Project Production and Management Programme

HOW TO
WRITE A
RESEARCH
PROJECT
REPORT Science and Art Centres

TITLE
The title of the research Project should be concise, accurate, and informative. You
should include your most relevant keywords in your title but avoid including
abbreviations and formulae.

ABSTRACT
An abstract is a self-contained summary of your research Project. The purpose of
your abstract is to express the key points of your Project, clearly and concisely.

The abstract allows readers to make decisions about your project. Like the trailer
for a movie, an abstract can determine whether or not someone becomes
interested in your work.

An abstract should be a short paragraph (around 300 words) that summarizes the
findings of your journal article. Ordinarily an abstract will be comprised of the aim
of the Project, methods have been used and main findings.

Although the content will vary according to field and specific project, all abstracts,
whether in the sciences or the humanities, convey the following information:

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 • The purpose of the project identifying the area of study to which it belongs.
• The research problem that motivates the project.
• The methods used to address this research problem, documents or evidence
analysed.
• The conclusions reached or, if the research is in progress, what the
preliminary results of the investigation suggest, or what the research methods
demonstrate.
• The significance of the research project. Why are the results useful? What is
new to our understanding as the result of your inquiry?

INTRODUCTION

Introductions to research
papers do a lot of work.

It may seem obvious, but

introductions are always
placed at the beginning of a
paper. They guide your reader
from a general subject area to
the narrow topic that your
paper covers. They also explain your paper’s:

Scope: The topic you’ll be covering

Context: The background of your topic
Importance: Why your research matters

The introduction to your research paper isn’t just important. It’s critical.
Your readers don’t know what your research paper is about from the title. That’s
where your introduction comes in. A good introduction will:

• Help your reader understand your topic’s background

• Explain why your research paper is worth reading
• Offer a guide for navigating the rest of the piece
• Pique your reader’s interest

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Without a clear introduction, your readers will struggle. They might even give up
entirely. To avoid this, start with a general overview of your topic. Narrow the
overview until you address your paper’s specific subject.
Below are some essential items:

• An overview of the topic. Start with a general overview of your topic.

Narrow the overview until you address your paper’s specific subject. Then,
mention questions or concerns you had about the case. Note that you will
address them in the publication.

• Prior research. Your introduction is the place to review other conclusions

on your topic. Include both older scholars and modern scholars. This
background information shows that you are aware of prior research. It also
introduces past findings to those who might not have that expertise.

The Statement of the Problem

The world is full of problems! Not all problems

make good project, however, because they are
either too big, complex, or risky for researchers
to solve. A proper problem can be defined as a
specific, evidence-based, real-life issue faced by
certain people or organizations that have
significant negative implications to the involved
parties.

Example of a proper, specific, evidence-based, real-life problem:

“Only 6% of CEOs in Fortune 500 companies are women” (Center for

Leadership Studies, 2019).

The first and most important step in any research is to identify and describe the
research problem precisely.: that is, what the researcher wants to solve and what
questions he/she wishes to answer.

Your research problem defines the gap in existing knowledge you want to
address, an issue with a certain process or practices that is known and well
documented and needs a solution, or earlier findings that point to the need for
further investigation. Your approach can be theoretical or practical, and the
specific type of problem you choose to address depends on the type of research
you want to do.

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A good research problem should have the following characteristics:

• It should address a gap in knowledge.

• It should be significant enough to contribute to the existing body of
research
• It should lead to further research
• The problem should render itself to investigation through collection of data
• It should be of interest to the researcher and suit his/her skills, time, and
resources
• The approach towards solving the problem should be ethical

The Purpose of the Study

It is important to distinguish in your mind the differences between the Problem

Statement and Purpose Statement.

• The Problem Statement is why I am doing the project or dissertation-in-

practice
• The Purpose Statement is what type of project or study I am doing to fit or
address the problem

The Purpose Statement includes:

• Design and Method of Study
• Variables
• Specific Population
• Setting

The purpose statement is a concise paragraph that describes the intent of the
project or study and the purpose statement should flow directly from the problem
statement.

The purpose statement should specifically address the reason for conducting the
project or study, with emphasis on the word specifically.

The chain of alignment that began with the problem description and continues on
to the purpose, questions, and methodology must be respected at all times during
development.

