- What the “big question” is you are trying to solve – or what the hypothesis is that you are trying to prove
- The sub-questions you are trying to answer
To give an example, if you are writing on the homeless problem in Los Angeles, your main objective will be explaining why people end up on the streets in on of the largest cities in the US. A few sub-questions you will try to answer (subordinate objectives, if you will) could include describing the demographic “mix” of Los Angeles’ homeless; the experiences of homelessness from a coping and stress perspective; and outlining what the health costs of homelessness are to these people and to the community. If your objectives are clear, your research will be that much easier to do and your paper that much easier to follow.
Methodology
This might be the hardest part of the paper. Essentially, the methodology of the paper (which is only introduced in chapter one), is how you are going to go about answering your research question or proving your hypothesis. Here are some helpful things to keep in mind:
- Mention right away what kind of methodology you are going to be using – quantitative or qualitative.
- Make sure that the reader knows what variables and relationships are going to be isolated and examined
- If you are using a sample population, give the size and characteristics of that sample population
- Just touch upon what sort of data you will be collecting and what data analysis you will be using
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This does not have be a long section; it just has to give the reader a “taster” of what’s to come.
Chapter Two – the Literature Review:
Literature Review
This might be the easiest thing you will do when writing your thesis. In this part, you simply outline the general trends and conclusions found in the scholarly literature vis-à-vis your topic. As a rule, it’s a good idea to look at past research, to look at what’s going on presently in the field (within the last 3 years, say) and to look at what the scholarship of the future might bring. It’s not a “hard” section, but it’s still an important one.
Chapter Three – Methodology and Research Methods:
Research Design Overview
For all intents and purposes, this is the section wherein you lay out the design structure of your study. In this part of the paper, you will want to include the following things:
- What is the control population and what is the sample population?
- What are things you are testing for?
- What data analysis are you using?
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