Make a presentation about your research work using questions below as a plan.

1. What Institute (faculty) did you graduate from?

2. When did you finish the University?

3. Did you carry out research work when you were a student?

4. What was the topic of your diploma?

5. What are you now? (a postgraduate or a competitor).

6. Why did you make up your mind to carry out research?

7. What field do you make your research in?

8. Who is your scientific adviser? Is he (she) a Doctor of Sciences or a Master of Sc. Ph. D.?

9. How did you come up with the topic of your thesis? What is it?

10. Why have you chosen this topic for your scientific work?

11. What is the aim of your investigations?

12. What questions are you going to consider in your thesis?

13. How much research work have you already done? (collected the data, experiments, completed the theoretical / experimental section)

14. What is the subject- matter of your thesis?

15. Do you need to make experiments for your research?

16. How many chapters will your thesis contain?

17. What is the aim of your practical chapter?

18. What is the novelty of your research?

19. Have you already obtained any research results?

20. What method do you employ? Why?

21. Do the data/results allow you to come to any definite conclusion(s)?

22. Did you take part in any scientific conferences? Were the results of your research communicated to the conference?

23. Do you have any scientific articles published?

24. What informative periodicals do you use in your research (in Russian and in English)?

25. Do you keep in touch with other researchers in your field?

26. How often do you keep in touch with your scientific adviser?

27. Do you make reports on your research at your chair?

28. How many candidate degree exams have you already passed? How did you pass them?

29. When are you planning to defend your thesis?

30. Do you need the English language in your research work?

31. How are you going to use English in your life and work?

WRITING RESEARCH PAPERS

Writing a research paper takes a lot of time and effort. It demands a thorough knowledge not only of the subject you are writing about, but also of the strategies for generating, verifying, substantiating and proving ideas. It is necessary to follow the structure, style, format and layout of the paper. The following guidelines will help you by providing a step-by-step explanation of the research-writing process.

 

Gathering Data and Writing Summary Notes

When reading papers written by other authors on the subject that is of interest to you, you must write summary notes. There are two kinds of summary notes.

A summary condenses into a brief note the key ideas of a source. It is a concise description of the material without a lot of concern for details. Summary notes are very helpful when you deal with references to source materials, statistical data and all kinds of facts on your spe­cific topic.

A precis is a polished summary that in a few words expresses the key ideas of an entire paragraph, section, or chapter. Writing a precis proves to be very helpful when you review an article, a book or produce an abstract. To produce a precis, condense the original piece of writing, reducing a paragraph into a sentence, an article into a brief paragraph, a book into a page. Preserve the tone and moods of the original (serious, skeptic, doubtful, etc.), do not take material out of context. Always locate the source of your material.

TASK: Do you ever write summary notes? If not, are you going to start? Write a precis of a paper using the instructions given above.

 

Organizing Ideas

Most papers in various scientific disciplines have a similar organi­zation pattern – Introduction, Body and Conclusion (especially papers on theoretical issues). Research papers based on experiments would include Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion/Conclusions.

When you write a research paper observe the following instructions:

Introduction: identify the subject of your research and narrow it to a specific topic, provide background information, state the problem and the hypothesis of research, provide theoretical basics of the study, formulate the thesis statement/sentence.

Method: describe the subjects/participants of your study, the ap­paratus and equipment used, the procedure followed.

Results: report on your findings, support them with statistical data, diagrams, graphs, tables and figures, etc., note whether your findings are consistent with the advanced hypothesis.

Discussion/Conclusions: evaluate and interpret the results obtained, make inferences from the results, discuss the implications of your findings. You can end your paper with some reflections about the topic discussed, some suggestions for further research.

TASK: When you start writing a paper, will you follow the instruc­tions given above? Will you eliminate or add new elements? Have you consulted your thesis supervisor on this issue? If not, are you going to discuss it with him/her?