Research Proposal

(PPMP20015)

Week 3: Academic writing

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Unit Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:

1. Identify and review credible literature to inform the articulation of a

research question within your discipline
2. Select appropriate research approaches, methods and skills for
testing the research question
3. Employ relevant ethical practices that consider the social, cultural
and legal responsibilities of researchers
4. Apply relevant project management principles to effectively plan
your research project
5. Develop a rigorous research proposal with all necessary
components.

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SMART Objectives
By the end of this lecture, students will be able to
know:
• What is academic writing all about?
• How to paraphrase and avoid plagiarism?
• How to cite and list references?

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What is academic writing?

• Academic writing is clear, concise, focused,

structured and backed up by evidence. Its
purpose is to aid the reader’s understanding.
• It has a formal tone and style
• It is not complex
• It does not require the use of long sentences
and complicated vocabulary.

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Good academic writing

• Good academic writing is an important skill to develop as

a researcher.
• By being clear, focused and precise in your writing, you
make it easier for readers to understand your research.

Characteristics of academic writing:

1. formal tone
2. backed by evidence
3. accurate grammar and spelling
4. logically structured

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1. Formal tone

• use formal appropriate language and tenses.

• use clear, concise and balanced tone.
• Be objective and use the third person “Avoid using I”.
• Be consistent with your writing (i.e., using present tense
and third person throughout).
• Use your own words; don’t copy and paste from sources.
• Avoid sexist language.
Informal writing is characterized by expressions that are
often taken from spoken English. Often, this type of
language is appropriate for informal journal writing,
reflections, personal letters, etc.

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2. Backed by evidence

• Select appropriate evidence that you will use to support

each main point.
• Avoid making any claim that you can't substantiate by
evidence (reference)
• Think carefully about which evidence to use.
• You must evaluate that information as not everything you
find will be of high quality.
• Paraphrase any sentence from the evidence.
• Don’t copy and paste.

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3. Accurate grammar and spelling

• Most writing will require several drafts and revisions in

order to improve the clarity and structure.
• It is rare that a writer will make the very best decisions in
the first draft.
• Use ‘MS Spell and Grammar’ check, ‘Grammarly’ or
‘Writefull’ tools to spot many mistakes in your work.
• Use the university free service by Studiosity and
Academic learning center to proofread your work.

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4. Logically structured

• Once you have a plan for your writing, you can use this
plan to create the structure of your writing.
• Structured writing has a beginning, middle and an end,
and uses focused paragraphs to develop the argument.
• Writing usually follows the same overall structure:
introduction, main body and conclusion.
• Research proposals, however, have a fairly rigid
structure.
• You can structure your writing based on themes, patterns
or chorology.

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How to incorporate evidence?

• Academic writing must be supported by

evidence such as data, facts, quotations,
arguments, statistics, research, and theories.
• There are several methods that you can use to
incorporate other people's work into your own
written work:
– paraphrasing
– Summarising
– quoting

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How to paraphrase?

1. Read the text carefully - you may need to read the text
several times, and check the meaning of terms you do
not understand in a dictionary.
2. Identify and underline the key words and main ideas
in the text, and write these ideas down.
3. Consider these points as a whole and your purpose
for using this information in relation to the structure of
your assignment. You may be able to group the ideas
under your own headings, and arrange them in a
different sequence to the original text.

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How to paraphrase?
4. Think about the attitude of the author, i.e. critical,
supportive, certain, uncertain. Think about appropriate
reporting verbs you could use to describe this attitude.
5. Think of words or phrases which mean roughly the same
as those in the original text. Remember, if the key words
are specialised vocabulary for the subject, they do not
need to be changed. Using your notes from the above
steps, draft your summary or paraphrase.
6. When you have finished your draft re-read the original
text and compare it to your paraphrase or summary to
ensure you retained the same meaning/attitude.

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Parahprasing Example

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How to summarise?

Summarising is providing a condensed version of

someone else’s key points. When summarising
other people’s work, make sure that you:
– identify the relevant points of the idea or argument,
depending on your purpose
– write a shortened version, in your own words, to show
your understanding
– include an in-text citation and reference to the original
author.

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Summarising Example

The summarised text

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How to quote?

• Quoting is where you copy an author's text word for

word, place quotation marks around the words and add a
citation at the end of the quote.
• You must avoid using too many quotes.
• When quoting others’ work, make sure that you:
– copy the quote exactly from the original, as the author has
written it, taking care to include quotation marks.
– show where you have made any changes to the text.
– include an in-text citation and reference to the original author
including the page number.

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Writing examples with in-text citation

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Referencing

• You can avoid plagiarism by mastering the referencing

skills.
• Always indicate the exact source of material which is not
your own.
• This includes direct quotations, indirect quotations,
paraphrased material and facts.
• Remember a well referenced piece of writing is a sign of
academic strength not weakness and it serves to give
your work authority.

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Referencing

• Keep accurate notes of all material that you may use as

sources of information and ideas in your literature as you
find them.
• Do not leave the referencing of your work until the later
stages of the literature writing process.
• Consider keeping a card index system or maintaining
separate word processing files.
• This will help you avoid having to retrace your steps in
terms of re-reading material.

