African American woman student with afro hairstyle wear yellow cardigan, sitting on windowsill, working doing remote job on laptop, learning using online course. Self-education, preparing for an exam.
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Boston, T. 2007. Capacity Building in the New Economy: A Mandate for Minority-owned Businesses. Georgia Minority Supplier Development Council, Atlanta USA.
Businesstech. How effective risk management can help businesses grow.
MacCleod, G. 1988. Starting your own Business in South Africa. Oxford University Press. Cape Town. Fifth Edition.
Madri, S., van den Heever, A., Francis, D., Valodia, I., Veller, M. and Sachs, M. South Africa needs to end the Lockdown. This is a Blueprint for its Replacement.
Ontology, epistemology, ethnomethodology, phenomenology and all the other “gy’s” mean pretty much the same when considered in terms of grammar. Interpretivists would tell you that every culture and historical situation is different and unique. That is why research conducted in an African context will be different from research in a European, Asian or any other context. And even “European” and “Asian” are overgeneralized contexts.
Even so, research methodology remains the same all over the world because the same principles and processes can be applied to different contexts.
Hello, my name is Hannes Nel and I have developed 109 video lessons on research methodology. Initially I worked from my office and house in Pretoria. Halfway through the process my wife and I moved to Hartenbos in the Southern Cape. That is when the environment became more interesting.
One night I was visited by a small snake with a huge self-image. Although only about 15 centimeters long, the little guy would lift his head and pump up his neck pretending to be a Cape Cobra. It was a Wolf snake, and they are harmless. I grabbed the little guy by the neck and gently dropped him over the fence into the safety of the open field.
Not long after that a centipede, about 5 cm long and fifteen millimeters wide crawled through under the same door as the snake. This rascal was incredibly fast and made a dash for the safety of a couch. I looked under all three our couches but could not find him. I sometimes wake up between two and three o’clock in the morning. Once I start thinking about work, I know that I will not sleep again, so I would get up, make myself a cup of coffee and work on the script for my next video. About two weeks after the centipede invaded my house, I accidently stepped on him in the dark passage leading to my room. He left his hide during the night, probably looking for food. Fortunately, I had my sandals on because a centipede can deliver nasty bite.
My wife had a rather extensive succulent collection in Pretoria and she brought some of them with to Hartenbos. She also bought some new ones in the Northern Cape, which is almost a desert, so that one can find ones that make the most beautiful flowers there.
Sadly, the suburb where we live is developing at an incredible pace. The natural vegetation is rapidly being lost to new houses. That is why the guineafowl are peeping over our neighbour’s fence to see if there is not, perhaps, some open space and something to eat for them on the other side. And the family of partridges that used to scratch around in our garden also left when the building contractors appeared on the scene. A family of rabbits lived and bred in the open field next to our house. You can still see them from time to time, but they are also moving out.
A thick knee bird laid two eggs right next to my study. They don’t build a nest like most other birds do. Their eggs are well camouflaged, so they just lay them on the unprepared ground. We have a collection of different protea species in our garden and the thick knee bird laid her eggs under one of the smaller protea bushes.
The male and female take turns sitting on the eggs and the one sitting on the eggs will not easily leave the nest even when threatened. The other one would stay in the vicinity to protect the nest and sitting partner. If you approach them, he or she would spread their wings and their eyes, which are usually a soft yellow will turn to a fierce-looking bright orange colour to scare you away.
One night a wild cat or some other predator attacked the male sitting on the nest. The next morning, he was gone. I found only the scull on my driveway. What I found strange was that the were no feathers or bones, only the clean-stripped skull. The hen still tried to hatch the eggs, but I am not sure if they hatched because I had to return to Pretoria to finalise our move.
Nature must be angry at us. In the early hours of 29 September 2019 a huge thunder storm broke out over the suburb where we live. In less than twenty minutes the water broke a 6 meter gap in the wall between our house and the one above us, raged through our yard and crashed into the wall on the other side of our house, breaking a six meter gap in this wall.
I wish we could just live with nature without having to disturb the habitat of the wild animals. We really need to find a way in which to live with nature rather than to destroy and disrupt without thinking about the damage that we are causing. Fortunately, there is a game reserve less than a hundred meters from the suburb where we live so that most of the animals can move there.
In closing, allow me to share some brief notes on the videos on research methodology that I produced:
The videos are aimed at students who wish to embark on P. Hd. or master’s degree studies.
I am posting one video per week on YOUTUBE where anybody can have access to them for free.
In addition, I am posting the scripts that I used to produce the videos as articles on one of our web sites (www.intgrty.co.za). You can, therefore, also read the articles for free.
The full video menu is also posted as an article on the “intgrty” web site.
You can also gain access to the videos on our online learning platform at less than one USA Dollar per video. Once you have gained access to a video, you can revisit it as many times as you wish at no additional cost.
