plan
8.3 Coping with the unexpected 118
8.4 Getting ready to analyse your data 120
8.5 Dealing with large amounts of data 122
Top tip – ‘Big rocks first’ 126
9.1 What motivates you in your research? 130
9.2 The role of emotions in research 132
9.3 Dealing with peaks and troughs 134
9.4 What to do when you feel like giving up 136
9.5 Why does it all feel so important? 138
Top tip – Treat yourself – you deserve it! 141
Theme 10 Submission and review 143
10.1 The finishing touches 144
10.2 Presenting your work to others 146
10.3 What would you do differently? 148
10.4 What have you learned about yourself? 150
10.5 How have your skills developed? 152
Case study – A fresh pair of eyes 155
Part 2 My research project 157
Top tip – A strong structure 161
Top tip – Using annotated bibliographies 163
Top tip – ‘Put yourself in my shoes’ 167
Case study – Selecting the most significant data 169
Case study – From data description to data analysis 171
Case study – Time to celebrate together 173
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my sincere thanks to my family and friends for all
their support in the process of bringing The Research Journal to fruition.
In particular I would like to thank Martin Bassot for his careful work on
the diagrams and Marc Bassot for his proofreading and constructive
comments. I would also like to thank the reviewers of the proposal and
typescript whose positive and helpful comments helped me to develop
the work into the book it has become. I would especially like to thank
my Commissioning Editor, Catherine Gray, for her belief in the project
and for her support, and to the publisher for being prepared to take a
risk with a new kind of publication.
1
Introduction
Welcome to The Research Journal. You are
probably reading this because you are about
to start or have recently started your first piece
of independent research. You might well be
studying
