Writing

Chapter one:
Introduction

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 Background, Objectives, Questions, Hypothesis,
Significant, Scope and Limitations Sections: Outline

• Background Section
– Format and Design
– Sources of Information
• Research Objectives , Questions and Hypotheses
• Significant Section
• Scope and Limitations Sections
• Some Illustrations
• Conclusion

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 Background Section
• Introduction:
– It is the initial section of a proposal:
• It is a set of statements relevant to the theme being
studies that attracts the reader to the work
• Introduces the status and theoretical and conceptual
framework of the study
• Provides evidence and conditions of the existing
situation to make the reader feel the urgency of the
problem and the need to study it
• Represents the history and the character of the problem,
or issues at hand
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 Background Section, Cont…
• Format and Design:
– It has four main dimensions:
1. The historical – describes the relationship between the
variables in the study. It provides brief history of the
issue being investigated starting with the global history
and narrowing down to historical issue in the area of
under study.
2. The theoretical – describes the theory(s) on which the
study will be based. It provides evidence towards the
relationship between the variables in the study and the
theory to be used.
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 Background Section, Cont…
• Format and Design:
– It has four main dimensions:
3. The conceptual – provides the definitions of terms in
the topic. There are three main definitions that a
researcher should provide in this section:
a) Literal definition (exact or primary meaning of the
variables from the literature)
b) Working definition(is the literal of the term adopt by the
researcher/ must justify why you adopted out of others)
c) Operational definition (measures and characteristics of the
variable)

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 Background Section, Cont…
• Format and Design:
– It has four main dimensions:
4. The contextual – describes the problems in each
operation of the variables in the context of the
study:
 Provide one literal definition
 Describe the issue, effects, principles, relationship
of the variables.
 Expose the Gap

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 Background Section, Cont…
• Sources of Information:
– Articles
– Books
– Databases
– Dictionaries
– Encyclopaedia
– Country profiles

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 Research Objectives , Questions and
Hypotheses
• Purpose (General objective or Aim):
– It describes the general intension and indentifies
the goal of the study. It elaborates the title of the
study. Establishes the direction of the research.
• Specific Objectives, Questions and
Hypotheses:
– Objectives and Questions state the intentions of
the study. While hypotheses suggest a relationship
or difference between the variables in the study.

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 Research Objectives , Questions and
Hypotheses, Cont…
• Specific Objectives, Questions and Hypotheses:
– Three basic characteristics of a good research objectives:
• SMART
• Clearly indicate the target population
• Clearly indicate the variables to be investigated
– Hypotheses – is a proposal about a solution to a problem
using null or alternative format:
• Be testable
• Be clear and precise
• Indicate both dependent and independent variables
• Be based on theory

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 Significant Section
of the Research
• Significant section – established why the proposed
research matters, making an important contribution
of a new knowledge.
• It answers why this research is important.
• It raises interest and provides the context for
organizing and understanding background research.
• It refers to the relevance of the study in terms of
academic contributions and practical use that might
be made of the findings.

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 Scope and Limitations of the Study
• It is also known as delimitations.
• It is a description of the boundary of the study
in terms of:
– Content
– Methodology
– Geographical
– Theoretical coverage
– And time

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 Some Illustrations
• Purpose
– The purpose is a single statement or paragraph that explains
what the study intends to accomplish. A few typical
statements are:

The goal of this study is to...

     ... overcome the difficulty with ...
     ... discover what ...
     ... understand the causes or effects of ...
     ... refine our current understanding of ...
     ... provide a new interpretation of ...
     ... understand what makes ___ successful or unsuccessful

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 Some Illustrations, Cont…
• Objectives
– The objectives of the research project are to:
• Examine the factors responsible for the low support for
the Internal Audit Activity by managers of public
institutions.
• Identify specific actions required to secure support of
managers for the Internal Audit Activity.
• Establish the relationship between quality of service
and support of managers for Internal Audit.

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 Some Illustrations, Cont…
• Research Questions and/or Hypotheses and/or
Null Hypotheses
– Chapter I lists the research questions (although it is
equally acceptable to present the hypotheses or null
hypotheses). An example would be:

The research questions for this study will be:

     1. What are the attitudes of...

     2. Is there a significant difference between...
     3. Is there a significant relationship between...
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 Some Illustrations, Cont…
• Research Questions:
– What account for the low support for Internal Audit
by public sector managers?
– What actions are necessary to get the support of
management of internal auditing in the public
sector?
– Is there a link between the quality of service the
Internal Auditor provides for his organisation and
the attitude of managers towards the Internal Audit
function?
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 Some Illustrations, Cont…
• Hypotheses:
– H1: The extent and quality of CSR disclosure in
annual reports is positively associated with firm
size.
– H2: The extent and quality of CSR disclosure in
annual reports is positively associated with a
company’s profitability.
– H3: The extent and quality of CSR disclosure of
companies is positively related to the award.

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 Some Illustrations
• Significance of the Study
– This section creates a perspective for looking at the
problem. It points out how your study relates to the
larger issues and uses a persuasive rationale to justify
the reason for your study. It makes the purpose worth
pursuing. The significance of the study answers the
questions:

     Why is your study important?

     To whom is it important?
     What benefit(s) will occur if your study is done?
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 Conclusion
• Strictly follow SU Research Manual Guide:
– Format and design
– Number of pages required for writing background
section
– Use hypotheses only when your study intends to
test a relationship or difference among variables
– Very careful when operationalizing your variables,
use the prior literature for help.

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