Prospective or studying post-graduate students need not watch all the videos. You should be able to write your thesis or dissertation if you watch only the videos that are relevant to your research level and topic. Five or six videos will probably be enough.
Lecturers can also use the videos as training aids, thereby saving their students the cost of having to pay for the videos.
Lecturers can also use the questions that I ask in my tests in theirs and they need not acknowledge the source. The electronic address of the platform is:
I also posted 3 videos with open access as a sample on our online learning platform.
I also developed a ten-question online test per video. Those who watched the videos on the online platform can do the tests online at no additional cost. They can repeat the tests as many times as they wish and, once they have successfully completed all 109 tests, will automatically be issued with a Mentornet Proficiency Certificate in Research Methodology.
Research Methods for Ph. D. and Master’s Degree Studies: Data Analysis. Methods for Organizing and Analysing Data Part 2 of 2.
Research Methods for Ph. D. and Master’s Degree Studies: The Layout of the Thesis or Dissertation Part 1 of 10.
10.
Deconstruction.
Empirical generalization.
Research Methods for Ph. D. and Master’s Degree Studies: The Layout of the Thesis or Dissertation Part 3 of 10. Ethics in research part 1 of 3.
Research Methods for Ph. D. and Master’s Degree Studies: The Layout of the Thesis or Dissertation Part 4 of 10. Ethics in research part 2 of 3.
Research Methods for Ph. D. and Master’s Degree Studies: The Layout of the Thesis or Dissertation Part 5 of 10. Ethics in research part 3 of 3.
Research Methods for Ph. D. and Master’s Degree Studies: The Layout of the Thesis or Dissertation Part 6 of 10. Typing format.
Research Methods for Ph. D. and Master’s Degree Studies: The Layout of the Thesis or Dissertation Part 7 of 10. Quotations.
Research Methods for Ph. D. and Master’s Degree Studies: The Layout of the Thesis or Dissertation Part 8 of 10. Referencing sources.
Research Methods for Ph. D. and Master’s Degree Studies: The Layout of the Thesis or Dissertation Part 9 of 10. Essential information in references. Part 1 of 2.
Research Methods for Ph. D. and Master’s Degree Studies: The Layout of the Thesis or Dissertation Part 10 of 10. Essential information in references. Part 2 of 2.
Research Methods for Ph. D. and Master’s Degree Studies: Reviewing the Thesis or Dissertation Part 1 of 3.
The purpose of the review.
The relevance of sources.
Research Methods for Ph. D. and Master’s Degree Studies: Reviewing the Thesis or Dissertation Part 2 of 3.
Abraham-Hamanoiel, D.; Freedman, D.; Khiabany, G.; Nash, K. and Petley, J. (Editors), 2017. Liberalism in Neoliberal Times. Dimensions, Contradictions, Limits. Godsmiths Press. London.
Anderson, J. and Poole, M. 2001. Assignment & Thesis Writing. South African Edition. Juta. Pretoria.
Babbie, E., 2011. Introduction to Social Research. International Edition. Cengage Learning. Wadsworth, Australia.
Babbie, E. and Mouton, J. 2004. Fourth edition. The practice of Social Research. Oxford University Press. New York.
Bak, N. 2013. Completing your thesis. A practical guide. Van Schaik Publishers, Pretoria.
Berg, B.L. and Lune, H. 2014. Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences. Pearson. Harlow.
Berlin, I. 1999. The Roots of Romanticism. Princeton University Press. Princeton and Oxford.
Blaikie, N. and Priest, J. 2017. Social Research. Paradigms in Action. Clay Ltd, St. Ives PLC.
Blaxter, L., Hughes, C. and Tight, M. 2010. How to Research.Fourth Edition. Mc Graw Hill, Open University Press. New York.
Bryman, A., Bell, E., Hirschsohn, P., dos Santos, A., du Toit, J., Masenge, A., van Aard, I., Wagner, C. 2017. Research Methodology. Oxford University Press. Cape Town.
Clarke, E. 2005. Situational Analysis. Grounded Theory after the Postmodern Turn. Sage Publications Inc. London.
Cohen, L., Manion, L. and Morrison, K. 2010. Research Methods in Education. Routledge. London and New York.
Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln, Y.S. 2000. Handbook of Qualitative Research. Second edition. Sage Publications, Inc. Thousand Oaks. London, New Delhi.
Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln, Y.S. 2018. The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research. Fifth edition. Sage Publications, Inc. Los Angeles.
De Vos, A.S, Strydom, H., Fouché, C.B. and Delport, C.S.L. 2006. Research at Grass roots. Third Edition. Van Schaik Publishers. Pretoria.
Du Plooy-Cilliers, F., Davis, C. and Bezuidenhout, R. 2014. Research Matters. Juta and Company Ltd. Somerset-West.
