Length and purpose
The length of a research project will depend on the level of your studies.
At third year undergraduate level it might be between 3000 and 8,000 words.
This might involve gathering information or making a brief investigation.
An MA dissertation on the other hand is usually a longer piece of detailed academic analysis.
This might be 15,000 words long or even more.
A PhD thesis must be a piece of original research.
Typical theses might be between 50,000 and 80,000 words long - or more.
Production
The principal difficulty is generating and handling so much material.
You need to develop patience, persistence, and intellectual stamina.
The material must be given structure and coherence.
You also need to present the material using the conventions of your subject-discipline.
Planning
Your essay-writing skills are your main source of support for such a task.
You will need to shape and re-shape your work according to some plan or outline.
This plan might change as you progress, but it will provide reassurance.
Think of the work as a very big essay which will take a long time to complete.
Judith Bell, Doing Your Research Project: A Guide for First-Time Researchers in Education and Social Science, Buckingham: Open University Press (4th edn) 2005, pp.267.
Best-selling UK guide which covers planning and record-keeping, interviewing, reviewing 'the literature' of your topic, designing questionnaires, interpreting evidence, and presenting the findings. Each chapter has a summary checklist and its own suggestions for further reading. There's also a full bibliography and index. Highly recommended.
Full review HERE
Confidence
When you reach this stage you should know quite a lot about your subject.
You should be accustomed to the language and conventions of your subject.
You will also be aware of its principal concepts.
By this stage you should also have all the basic study skills you will need.
Form
The form of the project will depend on your subject and its conventions.
It could be a review of 'the literature' of one aspect of your subject.
It might be the writing up of a particular case study or investigation.
Some reports offer the results of surveys or interviews.
Others may be the records of scientific laboratory experiments.
Selection
Select a topic in which you are genuinely interested.
This interest will help to sustain your commitment throughout the research.
Completing a long piece of work is very difficult if you become bored with the topic.
Be prepared to change the topic [in the early stages] if you are not happy with your first choice.
Topic
The best topics usually emerge from some subject you already know well.
Select an item of interest which has arisen during your coursework.
Do some preparatory work in narrowing down the subject to a precise focus.
Don't take on something too large or poorly defined.
A limited project which is successful will gain more credit than an over-ambitious failure.
Examples
Study examples of other people's successful projects.
Copies of such work are usually kept in departmental libraries.
Check what other topics have been covered in your subject or discipline.
Discuss the possibilities with your tutor, the course leader, and with other students.
Conventions
The project is an exercise in undertaking a larger piece of work.
You must also present your results in the conventional form for your subject.
You are not usually expected to be dazzlingly original.
You are showing that you have understood your subject and can use its protocols.
The hypothesis
Some projects begin with a clear idea, and evidence is sought to prove its validity.
Alternatively, a body of work is investigated until an idea begins to emerge.
You might even start from an intermediate position in which
a vague hunch is pursued and revised in the light of your investigations.
Each one of these approaches can be equally valid.
The important thing is to be aware of which one you have chosen.
The worst position is to be floundering and uncertain, between all three.
The method
Keep relating your hypothesis to the evidence, and vice versa.
Be prepared to change your hypothesis in the light of evidence if necessary.
Do not be tempted to distort the evidence to prove your point.
Pedagogy
The extended project is used increasingly in further and higher education.
It is a convenient teaching method, especially when resources are low.
Students learn through engagement with their materials and chosen topic.
In one sense, they teach themselves.
