Module 33

Challenges in Indian Research and Writing III

-Dr Rajat Agarwal
Department of Management Studies,
Indian Institute of Technology
Roorkee-247664

Welcome Friends,
Now we’re the third session of the Module 1: Challenges in Research Writing in Indian context.
Here we are focusing on challenges particularly in writing part. The first two sessions mention about
conducting the research work. So,
Challenges in Research Writing:
There are various phases in research writing:

• Pre-writing Process:
Problem: No clear thesis and no idea of what to do your research on.
• Explanation: You have to plan that what are you going to write and that clarity in that
writing process is important. In order to bring clarity of objectives, need to know and have
clarity on your topic. If clarity is not there in your topic then you may not be able to publish
good journals. There should be clear idea about what are we researching and this becomes
even more important incase of social science, humanities, and literature so that we can
know what we are researching on and hence we have severe issues due to improper training
that Occur. We are unaware of from where to get resources and how to interpret and
analyze your finding. Data may say different but you will interpret, analyze and the way
you are thinking. In Indian research, many a time, u will find that the findings,
interpretation; which you are interpreting may not have any relation with the data which
you have collected for the research.
• Planning and Logistics:
Problem: You haven’t considered where to start your research nor have developed a research
writing plan.

• Explanation: You should know what type of review is required for the particular problem.
What type of methodology is required for the particular problem because others are doing
this, so am also doing this? Most of the Indians follow this particular logic in planning and
logistics aspect. In America, an approach was followed so am also following the same
approach in India. But this won’t going to work in India.You have to be very specific why
this particular methodology and steps are suitable for your research. So planning and
logistics need to have a careful activity.

• Research and Data collection:

 Module 33 : Challenges in Indian Research and Writing III

Problem: You have not enough resources nor do you know how to interpret and analyze your
findings.

- Explanation: This is a corollary of lack of research training. When you do not have proper
research training, these type of problems occur. We are unaware of from where to get the
resources and then do not know how to interpret and analyze the data. In India, this usually
happens that the findings and interpretations which are presented may not have any relation
with collected data for research. This is a poor indicator of the research activity.

• Drafting and Writing:

Problem: You’ve collected your information but don’t know how to organize it into a well
written research paper.
- Explanation: You assume that you have some kind of clarity and research training and you
have been for some empirical study, you collected data, you used some latest statistical
packages for analysis of data. Now you have enough things with you but because of your
poor ability to organize the things in proper way so you are unable to organize it into a
well-written research paper.

• Revising, Editing and Proofreading:

Problem: You’ve written your draft but still have a number of logic, organization,
grammar, spelling and punctuation mistakes.
- Explanation: When you are submitting paper to some good ranking journal which being
published from Europe or America. You get these type of comments that papers need to be
proof redden from native English speaking person. This is a major challenge for a large
number of Indian researchers. We need to have good skills of writing, good command over
the language and when you have command over language, you will be able to express your
ideas in better way. So you are knowledgeable but putting your research with these words
which can explain your research lucidly. So that others can understand and take interest in
reading your research. Research writing must create interest in readers’ mind so that they
can read your entire writing. We need to work on how we can improve our language and
need to have training from education from schools so that they can have good control over
the language.
- Language development is very important.
• Weak organization:
The longer a paper, the more challenging it is to ensure that the paper is well organized and
unfiled.
- Explanation: We should have a decent length of the research paper. If you try to write too
many things in a paper, there may be problems related to proper organization of research
paper.

• Poor Support and Development of Ideas:

Excessively short or long paragraphs are one indication that the ideas in a paper re not well
developed.
- Explanation: If paragraph is too short or too long, that means you don’t have clarity on that
particular idea or on what you’re writing in that paragraph. So it has to be moderate length
paragraph to express the ideas into limited words can be highlighted. The proper support
of idea and development of ideas is also required in good research writing.

MOOC: Academic Writing by Dr Ajay Semalty, HNB Garhwal University (A Central University)
Srinagar (Garhwal) Uttarakhand, India
 Module 33 : Challenges in Indian Research and Writing III

• Weak Use of Secondary Sources:

We use literature review as a ritual always. We do not understand the purpose the secondary
sources; i.e.; literature review in our research that how it is going to strengthen the logic of
your research.

• Excessive Errors:
Already discussed errors are involved in with respect to logic, grammar, language, spelling,
sentence formations with writing activities. So proper command over language is required
for improving the research writing and thereby, reducing errors in our research writing.
These errors reflect poor part of researchers. So there is need to improve and these aspects
so that we can overcome the challenges of our research.

With this, we come to end of third session of challenges in Indian research writing.

Thank you very much.

MOOC: Academic Writing by Dr Ajay Semalty, HNB Garhwal University (A Central University)
Srinagar (Garhwal) Uttarakhand, India
 Module 33 : Challenges in Indian Research and Writing III

Credits

Course Coordinator
Dr Ajay Semalty
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences
HNB Garhwal University (A Central University) Srinagar (Garhwal), India

Content Writer & Presenter

Dr Rajat Agarwal
Department of Management Studies,
Indian Institute of Technology
Roorkee-247664

Content Reviewers
Prof. (Retd.) M.S.M. Rawat
Former Vice Chancellor; HNB Garhwal University (A Central University) Srinagar (Garhwal)
Advisor-HE, Govt. of Uttarakhand, Dehradun, India

Prof. D.S. Rawat

Department of Chemistry
University of Delhi, India

Technical Reviewer
Dr Ajay Semalty
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences
HNB Garhwal University (A Central University) Srinagar (Garhwal), India

Instructional Designer
Lokesh Adhikari
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences
HNB Garhwal University (A Central University) Srinagar (Garhwal), India

MOOC: Academic Writing by Dr Ajay Semalty, HNB Garhwal University (A Central University)
Srinagar (Garhwal) Uttarakhand, India