Killam, L. 2013. Research Terminology Simplified. Paradigms, Axiology, Ontology, Epistemology and Methodology. E-Book.
Maxwell, J.A. 2013. Qualitative Research Design. An Interactive Approach. Sage. Los Angeles.
McMillan, J.H., and Schumacher, S. 2001. Research in Education. R.R. Donneley & Sons, Inc. Harrisonburg.
Muijs, D. 2011. Doing Quantitative Research in Education with SPSS. Second edition. Sage Publications Inc. California.
Silverman, D. (editor). 2016. Qualitative Research. Fourth edition. Sage Publications, Inc. Los Angeles.
TerréBlanche, M. & Durrheim, K. 1999. Research in Practice. Applied Methods for the Social Science.University of Cape Town Press. Cape Town.
Yin, R.K., 2016. Qualitative Research. The Guilford Press. New York.
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Mackenzie, N. and Knipe, S. 2006. Research delimmas: Paradigms, methods and methodology. Issues In Educational Research, Vol 16.
Nel, J.P. 2007. A Strategic Approach to Quality Assurance in Occupationally-directed Education, Training and Development in South Africa. D. Phil Dissertation. University of Johannesburg.
As a last snippet of information on writing and reviewing a thesis or dissertation, I briefly discuss the following salient issue in this article:
The title page for thesis or dissertation.
Proofreading the manuscript.
Adding appendices to a thesis or dissertation.
Using a review checklist.
Presentation of the thesis or dissertation.
The title page
The title should convey clearly and succinctly the topic being researched. Avoid obscure and unnecessarily lengthy titles. Some universities recommend that titles should not exceed 15 words. Start off with a working title and revisit and reformulate as you read for greater focus.
Proofreading
Proofreading is primarily about searching for errors, both grammatical and typographical, before submitting your manuscript to a study leader. You need to take note of the technical and editorial requirements for a thesis or dissertation as prescribed by the university.
Do not underestimate the importance of proofreading. It does not matter how good your langue proficiency is, you should still have your thesis or dissertation language-edited. Language editors can also make mistakes and miss errors, therefore you should still personally read the final draft of your thesis with utmost care, correcting all typing errors before you present the completed thesis to your study leader.
It helps to determine in advance what to look for when proofreading your manuscript. This process of individualisation can be done by preparing a checklist of criteria against which you can test your work.
Experienced researchers will know what common errors and flaws to look out for and they can often search for these by computer, thereby rendering the proofreading process more efficient and effective than if they were to blindly read the entire manuscript. Even so, it is always a good idea to read everything as many times as you possibly can. It also helps to ask somebody else to critically read the manuscript because we tend to miss our own mistakes. You should find out what your typical problem areas are and look for each type of error individually. There is no single right way in which to do proofreading, so the following are just guidelines:
Find out what errors you typically make. This is something that comes with experience and writing even just one thesis or dissertation will already give you a good idea of the kind of errors that you tend to make repeatedly. Your study leader can point out such bad habits and help you understand why you make the errors so that you can learn to be on the lookout for them and to avoid them.
Learn how to fix your common errors. Use a structured proofreading process. Some students prefer to read the assignment or thesis from the back to the front, others read chapters or sections in a specific sequence, others read word-by word (which is very time-consuming, but effective). Review your study leader’s comments about your writing and/or have your thesis or dissertation reviewed by a language editor. Learn what facilities your computer and software offer you with which you can correct errors more quickly.
Take a break. Allow yourself time between writing and proofreading. It is not healthy to sit behind your desk all day, especially if you work on computer. Besides, taking a short break every hour or so will help you get some distance from, and allow you time to think about what you have written. Any researcher can testify that taking a break and sleeping on a challenge can do wonders to findings solutions to challenges, and seeing what you have written more clearly in your mind.
Leave yourself enough time to review what you have written. Working against time seldom, if ever, works when writing and proofreading. Deep thinking is necessary, and it requires thinking about what you have written and the message that you wish to convey. Reading what you have written critically will help you to see a multitude of possible errors, such as cognitive dissonance, spelling errors, typing errors, subjectivity and many more. Always read through your writing slowly and think about what you have written. If you read at normal speed, you will not give your eyes and mind sufficient time to spot errors.
Read aloud when you are alone. Reading aloud encourages you to read word by word. This is rather strenuous and almost impossible for most people who need to read hundreds of pages. However, it is effective when you find a sentence, paragraph or argument difficult to understand. Besides, any statement that you find difficult to understand will most certainly also confuse and frustrate those who read it but did not write it. It might even be an indication of plagiarism. Therefore, such sentences, paragraphs or arguments should be reformulated, motivated, explained or omitted.
