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How to write a scientific study Nine guidelines for students

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Title: How to write a scientific study Nine guidelines for students


1
How to write a scientific study? Nine guidelines
for students
  • Christer Pursiainen
  • www.kolumbus.fi/christer.pursiainen

2
1. What makes an article/essay/study scientific?
  • A scientific debate is a social construction.
    That is, the scientific community or its part
    defines what science is all about at a given
    time, and what is regarded as a scientific genre
    and subject of study, form, style etc. in the
    first place.
  • Those subjects, methods, forms, practices etc.
    present in scientific activity at a given time
    can be considered as non-science at another time.

3
1. What makes an article/essay/study scientific?
  • Compared to journalism or fiction, a scientific
    article or study is always a part of an existing
    scientific debate.

4
1. What makes an article/essay/study scientific?
  • Even in the case it brings (as it should)
    something new to a debate, or creates a new
    debate, it either explicitly or implicitly refers
    to existing or earlier debates.
  • Changes in scientific beliefs, theories, methods
    etc. do not arise in vacuum, instead something
    new is created by challenging the older beliefs.

5
1. What makes an article/essay/study scientific?
  • In formal arenas of science, such as scientific
    journals or academic theses, one should summarize
    or at least refer to the debate of which ones
    study is part.
  • Moreover, the study should specify what previous
    literature it confirms or revises.

6
2. Is there a research problem?
  • A scientific inquiry starts, and often ends, with
    a problem. Creating a research problem is the
    most important part of a scientific process!!!
  • The need for descriptive information is not a
    sufficient legitimation for a study. Instead, do
    start your scientific process by asking yourself
    What is my research problem?

7
2. Is there a research problem?
  • You should also motivate your research problem
    why should we be interested in it?
  • Many texts fail to clear the "so what?hurdle.
    Even if everything in the writing is true, one
    should ask whether it tells us something
    important. An article or a study should frame,
    discuss, solve etc. at least part of an important
    puzzle.

8
2. Is there a research problem?
  • "What" and "How" questions are always a part of a
    study, but they easily lead to mere descriptions.
    One should therefore also consider "Why"
    questions.

9
3. Is there an argument or a conclusion?
  • A research problem leads to more specific
    research questions and puzzles, which are
    supposed to be answered and resolved.
  • Therefore, one should always include a clear
    argument, thesis, or conclusion in the study.
  • In order to make your text argumentative, do
    argue, maintain, claim, state,
    underscore, prove, conclude etc.!!

10
3. Is there an argument or a conclusion?
  • The arguments and their conditions should be
    stated clearly, so that there is no confusion
    about what is and what is not argued.

11
3. Is there an argument or a conclusion?
  • Ask all the time yourself Is the
    argument/conclusion well-founded?
  • In other words, the legitimate counter-arguments
    should be acknowledged and addressed, that is,
    one should discuss also the alternative views on
    the same research problem.
  • You should show why the argument or solution
    arrived at in your study should be regarded
    better than the alternatives.

12
3. Is there an argument or a conclusion?
  • Is the argument original? It does not make much
    sense to present an argument that is too
    self-evident or does not challenge or revise the
    existing views or beliefs, or at least bring
    something new to the discussion in question.

13
3. Is there an argument or a conclusion?
  • This originality could be, for instance
  • a totally new theoretical innovation
  • or a new empirical finding leading to a new
    interpretation
  • or an application of a more general theoretical
    viewpoint to an empirical problem bringing about
    a new interpretation of the events and at the
    same time confirming the value of the theory in
    question etc.

14
4. Is there an explicit theory or framework?
  • Within contemporary philosophy of science, there
    is a widely accepted belief that facts are always
    theory-dependent.

15
4. Is there an explicit theory or framework?
  • Thomas Kuhn has pointed out the difficulties that
    are present without any kind of a paradigm or
    theory "In the absence of a paradigm or some
    candidate for paradigm, all of the facts that
    could possibly pertain to the development of a
    given science are likely to seem equally
    relevant."

16
4. Is there an explicit theory or framework?
  • Or as Paul Feyerabend puts it "The attempt to
    create knowledge needs guidance, it cannot start
    from nothing. More specifically, it needs a
    theory, a point of view that allows the
    researcher to separate the relevant from the
    irrelevant, and that tells him in what areas
    research will be most profitable."