Identify in the purpose statement the methodology as quantitative, qualitative or

mixed (i.e., “The purpose of this [qualitative/quantitative/mixed] study is to ...)

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Follow the initial declaration of purpose with a brief overview of how the project or
study will be conducted, including instruments, data, with whom (sample), and
where (as applicable). Identify variables/constructs and/or
phenomenon/concept/idea.

In establishing your purpose, you should NOT advocate for a particular outcome.
Your review of the literature should be done to answer questions, not to prove a
point.

Creswell (2002) suggested that a purpose statement should focus on a single idea
or concept with a broad definition of that idea or concept. How the concept will be
investigated should also be included, as well as participants in the study and study
locations to give the reader a sense of with whom and where the project or study
will occur.

Creswell (2003) advised the following script for purpose statements in

qualitative methodology:

“The purpose of this qualitative_________________ (strategy of inquiry, such as

ethnography, case study, or other type) study is (was? will be?) to
________________ (understand? describe? develop? discover?) the
_________________(central phenomenon being studied) for ______________ (the
participants, such as the individual, groups, organization) at __________(site). At
this stage in the project, the __________ (central phenomenon being studied) will
be generally defined as ___________________ (provide a general definition)”

Creswell (2003) suggests the following script for drafting purpose

statements in quantitative projects:

“The purpose of this _____________________ (experiment? survey?) project is

(was? will be?) to test the theory of _________________that _________________
(compares? relates?) the ___________ (independent variable) to
_________________________ (dependent variable), controlling for
_______________________ (control variables) for ___________________
(participants) at _________________________ (site). The independent variable(s)
_____________________ will be generally defined as _______________________
(provide a general definition). The dependent variable(s) will be generally defined
as _____________________ (provide a general definition), and the control and
intervening variables(s), _________________ (identify the control and intervening
variables) will be statistically controlled in this project” (pg. 97).

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METHODS
The methodology section of your
paper describes how your research
was conducted. This information
allows readers to check whether your
approach is accurate and dependable.
A good methodology can help
increase the reader’s trust in your
findings.

So what exactly do you need to

include when writing your method
section? You should provide detailed
information on the following:

• Research design • Equipment

• Hypothesis, variables • Materials
• Participants • Procedure

The method section should provide enough information to allow other researchers
to replicate your experiment or study.

A) Research design
A research design is a strategy for answering your research question using
empirical data.

The first choice you need to make is whether you’ll take a qualitative or
quantitative approach.

Qualitative approach Quantitative approach

• Understand subjective experiences,
beliefs, and concepts
• Gain in-depth knowledge of a specific
context or culture
• Explore under-researched problems
and generate new ideas
• Measure variables and describe
frequencies, averages, and
correlations
• Test hypotheses about relationships
between variables
• Test the effectiveness of a new
treatment, program or product

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It’s also possible to use a mixed-methods design that integrates aspects of both
approaches. By combining qualitative and quantitative insights, you can gain a
more complete picture of the problem you’re studying and strengthen the
credibility of your conclusions.

B) Hypothesis, variables

A hypothesis states your predictions about what your research will find. It is a
tentative answer to your research question that has not yet been tested. For some
research projects, you might have to write several hypotheses that address
different aspects of your research question.

A hypothesis is not just a guess – it should be based on existing theories and

knowledge. It also has to be testable, which means you can support or refute it
through scientific research methods (such as experiments, observations, and
statistical analysis of data).

If you want to test a relationship between two or more variables, you need to write
hypotheses before you start your experiment or data collection.

An independent variable is something the researcher changes or

controls. A dependent variable is something the researcher
observes and measures.

Example: Hypothesis
Daily exposure to the sun leads to increased levels of happiness.

In this example, the independent variable is exposure to the sun –

the assumed cause. The dependent variable is the level of
happiness – the assumed effect.

Specify the variables as well as the levels of these variables. Identify:

• The independent variables
• Dependent variables
• Control variables
• Any extraneous variables that might influence your results.

Also, explain whether your research or experiment uses a within-groups or

between-groups design.