Role-play and “predict”. Especially procedures can be tested by simulating them. You should also try to foresee how your study leader will react to what you have written. It would be irresponsible to submit work that you know is not good enough, especially if you know that the chances are good that the study leader will not be satisfied with it. You should also think how other readers will respond to your work. If you doubt that they will understand, agree with or like your arguments, you will need to change them or motivate them as well as you possibly can.
Ask others for feedback. Asking a friend, your wife or husband, a colleague or a language editor to read your manuscript will let you get another perspective on your writing. A different reader will be able to help you catch mistakes that you might have overlooked, although people close to you might not always be completely honest and objective in their feedback.
Appendices
Make use of appendices to provide the reader with evidence that substantiates arguments made in the thesis or dissertation but is too long to include in the body. Appendices can also explain long processes and provide additional and complete information on aspects that appear in the main text that are too long to include in a specific chapter or section. Appendices should be numbered.
A review checklist
It is unlikely that your study leader or any of the external assessors will use a checklist to assess your thesis or dissertation. They are mostly experienced academics and deficiencies in your work are likely to attract their attention. Even so, you can use a checklist to spot most of the deficiencies that they might find.
Presentation of the thesis or dissertation
Dissemination is the process by which you communicate your thesis or dissertation, its findings and recommendations, to other potentially interested parties. You might need to present your findings to the following possible interested parties before and after you have submitted your thesis or dissertation for graduation purposes:
within your organisation,
to meetings where people from similar organisations and fields of interest gather,
to your union branch,
to professional associations,
to a local adult education group, and
at national or international conferences.
There are also various formats in which you might present your work, for example as a lecture (or series of lectures), at a seminar, at a workshop, etc. Whichever format you adopt, you will need to give some thought (and practice) to how you present, particularly if you have not done this kind of thing before.
Really confident and eloquent speakers can just sit or stand and talk for however much time is needed or available; or, at least, they seem to be able to do so. Most of us, however, need supports of some kind or another.
The days of ‘chalk and talk’ seem now long gone, and even overhead transparencies are already old fashioned. The more dynamic speakers can still work wonders with a flipchart and pens, scribbling down ideas and issues as they arise. PowerPoint presentation is currently in fashion, but you should be careful not to overdo it or to use it incorrectly, for example by writing everything on slides and then reading off from them. Whatever form of presentation you adopt, planning and practice will be necessary.
Summary
The title of your thesis must be clear, short, and relevant to the topic of your research.
You should personally proofread the manuscript for your thesis or dissertation.
Check for grammar and typographical errors.
Make sure that you meet the technical and editorial requirements of the university.
You should have your manuscript language-edited.
You can use dedicated computer software and a checklist to proofread your manuscript.
The following guidelines can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your proofreading:
Find out what errors you typically make.
Learn how to fix your common errors.
Take a break.
Leave yourself enough time to review what you have written.
Read aloud when you are alone.
Role-play and “predict”.
Ask others for feedback.
Check that you use appendices to substantiate arguments, explain long processes and to provide additional information.
You should disseminate your thesis or dissertation to other potential and real interested parties.
Close
This is the last of the 109 videos and articles on research methodology that I made and posted.
I will now prepare a ten to twenty question test on each video.
Those of you who watched the videos on the Mentornet online platform (https://mentornetonline.co.za/videoCourses.php) can do the tests at no additional cost. You can repeat the tests as many times as you wish and, once you have successfully completed all 109 tests, you will automatically be issued with a Mentornet Proficiency Certificate in Research Methodology.
Study leaders and lecturers who are in the know will know that you not only worked through the entire research process on master’s and doctoral level, but also that you understand the concepts and processes.
You can also gain access to the videos for free on YOUTUBE. However, here we post only one video per week.
Also, you will, unfortunately, not be able to do the tests if you did not watch the videos on the Mentornet online platform.
Do you think it will be easy to disprove or improve upon existing knowledge and theories?
And if your ideas are good or perhaps even brilliant, is it necessary to pay attention to trivial matters such as spelling and grammar?
Is it necessary to have your thesis or dissertation language edited if English is your first language?
I discuss reviewing the relevance of your research arguments and language usage in this article.
Relevance of ideas in the literature
A thesis or dissertation cannot apply to every possible field of study. Furthermore, research should be placed within the context of the general body of scientific knowledge, and you will need to show where your report fits into the picture. This is especially important in research on doctoral level because of the requirement to develop new knowledge or the widening of existing knowledge.
You cannot even start doing research without having an idea that you would like to investigate. Some students find this first step rather challenging. However, creative students mostly do not see this as a challenge. Almost any event or even physical object can trigger an idea for a research project. The difficulty or ease of a research project largely depends on how accessible information on the topic is. You can complete a research project quickly and with little effort if information is easy to find. However, it is mostly the difficult projects, where information is sparse or hard to gain access to, that mostly pose problems to be resolved through research. These are often also the topic in which research is needed the most.
