Research into Practice: a model for sustainable development

Suganthi John & Els Van GeyteThe University of Birmingham

Purpose

To share our experience of how we brought research and practice together on a project to redevelop thesis writing materials for international students.

Outline

Two sections to our paper:The background, aims and description of our

projectLooking at some examples from our project

of how we brought research and practice together

Background

The needs of current students & their research areasIncreased numbers and larger number of

research areas Interdisciplinary nature of research

Empirical vs non-empirical research writing

Our task

To redevelop our materials to cover a wider range of disciplines

To ensure that both empirical and non-empirical research types were covered in our course

What research we did:Looking at e-theses in a number of fields in the

humanities and social sciences

Books on academic writingHamp-Lyons & Heasley (2006)Paltridge and Starfield (2007)Swales & Feak (2008)Bitchener (2010)

Research on academic discourse and the teaching of academic writingFlowerdew (2002)Hyland (2009)Journal articles

Research into Practice: a model for sustainable

writing.Practical examples

empirical

Introduction Literature review Methodology Results Discussion Conclusion

non-empirical

sections less distinguishable

Reasoning for adding a task:

signposting for course

awareness of types of research

reflection: type of thesis / suitable organisation

Research:

http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/Abstracts

NER examples on hand-out1.Social Sciences/ Centre for Russian and East European Studies2.Arts and Law/ Music

New task

Recognising empirical and non-empirical research

The table below provides you with examples of empirical (ER) and non-empirical research (NER).

Can you identify which is which?

Author and Title Content

1. Scarpitta, Lara (2009)

‘ Justice and home affairs and Romania’s accession to the European Union’ (PhD)

Focusing on the reform trajectory in the fields of judiciary reforms, anti-corruption and external border policies between 1989 and 2007, this study assesses the interaction between EU politics and domestic politics and the role of domestic factors in slowing down internal reforms.

2. Furse, Edward Niel (2010)

‘Perspectives on the reception of Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C, with particular reference to musicological writings in English on Haydn’s Concertos and the classical Concerto.’ (Master of Music)

This thesis illustrates the extraordinary quality of Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C, Hob. VIIb: 1, and addresses the musicological literature in English that relates to it. Chapter 1 introduces the concerto. Chapter 2 illustrates the scarcity of literature in English pertaining to Haydn’s concertos. Chapter 3 widens its scope to include literature on the Classical concerto. Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C is presented as an aesthetic alternative to Mozart’s later and more complex works. This chapter also touches upon the Classical-concerto literature’s unhelpful emphasis upon first movements.

See hand-out for example:

Methods SectionBefore:

Auditory comprehension of English by monolingual and bilingual preschool children

Method

1 … 2 …

Task: Why do you think the author chose to order the elements in this way?

Issues:

Education/ English

Task does not engage students enough

Task is not interactive enough

Research:

Sociology Journal: http://www.socresonline.org.uk/15/1/1.html

Methods SectionAfter:

Parenting in Post-Divorce Estonian Families: A Qualitative Study

Task 1The following sections are not in the order that they appeared in the methods section in an article from a sociology journal. Can you order them?

Results SectionBefore: Explanation:

Reporting/Stating results [Move 2] Thirdly, but as an adversative conjunction was also used in the Japanese students’ texts. The frequency of the adversative conjunctions ‘but’ was 33.08%.

Commenting on the results/generalising/conclusions[Move 4] As mentioned above, the frequency of additive conjunctions was 27.76%, therefore, the frequency of adversative conjunctions in the texts is almost equivalent to that of the additive conjunction.

Issues:

Education

Another ER example

‘move’: technical term

Research:

ER example replaced with NER (Arts/English)

http://etheses.nottingham.ac.uk/568/1/Thesis_EF.pdf

‘moves’ and ‘steps’ replaced with ‘stages’ and ‘steps’Swales, J., and Feak, B., Academic Writing for Graduate Students, University of Michigan Press, 2004

Results SectionAfter: Explanation (NER example)

Reporting/Stating results (step b) Stanschil forlong 1334 (NRO, Furtho X/16), Stamhill furlong 1505 (NRO,YZ7809) (stān, hyll, furlang) ‘furlong on or near the stony hill’;

Commenting on the results/generalising/conclusions(step e) this name seems to display a corrupt form of the element stān (stam-) and probably refers to land near a quarry, cf. Stanthills, close to an old quarry in Weedon Lois.

Conclusions

1. Our definition of ‘sustainability’:Ensuring that the current state of knowledge

is reflected in our materials

Ensuring that our students are able to use this knowledge to sustain the development of their own writing

Independence => Sustainability

2. Some conflict:

Need new theory? Based on examples/academic literature/ both?

----- Revision

‘old’ theory vs. thesis examples

Need to check more examples?