17
4. Is there an explicit theory or framework?
  • Alexander Motyl has this point even clearer "If,
    then, we want to understand Soviet politics,
    where do we start? By carefully reading the New
    York City telephone directory? The Moscow
    directory? Of course not. Why?

18
4. Is there an explicit theory or framework?
  • Because our theoretical inclinations tell us that
    these are nonfacts and that we should be looking
    for real facts in, say, Pravda or Izvestia. How
    do we know that a speech by Gorbachev is a fact
    we should consider? Because we are already
    working on the assumption that general
    secretaries are important personalities in the
    Soviet political process."

19
4. Is there an explicit theory or framework?
  • It must be noted that Motyl's example points out
    only the mechanism how we are directed by our
    theoretical assumptions, not what those
    assumptions should be.

20
4. Is there an explicit theory or framework?
  • Theories seem therefore to be inevitable already
    in the first stage of inquiry, where we have not
    even started to interpret the "facts", but are
    only thinking about which kind of fact-gathering
    is relevant, and which fact and data, or what
    units and levels of analysis, are worth of
    studying.

21
4. Is there an explicit theory or framework?
  • This seems to require an awareness of our own
    theoretical assumptions, as well as those of our
    rivals, which is best realised if theories are
    explicated and openly scrutinised.
  • If you are definitive in your approach of not
    using any explicit theory (as historians often
    do), you should at least think what are the
    (implicit) assumptions that direct the
    research/fact gathering?

22
5. How to use theories?
  • Theories and theoretical assumptions can be used
    in different ways in empirically oriented studies

23
5. How to use theories?
  • They can work as organizing frameworks and
    typologies. That is, theories can be appreciated
    and utililized in terms of their instrumental
    value, using them as tools and generators of
    concepts that lead one forward in the jungle of
    facts.

24
5. How to use theories?
  • Theories may have a great heuristic value, that
    is, a theory may pour light on factors or causal
    links that otherwise remain unidentified.
  • Two or several theories can be compared in the
    light of the interpretations they produce.
  • Or, empirical evidence can be marshalled to
    support a theory, thus trying to prove the
    validity of the theory in question.

25
5. How to use theories?
  • More ambitiously, you may want to review the
    existing theories on a subject, and then produce
    a revisited version of an older theory or
    combine some theoretical viewpoints in an
    innovative way into a new theoretical approach
    or create a completely new theoretical framing
    that you claim to be superior to the older ones.

26
6. What are the criteria for theory choice?
  • Any field or subject having always several
    alternative and rival, usually incommensurable
    theories, explanations and interpretations, one
    should at minimum be aware of and perhaps even
    discuss one's own standards for theory choice
    why should one prefer one solution over another?

27
6. What are the criteria for theory choice?
  • That is, beside being aware of your own
    theoretical inclinations, you should also be
    informed about your own and your rivals
    metatheoretical commitments.
  • Alternative answers can be found in philosophy of
    science Positivism, Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos,
    Bhaskar

28
Positivist theory creation and testing
hypotheses
predictions
logical deduction
theory amended
theory appears inconsistent with the facts
empirical observation
either
or
or
either
theory appears consistent with the facts
theory correct
theory disgarded, new theory needed
29
Poppers falsificationist method
process of error-eliminination, falsification
and theory comparison
theory 1
theory 2
not yet falsified, that is, accepted for the
time being
theory 3
steps towards the unreachable theoretical truth
30
Kuhns incommensurable paradigms
pre-paradigm period
accepted paradigm normal science
incommensurable different standards, problems
etc.
anomalies
extraordinary investigations and science
new normal science
31
Lakatos sophisticated falsificationism
  • theory 2(n1)
  • explains the content of theory 1
  • predicts novel facts
  • proved if finds novel facts

theory 1 (n)
32
Bhaskars theory comparison
anomalies for theory C
both explain adequately
anomalies for theory D
1
4
theory D
2
3
theory C
5
theory Cs entirely own area
theory Ds entirely own area
referential overlap
33
7. What are the sources of evidence?
  • Have the proper sources/literature been used? Is
    the study sound and reliable? One should be aware
    of the scientific theoretical and empirical
    debate one's study is supposed to be a part of.
    One should be able to distinguish between the
    rival approaches or interpretations in the
    previous studies in the same field.