You should indicate what the purpose of your study is early in your thesis or dissertation. On doctoral level you should do this in your research proposal already. Once your purpose with the research is clear, you also need to link what you have in mind with existing knowledge and research previously done. If relevant, you should also point out what, in your opinion, is wrong or flawed in current knowledge and philosophy. Such flaws can often serve as a motivation why the research that you wish to do is important and relevant.
You may feel the need to challenge previous research and its findings, in the event of which you should carefully review the studies that have led to the acceptance of those ideas. You may also now already point out why you disagree with previous research and then embark on your investigation to prove a hypothesis or problem statement or solve a problem question.
You might have discovered that previous researchers disagree about a certain topic, event, procedure, phenomenon, philosophy, value system, etc. Previous researchers might also contradict one another in their findings and resulting points of view.
It might be your intention to study a particular topic further in the hope of finding evidence that would support one of the opposing points of view, or even evidence that would show that a completely different point of view is correct. You should already focus your initial literature study on the collection of data that would support your hypothesis, problem statement or problem question. It might be necessary to briefly state the research supporting one view, then summarise the research opposing it or supporting a different view, and finally suggest the reasons for the disagreement.
Your summary of existing literature should contain sufficient information to serve as a foundation of your further study, and to serve as a valid and accurate account of the point of view that you disagree with. Although it should not be so long that it creates the impression that you are supporting the stance, it should also not be so limited that you misrepresent the findings of previous researchers.
You should also mention literature that you consulted, that is sufficiently balanced to show that you have a good understanding of the previous work, without denying you an opportunity to improve on what you consider as flawed, insufficient or false knowledge. The sources that you consulted should be included in the bibliography at the end of your thesis or dissertation, and the review of the literature should include only sources that you used and that have relevance to your research.
Researchers often wonder what comes first – theory or ideas. Some feel that ideas should be based on theory while others feel that theory originates from ideas. Both arguments probably hold some truth. Especially research on Ph. D. level should be founded on existing theory and result in new theory, thereby creating a spiral of growth in the knowledge at our disposal in a particular discipline.
Reviewing language usage
You should have your thesis or dissertation language edited. Most students will be able to check their own work, especially because the study leader in such an instance should focus on the content and not on language proficiency, unless the thesis or dissertation is one on languages.
Proofread your thesis or dissertation and have it language-edited at least once before submitting it for final assessment. Every word needs to be checked carefully. Spelling checks on computer do not identify all spelling errors. For example, if you misspelled “with” as “wit” the computer will not pick up the error because “wit” is also an English word. Also, errors in the spelling of names will not be indicated. Make a special check of the correct syllabic division of words at the end of lines if words have been split between lines. And of course, you must check for grammar and syntax errors.
You may use the services of a professional language editor. Even so, it is a good idea to also ask a friend, colleague or family member to go through the thesis or dissertation.
You should check the spelling of unusual words in an authoritative dictionary. For questions of punctuation, capitalisation, hyphenation and abbreviation, reference should be made to a recognised text of English language usage. Word processing software makes light work of much of the careful checking necessary in the draft thesis or dissertation.
A spelling checker will detect most (but not all) spelling and typing errors while the find and replace facility helps to achieve consistency as, for example, in replacing all z spelling by s (U.S. versus U.K. English) or ensuring that words like programme (or program) are spelled consistently throughout the thesis or dissertation.
Summary
It is almost always necessary to articulate academic research to the context of scientific knowledge.
You need to know what you are hoping to achieve with your research before you can start conducting research.
Once you know the purpose of your research, your next challenge is to collect and analyse relevant data.
You should use current knowledge as the foundation upon which to build your research.
You might regard it necessary to critically analyse current knowledge and theories.
You must acknowledge the literature and other data sources that you consulted.
You should have your thesis or dissertation language edited.
And you should check for:
Spelling and typing errors.
Syllabic division of words at the end of lines if words have been divided between lines.
Grammar and syntax errors.
Punctuation, capitalisation, hyphenation and abbreviation.
Consistency.
Close
It is often necessary to analyse existing knowledge and theories critically to develop new knowledge.
However, guard against underestimating the quality of the research done by academics in the past.
And your embarrassment will be further compounded if your thesis or dissertation is full of language errors.
I discuss the review of the thesis or dissertation separately to ensure that the review process receives the attention that it deserves and is not swamped by other, technical aspects of academic research.
However, keep in mind that the review process is part of writing the thesis or dissertation.
Review is a task that you will continue throughout the duration of writing your thesis or dissertation. It begins with checking if the topic of your choice still makes sense and if the thesis or dissertation satisfies the research problem, question or hypothesis. You also need to check carefully that the proposed study has not previously been undertaken. You would probably have done this already when you prepared your research proposal but might have discovered similar or overlapping theses or dissertations while collecting data for your research. This is especially important in the case of doctoral studies, where you are supposed to contribute to the currently available knowledge in a particular field.
