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Write the Research Approach and Methods section. Clearly describe the methods, protocols, techniques, and tools that will be used in the research. Describe the strategy for moving from the limits identified in the previous section to the goals and objectives in the first section.
Typically, this is the longest section of a proposal because you have to spend the most time developing everything you will use for the research and describe the strategy for using it.
The Review
Just like the State of the Art, it can be challenging to critique the Research Approach for a field for which you are not an expert. That is not your objectives. As the reader, you want the writer to explain clearly what is new in their approach and why they think it would be successful. Ideally, after reading this section you should be able to explain this to someone else and be able to get most of your explanation correct.
Read the Research Approach. When you do, you are assessing the success at communicating the approach and methods of the research. Answer the questions below.
- Does the writer clearly explain what is new in their approach? If you think something is missing or unclear, explain how so.
- Are you able to explain why it would be successful, even at a high level? If you think something is missing or unclear, explain how so.
- Does the approach link the limits of current practice to the objectives? If the path between the limits and the objectives is unclear, point that out.
- Is the writing clear and understandable? Explain why or why not.
- Does the writer tell a coherent story? Can you follow thread of the story? If it is confusing, explain how so.
A comment on overly detailed content: Some writers often compensate for weak writing by providing a lot of detail about their approach rather than clearly identifying the most important points of their approach. Those who know a field well often fill in gaps left by a weaker writer, and implicitly answer the necessary questions for the writer. While it can be challenging to read a research approach for a field which you are unfamiliar, a good writer will make clear what is new and will clearly explain why they think the research will be successful. As a non-expert with engineering knowledge, you are actually in a good position to assess the writing since you will know when the key piece of information is missing.
Writing Critique
In this exercise, you will be critiquing and rewriting part of it with an eye to topic/stress. You will also be doing the same for some of your own writing.
The Paper Being Reviewed
Read the Research Approach and choose for analysis a paragraph that is four to five sentences long. A longer one is okay, but try not to choose one shorter. Longer paragraphs offer a large number of rhetorical choices, possibilities for problems, and more to work with. For best results, avoid opening and closing paragraphs, which function somewhat differently from the others.
Read this passage twice:
- On the first pass:
- Underline the Topic of each sentence in the passage, stopping when you hit a verb.
- Check if occupant of the Topic position is indeed the person, thought, or thing whose story the sentence is about.
- Check each sentence for the location (or existence) of the old information that makes the important link backward to the previous sentence. See if that information is located in the Topic position, where it will do the reader the most good.
- On the second pass:
- Circle the Stress position in the sentence. This is the last clause or phrase of each sentence. (A Stress position is any moment of closure resulting from punctuation --- before a properly used period, colon, or semi-colon. It can never end at a comma.)
- Check each sentence for the location of the information that you think is the most stress-worthy. (Note: your choice may not be the writers). See if each piece of such information is location in a Stress position.
- Attempt to rewrite the passage with your choices for old/new information and stress-worthy material.
- Put old material in the Topic position referring back to previous discourse.
- Put stress-worthy and new information in the Stress position.
- Share this rewrite in your review. This will give the writer a chance to see what your interpretation of their writing is.
It is often helpful when you are starting out to write the sentences in a list, like I do in class. This lets you first focus on each sentence as a unit. It also makes it easier to see the Topic and Stress positions. As such, links between backward linking information are easier to see, and stress-worthy information is more obviously at the end.