34
7. What are the sources of evidence?
  • Statements of fact should be properly documented.

35
7. What are the sources of evidence?
  • Whether some piece of evidence is a first- or
    second-hand source depends on what you are
    studying.
  • Therefore, be careful to say what you are
    studying. This is especially important to pay
    attention if you are doing research on issues
    about which it is difficult to obtain first-hand
    information.

36
7. What are the sources of evidence?
  • If your study is, say, about "what Zyuganov
    thinks", you should refer to his texts and
    speeches (first-hand sources) , not to someone
    else who has analyzed what "Zyuganov thinks"
    (second-hand sources).
  • However, you can use someone else's (X) analysis
    to support your own arguments and conclusions, or
    to say that you have come to a different
    conclusion than X has.

37
7. What are the sources of evidence?
  • If you are only using the latter kind of
    evidence, your are not really studying "what
    Zyuganov thinks", rather "what X says Zyuganov
    thinks".
  • This is quite legitimate, but if this is the
    case, your object of study makes X's writings as
    a piece of first-hand evidence.

38
8. Is the structure and organization of the study
logical?
  • In case you are trying to publish your study in a
    refereed journal, many journals prefer that each
    article should begin with a summary introduction,
    of a few paragraphs or pages, that gives the
    reader an outline of the argument.
  • Consider this kind of a summary also in your
    thesis!

39
8. Is the structure and organization of the study
logical?
  • This summary introduction might include the
    following questions, already discussed
  • What question or questions does the article
    address?
  • Why do these questions arise? What scholarly
    debate or current events set the context for the
    article?

40
8. Is the structure and organization of the study
logical?
  • What answer or answers does the article offer?
  • Why do these answers matter? How do they affect
    the debate from which they arise?
  • What competing arguments or explanations does
    this article refute?

41
8. Is the structure and organization of the study
logical?
  • How are the answers reached? Say a few words
    about methodology.
  • How is this article organized? A 'roadmap'
    paragraph should explain the structure of the
    sections that follow.

42
8. Is the structure and organization of the study
logical?
  • Do not include any extra information or part only
    because you have done the research. Do not record
    your research process, and then call it a
    research report!
  • That is, every part, paragraph, or even a
    sentence, should be there because it is necessary
    to the logic of the argument.

43
8. Is the structure and organization of the study
logical?
  • In case your study includes a "theoretical part"
    and an "empirical part", sometimes it is better
    to rewrite the whole study as one of the last
    phases of research process into a form where
    theory and empiria are mixed.
  • Theoretical moves in a way are then followed by
    empirical applications, illustrations etc.

44
8. Is the structure and organization of the study
logical?
  • In that way you also may notice whether you have
    included into your study theoretical parts that
    have no relevance to your empirical study, or,
    alternatively, you may get more out of empiria if
    you are concretely "matching" the theoretical
    moves with new interpretations of your empirical
    material.

45
9. How is the style?
  • Think what do you regard as a good scientific
    style. When trying to find your own style, use
    your "idols" as models.
  • In a sense, also scientific writing should be
    good "story-telling".

46
9. How is the style?
  • An article/essay/study, even if "scientific",
    should always at least try to be an example of
    "hard writing, easy reading".

47
9. How is the style?
  • This does not mean that you should simplify your
    argumentation or theories, but you should try to
    look at your study from the point of view of
    "outsiders", who usually do not have gone through
    the same research process as you have.
  • It should be easier for the reader to come to the
    conclusion than it was for you!

48
9. How is the style?
  • In the first versions, explain rather more than
    less in order to make your point clear.
  • However, you should not write the whole research
    process and call it then an article/study. The
    idea is that you tell only those things that are
    needed for the point you like to make.

49
9. How is the style?
  • Make every element to do extra work. For
    instance, the title should restate the central
    point the same goes for the headings.

50
9. How is the style?
  • Instead of having "Background" or "Conclusion",
    these headings could be provocative, descriptive
    or prescriptive. For instance, "Is Russia's
    Democratization a Part of the Third Wave?", "From
    Proletarian Internationalism to Minority
    Problems" or "Russia's Strategy on Chechnya Was
    Bound to Fail" etc.

51
How to write a scientific study? Nine guidelines
for students
  • Christer Pursiainen
  • www.kolumbus.fi/christer.pursiainen
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