Once you are satisfied that there is a need for your research, you still need to check that the literature study that you did satisfactorily serves as a solid theoretical foundation for your investigation. You could not have researched a topic without gaining a good measure of knowledge and understanding of the discipline. If necessary, this might be your last opportunity to improve the theoretical foundation of your research.
The purpose of a review
There are many different review methods used with different purposes in mind. We already discussed the initial literature review which you should do when preparing or perhaps even before you prepare your research proposal. In this instance your purpose was to demonstrate to your readers that you have sufficient knowledge of the topic to do the research. You also needed to do the initial literature review to enrich your own knowledge and understanding of the topic of your research. It is true that you should have a good knowledge and, perhaps, experience in the field of your research. However, we can and should always learn. Besides, research on especially doctoral level is done to create new knowledge or at least to add to the currently available knowledge. This means that you will embark on an investigation of a topic that was not previously studied, at least not in terms of the purpose of your research. Even so, you will need current knowledge as your starting point.
Now that you are finalising your research, you will do the review to identify any gaps in your thesis or dissertation. Gaps can be simple typing, spelling or grammar errors; not acknowledging all references; incomplete information, arguments, conclusions or recommendations; flaws in the structure of the document or in the usage of research methodology; cognitive flaws; a problem statement, research question or hypothesis that has not been satisfactorily answered.
One useful way of thinking about the purpose of the review is to consider whether your aim is primarily aggregative or interpretive. Aggregative syntheses focus on summarising data, and they may often be organised around evaluating the effectiveness of various interventions or programmes. Interpretive syntheses are concerned with the development of concepts and the specification of theories that integrate those concepts. It involves generating concepts that have maximum explanatory value. The distinction between an aggregative and an interpretive synthesis is largely a heuristic one; the difference is one of emphasis. The sum of aggregative synthesis and interpretive synthesis is often generalisation.
A review should be based on a review question or questions, that is what you hope to achieve with the review. It works well to prepare criteria that you will use to review the thesis or dissertation. The criteria should, of course, help you to satisfy your review question. Your review question will probably be something like: “Has the purpose of the research been achieved?” Review criteria can be developed in the form of binary questions under specific headings. Here is an example of such criteria and questions:
Review question: Has the purpose of the research been achieved?
Criterion 1: Has the thesis or dissertation been professionally and logically structured?
Is the study contextualised?
Has the research methodology been discussed?
Has a theoretical foundation been established?
Etc.
Criterion 2: Has a suitable research method been used?
Is the chosen research method suitable for the type of research?
Has a data-collection strategy been given?
Are the data collection tools suitable for the collection of valid data?
Etc.
Criterion 3: Did you come to logical conclusions and did you make valuable recommendations?
Has the status quo been analysed in sufficient depth?
Have valid and valuable conclusions be drawn?
Have viable recommendations been made?
Etc.
The relevance of sources
Sources consulted must be relevant to the problem statement. We usually make use of primary, secondary and tertiary sources when doing research. Primary sources of information include the notes and reports prepared by the researcher who conducted an experiment in the case of quantitative research or investigated a phenomenon or event in the case of qualitative research. These are popularly called first-hand accounts and are captured in articles in professional journals, monographs, doctoral or master’s theses, assignments, interview reports and questionnaires, original works (letters, diaries, eyewitness accounts, poems, novels, autobiographies) and other reports (proceedings of parliament, court testimony, reports of government departments and agencies, annual reports, minutes, etc.).
Secondary sources of information originate from primary sources. They are often simple relays, summaries, deconstructions or perhaps even reconstructions of information gathered from primary sources. Examples of secondary sources include translations, summaries, research reviews, abstracts, articles on the findings of a research project, discussions of research findings or procedures, etc.
Textbooks are the most used tertiary sources of information. Although they can be written from primary sources of information, most researchers need to fall back on secondary sources because of time, access and other constraints and because the original source material may be lost. Tertiary sources of information are, unfortunately, often old, but can still be useful in providing an overview or broad summary of a field and to obtain foundational information, such as definitions, principles, guidelines, historical developments, etc. They may even be acceptable as references because some textbooks become acknowledged as authorities. However, there is no substitute for consulting primary sources if these are available, and postgraduate work in most subject areas demands it.
Always keep in mind that, eventually, you need to go beyond the sources that you consulted. Especially in doctoral studies, you need to create new knowledge. This means that you will use existing knowledge to provide the readers of your thesis or dissertation with background information that should enable them to understand your arguments, conclusions and recommendations better, to confirm that the purpose of your research is valid. To achieve this, you will need to introduce the concepts and terminology that you will use. You also need to find a measure of support for your problem statement, question or hypothesis in the opinions and arguments of other experts who studied the subject before you.
Summary
The review process should be part of writing a thesis or dissertation.
