetable
• list of tasks for each objective and when that
work will be undertaken
– Budget
• outline the expected costs & sources of funding
– Where will findings be reported?
• thesis, journal publication, professional
meeting

14. Writing Tips
• Getting started
– Take the notes from your literature and set
next to guidelines for proposal writing
– Develop an outline of ideas, sentences
– Track objectives/research questions
through proposal (“coherence”)
• Literature review
• Methods
• Expected results

15. Writing Tips
• Write your first draft
– Shift and sort your ideas
– Share your ideas with friends, colleagues,
advisor

16. Writing Tips
• Readability
– Voice tense (in proposal)
• Past/present tense in problem statement
• Future tense in purpose and objectives: “The
purpose of this study will be to…
• Past tense in literature review: “Jones (2006)
found…”
• Future tense in methods

17. Writing Tips
• Readability
– Does each paragraph develop one idea
fully?
– Smooth transition between paragraphs?
– Proper use of subheadings?

18. Writing Tips
• Critique
– see Marston handouts
– See example of copyediting

19. Writing Tips
• Grammar
– The word “data” is plural
• Write “…the data show” not “the data
shows.”
– Be consistent in using terms: avoid
synonyms

20. Publishing Your Results
• Co-Editor-in-Chief, Geomorphology
• Member of Editorial Board,
Annals of the AAG
• Frequent reviewer
• Edited 1500 manuscripts
• 261 manuscripts, excl. editing
• 217 research grant proposals

21. Publishing Your Results
• Why should you
publish?
• Sense of
accomplishment
• Making a contribution
• Getting that first job
• Promotion (and tenure
in academia)

22. Publishing Your Results
• Brunn (1987): Five levels of research-
oriented faculty…seek a good match…you
& employer
• Publish in 4-5 major disciplinary and
interdisciplinary journals each year
• Publish 1-3 major papers per year
• Publish a paper every other year

23. Publishing Your Results
• Brunn (1987): Five levels of research-
oriented faculty…seek a good match…you
& employer
• Conduct research but rarely present papers at
meetings and rarely publish
• “Professionally inactive:” no research, do not
attend meetings, never publish

24. Publishing Your Results
• Where should you publish?
• Disciplinary journals
• Annals of the AAG, The Professional
Geographer
• Geographical Review
• Interdisciplinary Journals
• Mountain Research and Development
• Journal of the American Water Resources
Association

25. Publishing Your Results
• Where should you publish?
• Specialty journals
• Geomorphology
• Physical Geography
• Regional journals

26. Publishing Your Results
• Manuscripts must be author’s own
original research
• Not previously published elsewhere
• Not being considered for publication elsewhere
• Properly credits meaningful contribution of co-
authors
• No “shingling”
• Authors shall not plagiarize the work of
others

27. Publishing Your Results
• Manuscripts must be prepared in the
format for the journal
• Abstract & keywords, text, figures, tables
• Manuscript must be free from grammatical
errors
• Authors whose native language is not English
• Recommended general reference: Geowriting
(5th ed., 2004), by Robert Bates, Marla D.
Adkins-Heljeson, and Rex Buchanan

28. Publishing Your Results
• Why manuscripts are rejected
• Not appropriate for
journal
• Lack of rigor in
methods
• Interpretations not
supported
• Format, grammar

29. Publishing Your Results
• If your manuscript is rejected…
• Revise and resubmit!
• Provide editor with detailed list of how
you addressed the comments of
reviewers (item-by-item) and comments
from editor
• Submit to another journal

30. Publishing Your Results
• Thank the editor!

31. Ethical Issues
• Deception in problem statement,
purpose, research questions
• In data collection: letter of disclosure
– Permission to access site
– Will site be disturbed?
– Possibility of information developed during
the study that could be harmful to
landowners

32. Ethical Issues
• In data collection: Institutional Review
Board (IRB) when human subjects are
involved
– Must assess risk for damage: physical,
health, psychological, social, economic,
legal, groups?

33. Ethical Issues
– Must develop Informed Consent Form for
participants to sign before they are
engaged
• Right to participate is voluntary and they can
withdraw at any time
• Purpose, methods identified
• Participants have right to ask questions, privacy
will be respected, can obtain copy of final study
• Benefits of study to individual, groups?

34. Ethical Issues
• In data analysis & interpretation
– Need to protect anonymity of participants?
– Archive data for 5-10 years, then discard
• Who owns data? Funding agency? Researcher?

35. Ethical Issues
• In data analysis & interpretation (continued)
– February 2010 issue of The American Naturalist
announced an important development in Open Data
within biology. The essentials of the policy are…
– Data underlying an article needs to be archived by the authors
at the time of publication.
– The appropriate form of the data is the final processed form
used in analysis..

36. Ethical Issues
• In data analysis & interpretation (continued)
– The essentials of the policy are…
– The data must be archived in an approved repository (one that
makes it publicly available, has a guarantee of persistence, etc).
– The author should provide sufficient details so that a third party
can reasonably interpret the data correctly.
– Embargoes of up to one year may be permitted, depending on
the journal.
– Exceptions may be granted at the discretion of the editor,
especially for sensitive information such as human subject data
or the location of endangered species.

37. Ethical Issues
• In disseminating results of research
– Are results proprietary?
– Avoid language that express bias against
groups on basis of gender, sexual
orientation, ethnicity, disability, age, …
– Anticipate repercussions of reporting
results to individuals, groups

38. Ethical Issues
• Research fraud
– Plagiarizing
• Plagiarism is easy to avoid; credit your
sources. Always credit your sources. Always.
• Plagiarism is easy to detect--your professors
simply pop over to the Google line (Google
classic, Google Scholar and Google Books)
plus a few of the journal article databases the
Libraries subscribe to like Expanded
Academic and JStor.
• And, in the classic phrase of third-graders
everywhere, "Don't be stupid.”

39. Ethical Issues
• Research fraud
– Fabricating results
• Suppressing
• Inventing
• Falsifying