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Referencing

• The form of referencing to be used is the Harvard

system.
• This system requires you to include the appropriate
reference to the authors surname and year of publication
in rounded brackets, at the appropriate point in your text.
• This ensures that the reader has full access to the
details.
• A full list of your references should be presented in
alphabetical order.

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How to reference?

Link

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Reference list

• Organising your resources is an essential skill.

• Generate a draft reference list to avoid losing any
relevant information about the source details.
• This process provides a useful tool for developing in-text
citations.
• Remember to check this initial list against those used in-
text and remove any unused items in your assignment.
• The reference list does NOT include all your background
reading.
• You must provide the reader with enough information to
locate any source in the reference list.

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Format for citing a book (CQU Harvard)
Format for citing journal article
(CQU Harvard)
In-text citation for 4+ authors

• Citation
Give only the first author’s family name as listed on the
source, followed by ‘et al.’ (meaning ‘and others’) and the
year.
• Reference list
Include the family names and initials of ALL the authors.
Separate the authors with commas and use an ampersand
(&) before the last author.

Connell et al. (2013) explains that the relationship between

adolescents, parents and school communities is paramount and closely
linked to social issues and ideals

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Basic in-text citation styles

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How to use tables and figures?

• Sometimes it is useful to include graphs or

tables in your work.
• These items may be used as evidence to
support academic arguments in the text.
• They can be used to present complex
information clearly and effectively.
• They must be labelled and referenced, and each
is done in a particular way

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Table Example

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Graph example

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Common pitfalls in referencing

• Misuse of et al. acronym.

• Listing references without alphabetic order.
• Listing references that were not cited in the text.
• Ignore to add the page number when
paraphrasing or quoting a specific text from a
reference.

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Avoid poor referencing practices

• Plagiarism may be deliberate; or unintentional as a result

of poor referencing.
• Both forms of plagiarism are considered to be serious
and will result in the appropriate penalties being applied.
• All source material must be acknowledged and
referenced in the body of the text as appropriate and not
left to be listed in a general list of material within a
bibliography.

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Plagiarism

• Examples of the practices which are considered

dishonest include:
– Copying some or all of another student’s work without
acknowledgement.
– Copying from textbooks, journal articles, websites or other
copyrighted materials without acknowledgement.
– Recycling reports, theses, dissertations or portions of
theses/dissertations from students from earlier years.
– Fabrication of data.
– Engaging another person to complete an assessment.

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Consequences of Plagiarism

• You must maintain the highest standards of personal

integrity.
• The university has an established policy on academic
impropriety and takes a serious view of copying,
plagiarism and cheating.
• Any student suspected of submitting an assignment
which is not their own work will be subjected to the full
investigative procedures set down by the university.

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Before you write:
• Read studies similar to what you want to write
– Research proposals, journals articles, master’s
theses, etc.
• Abstracts
• Literature Reviews
• Conclusions/Discussion
– Recommendations for Future Study
• Take notes (don’t highlight!)
– Summarise/paraphrase passages
Drafting
• Should be the least time-consuming of all steps
in the process.
• If it’s taking you forever to write 1,000 words, two
things could be happening:
1. You don’t have a clue what you should be saying.
2. You're revising while you draft so that you end up with
one sentence an hour.
Your literature review

• Your literature review is needed in any research type:

• It should:
– Demonstrate an in-depth and independent
investigation of a particular research topic.
– Present a clear understanding of appropriate relevant
theoretical knowledge.
– Substantiate the gap of the current literature in the
area of your research.
– Synthesise (combine) and discuss the findings of the
selected articles you gathered for review.

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Poor Literature

1. poor or inadequate referencing

2. unsubstantiated assertions
3. excessive amount of words
4. little or no critical analysis
5. lack of rigour and clarity
6. inadequate evidence and lack of argument
7. untidy or poorly presented graphics and text
8. bad spelling and poor grammar.
9. lack of focus

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Excellent literature

1. An excellent overview of the subject.

2. Up to date, credible and relevant sources.
3. Appropriate cross-referencing and discussion
of points of agreement and disagreement. Critical
review
4. Areas where the literature is deficient are
correctly identified.
5. The RQ emerges naturally from the review.
6. Clear language, impressive presentation and
correct referencing style.

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Towards critical writing of literature

• There are three levels of

writing literature:
– Descriptive
– Analytical
– Critical/Evaluative

• Your writing should evolve

starting from descriptive
then analytical then
critical.

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Proofreading

• Proof reading is a vital aspect of your writing.

• Check all text thoroughly at two levels:
– firstly for overall sense and grammatical correctness,
– then for spelling and typographical errors.
• Make use of the word processing functions that can help
you, such as spell check, grammar check, auto text,
autocorrect, headings, table format choice, etc.
• Equations, references and figure numbers should be
double-checked.

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Remember:

• The University regards plagiarism as an extremely

serious academic offence.
• Submission through Moodle includes your declaration
that the work submitted is entirely your own.
• Please make sure to use the available tool in Moodle to
verify the originality of your work before making the
formal submission.
• Submit your draft for Turnitin check within 24 hours
before the deadline of submission.

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Testing the SMART objectives

Now, students should be able to know:

• What is academic writing all about?
• How to paraphrase and avoid plagiarism?
• How to cite and list references?

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References for additional reading

• Academic writing: how to incorporate evidence

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