You should continually be on the lookout for mistakes, flaws and opportunities to improve the quality of your work.
The purpose of a review should include to check if:
you consulted primary, secondary and tertiary sources of data where applicable,
you satisfied the purpose of your research,
the topic of your research is still relevant and new,
there is a need for your research, and
all the gaps in your thesis or dissertation have been covered.
In the case of doctoral studies, you should also check if you achieved generalisation.
The review process should be based on criteria formulated as review questions.
Close
Although you should personally review your thesis or dissertation, it would be a good idea to ask somebody else to also look at your work.
We are often ‘blind’ to our own mistakes.
Outsiders, for example family, friends, or colleagues are often more objective because they are not as emotionally involved in your ‘creation’ as you are.
I discuss the following aspects of essential information in references in this article:
Using abbreviations, spacing and capitalisation.
Alphabetical and chronological order.
Anonymous publication.
Pseudonymous publication.
Association or university as the author.
Conference papers and proceedings of conferences.
Other sources of information.
Using abbreviations, spacing and capitalisation. You should avoid abbreviating periodical names because confusion may result with little saving of space. There are some differences in the meaning and use of abbreviations by different universities. Check the policies and procedures in use by the university where you are enrolled or would like to enrol for post-graduate studies and use them consistently and accurately.
The general rule for punctuation is to follow the abbreviated form with a full stop if the final letter is not the same as the final letter of the full form. However, an increasing tendency is to omit punctuation in such abbreviations. What is important is that you use the rule that you decide on consistently.
It is a good idea to use single-spaced entries for references, with double spacing between entries, because it is more readable. Names of authors stand out more clearly if references are entered using what is called a hanging indent. That is, indent the second and subsequent lines of each entry about 0.5 cm as illustrated below. However, check what the university where you study prefers.
Example:
Drieke, S. 2009. The shortage of science teachers. In L.L. Lalu (ed.) The Scarce and Critical Skills Needs Dilemma, Longman, Toronto.
In a list of references, title case is used for book titles and titles are italicised or underlined where an italic font is unavailable. Title case means capitalising all key words. You can also write book titles as they are typed on the book cover. If title case is used you also use it and if not, then you also do not. No italics or underlining is used for unpublished works. If a reference comprises more than one volume, the entry must state the total number of volumes comprising the reference.
Example:
Seepe, A. 2011. The Devolvement of Education in South African Universities (5 vols). University of Cape Town Press, Cape Town.
In the case of journal articles, the titles of journals are italicised and in title case. Titles of journal articles are in sentence case. That is, capitalise only first words, proper nouns and first words after a colon:
Example:
Shalem, P.T. 2008. The link between student identity and self-esteem among adults. South African Journal of Quality Assurance, 30 (5), 45-49.
Alphabetical and chronological order. To locate references quickly in an alphabetically ordered list of references, author’s names always appear with initials following the name. However, in all other cases such as names of editors and translators, initials precede the name. The determination of a strict alphabetical order can sometimes still be a problem. Mc and Mac are listed under M as though the prefix were spelled Mac; and surnames starting with St are treated as though they were given in full (i.e. Saint). The simple way to treat names such as de Jong, D’Orsogna, Le Thomas is to order them alphabetically starting with the first letter of the prefix. If in doubt, a telephone book or electoral roll may be a helpful guide, or simply let your computer software arrange the names alphabetically for you.
In the case of compounded surnames such as P.L. Lofty-Eaton, the name becomes Lofty-Eaton, P.L. and is placed in alphabetical order beginning with the initial letter of the first part of the surname. Initials help alphabetical ordering where names are identical, for example:
Singh, M.
Singh, P.
Stanton, A.
Stanton, E.
Stanton, K.
Where several references by the same author are listed, entries are ordered chronologically from oldest to most recent. If the same author wrote more than one book in the same year, the year can be followed by the letters of the alphabet starting with ‘a’. Often entries need to be ordered alphabetically within a chronological sequence, but in such cases, any works by a single author precede those works in which she or he is the senior co-author:
Majeke, P.S. 2005a. A Reflection on Transformation. Juta, Johannesburg.
Majeke, P.S. and McFarlane, A.T. 2006. Contemporary Female Debates on Education. University Press, Oxford.
Majeke, P.S., Gibben, T. and Naidoo, R.W. 2004. Syndicate-based Peer Group Learning. Wadsworth, Belmont Canada.
Where you refer in the text to works by multiple authors, it is common practice to distinguish works by more than three authors from works by one, two or three authors. To avoid overburdening the text with names, you note in the in-text reference the first author only and, for the others, use the Latin abbreviation et al. (meaning ‘and others’). Thus, an in-text reference to a work by more than three authors might appear in one of the following forms:
Examples:
Holtman et al. (2011) disagree with …
Other authors (e.g. Holtman et al.) disagree with …
It is not necessary to italicise the et al. because it is sufficiently common in English usage.
