The 4-sentence research proposal

Tags

Precision, Writing as social identity; the reader as significant other

By Amanda Wolf
Amanda Wolf is Deputy Head of the School of Government at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

Like many of us, I was taught that research starts with a research question. The more generous texts and supervisors may quietly soften that imperative with a whispered confidence that it is permissible to amend the research question—many times if need be—before speaking the final gem aloud. But, not ‘having a research question’ too often can debilitate students, who conclude that they are not yet started on their research.

Over the years, I have instructed students in a simple technique to bypass the no-question-yet paralysis, and thereby allow the question to pop out. The heart of the technique is to name both curiosity and purpose succinctly, in four steps.

Doctoral writing: to think ideas or to sell them to the reader?

Tags

Accurate word choice, English language writing skills, Precision, thesis editing, Writing as social identity; the reader as significant other, writing skills development

by Susan Carter

This morning a colleague who was to provide a workshop for doctoral students phoned in sick. Stepping in at short notice to replace her, I’m used Amanda Wolf’s four sentence formula for writing a research proposal in the workshop.  As we worked through Amanda’s exercise, I noticed how this great post is an exercise about writing to sell ideas to the reader rather than an exercise in writing to think. In this blog I ponder two related aspects arising from my fill-in workshop using Amanda’s sentence formula.