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C) Participants
At the very minimum, this part of your method section must convey:
• Basic demographic characteristics of your participants (such as sex, age,
grade, school etc)
• The population from which your participants were drawn
• Any restrictions on your pool of participants
• How many participants were assigned to each condition and how they were
assigned to each group (i.e., randomly assignment, another selection
method, etc.)
• Why participants took part in your research

D) Materials/Instruments
You should describe the materials, measures, equipment, or stimuli used in the
experiment. This may include:

• Testing instruments
• Technical equipment
• Any psychological assessments that were used
• Any special equipment that was used

E) Procedure
Explain your process of data collection. This is the place to state the tools and
materials that were used to collect and analyse data and the process. If your
research was quantitative, you will specify how your data was measured. If your
research was qualitative, you will describe how data was recorded and how you
observed and/or participated in the study and how you analysed the data. You
want to provide enough detail for readers to be able to replicate your procedure.

FINDINGS

The findings section is where you report the

findings of your study based upon the
methodology [or methodologies] you
applied to gather information.

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 This section should state the key findings of the
research arranged in a logical sequence without
bias or interpretation.

The goal is to include only the important and

relevant findings to answering your research
questions. Avoid speculative or interpretative
words like “appears” or “implies.” Your findings
should always be written in the past tense.

While the length of this section depends on how

much data you collected and analysed, it should be written as concisely as
possible.

In quantitative research, it’s often helpful to include visual elements such as graphs,
charts, and tables, but only if they are directly relevant to your results. Give these
elements clear, descriptive titles and labels so that your reader can easily
understand what is being shown.

The use of these visual illustrations is necessary so the readers can summarize,
compare, and interpret large data at a glance. When presenting your research
data in the form of figures and tables, organize your data based on the steps of the
research leading you into a conclusion.

In qualitative research, your results might not all be directly related to specific
hypotheses. In this case, you can structure your results section around key themes
or topics that emerged from your analysis of the data.

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CONCLUSION AND DISCCUSSION

It’s not enough to use figures and

tables in your result section to
convince your readers about the
importance of your findings. You need
to support your result section by
providing more explanation in the
discussion section about what you
found.

The discussion section is probably the

most creative section of your paper in
terms of telling a story about your
research (Ghasemi, 2019; Moore,
2016). In this section, based on your
findings, you defend the answers to your research questions and create arguments
to support your conclusions.

Below is a list of questions to guide you when organizing the structure of your
discussion section (Viera et al., 2018):

• What experiments did you conduct and what were the results?
• What do the results mean?
• What were the important results from your study?
• How did the results answer your research questions?
• Did your results support your hypothesis or reject your hypothesis?
• What are the variables or factors that might affect your results?
• What were the strengths and limitations of your study?
• What other published works support your findings?
• What other published works contradict your findings?
• What possible factors might cause your findings different from other
findings?
• What is the significance of your research?
• What are new research questions to explore based on your findings?

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SUGGESTIONS
The suggestions section of any report is
important because it calls people to action
based on the evidence that has been
gathered and analysed in the report.

Suggestions and recommandations need to

be actionable, specific and make sense as a
solution to the problems detailed in the
report.

This text was compiled from the online resources below.

1. https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/publishing-your-research/writing-your-
paper/writing-a-journal-article/
2. https://www.grammarly.com/blog/write-an-
abstract/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwkt6aBhDKARIsAAyeLJ02k0brNFb9CEIOY4F5BgyKEx84g6S
HJqr9RKuY_bJ6BXgpqWgJY7oaAq-iEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
3. https://www.editage.com/insights/the-basics-of-writing-a-statement-of-the-problem-
for-your-research-proposal
4. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-life-hacks/writing/how-to-write-an-
introduction-for-a-research-paper
5. https://library.ncu.edu/c.php?g=1013602&p=7638199#s-lg-box-24257306
6. https://www.sjsu.edu/writingcenter/docs/handouts/Methodology.pdf
7. https://www.verywellmind.com/how-to-write-a-method-section-2795726
8. https://www.scribbr.com/methodology/research-design/
9. https://www.scribbr.com/methodology/hypothesis/
10. https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/results
11. https://www.researchprospect.com/how-to-write-the-findings-of-a-dissertation/
12. https://www.scribbr.com/dissertation/results/
13. https://goldbio.com/articles/article/Guide-to-results-and-discussion-section
14. https://penandthepad.com/write-recommendations-report-5847636.html

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