Anonymous publication. Works of anonymous authors are alphabetised under their titles:
Example:
Theories and models in distance education. 2011. The Performance Bulletin, 22 (7), 5 – 9.
A reference to this work in the text must use the title (or the first few words of the title in the case of longer titles) in place of the usual name:
Example:
Students must apply strict self-discipline if they are to achieve success in distance education (Theories and models in distance education. 2011).
If the author of an anonymous work is known, the name can be placed in square brackets and entered in the reference under the name:
Example:
[Sfard, O.] 2007. A Descriptive Reading of Academic Depth. African Trumpet, 11 (3), 13 – 15.
Pseudonymous publication. Pseudonymous works are listed under the pseudonym with the author’s name, where known, following in brackets:
Example:
Highflyer [G.J. Alexander] 2017. Touching the Ninth Cloud. Penquin, Johannesburg.
Again, square brackets are used. Citing this work in the text uses the pseudonym, not the author’s name, which is information that has been added. Thus, it can be used as follows:
Example:
Highflyer (2017) strikingly describes …
Association or university as the author. Where an association or university is the author, the name of the association or university appears in the author position. The abbreviation for the university may be placed in brackets where such information more readily identifies the university. If the association or university is both the author and publisher, it is best to repeat the information in author and publisher positions:
Example 1:
Association of Private Providers. 2019. Building Communities of Trust. (2nd ed.). Association of Private Providers. Johannesburg, South Africa.
Note that the country is added where other countries might have similarly named associations or universities. To cite such work in the text of the thesis or dissertation you need to follow the usual pattern with the association or university replacing the author.
Example 2:
UNISA. 2019. Community Engagement in Social support Drives. UNISA. Pretoria.
UNISA is known well enough so that the full name need not be used and the city also need not be specified because “everybody” knows where UNISA is.
If there is no author given. Where there is no stated author, the title is placed in the author position:
Example:
The Impact of Learning Communities on Student Success. 2011. Naledi, Johannesburg.
Conference papers and proceedings of conferences. Papers presented at conferences have authors and a year followed by the title of the conference paper, name of the conference, conference venue and dates:
Example:
Solomons, E. 2020. Vandalism at South African Universities. Paper presented to a Conference on Skills Development, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, May 23 – 25.
Where proceedings of a conference are published, referencing follows the practice of an article in an edited work, with the association and venue for the conference included in the reference:
Example:
Steyn, M. 2018. The Impact of Changing Funding Source on Higher Education. In J.P. Red and W. Blue (eds.), Funding Lifelong Learning. UCT Press, Cape Town, Proceedings of the UCT 23rd International Congress on Lifelong Learning. Cape Town, April 23-27.
To reference conference papers as well as unpublished papers, theses, and newspaper articles the form of referencing in the text follows the typical pattern:
Example:
According to Steyn (2018) it is becoming …
Other sources of information. There are several other sources of information that you probably will use. If in doubt, always follow the ‘standard format’. The following are such references:
A thesis is not considered published material. Therefore, titles are not italicised or underlined and are in sentence case. Some universities, however, might have different policies in this respect.
Magazines and newspapers are arranged and printed much the same as periodicals. Therefore, they are treated similarly to periodicals except that it is normal to put the abbreviation p, or pp. in front of the page numbers as appropriate to avoid confusion with volume or issue numbers.
The basic format for films, videotapes, CDs or any other electronic source is similar to any other source except that one can add film, videotape, CD, etc. in square brackets after the title.
Summary
You should avoid abbreviating periodical names.
Single-spaced entries for references with double spacing between entries are preferred by many universities.
All key words can be capitalised, or titles can be typed as they are in the original sources.
Author’s names are used to list references in alphabetical order.
Works of anonymous authors are alphabetised under their titles.
Pseudonymous works are listed under the pseudonym with the author’s name, where known, following in brackets.
Where an association or university is the author, the name of the association or university appears in the author position.
Where there is no author given, the title is placed in the author position.
Papers presented at conferences have authors and a year followed by the title of the conference paper, name of the conference, conference venue and dates.
If you use a source that does not fit any of the given types, you should stay as close to the standard format as possible.
Close
You must read the referencing policy of the university where you study, because:
Some academics regard using Latin abbreviations as outdated.
Mixed referencing approaches are sometimes allowed.
Universities sometimes develop their own referencing systems.
Referencing online sources introduced a new challenge to consistent referencing.
I discuss the following aspects of essential information in references in this article:
Book references.
The Harvard and APA systems.
The Author-date system.
The Vancouver system.
Journal article references.
Articles or chapters in edited works.
The internet.
The four most-used references are to books, journal articles, articles or chapters in edited books and the internet.
Book references. Essential information for each book reference has three components:
Name(s) and initials of author(s) together with date of publication.
Book title (from a full page, not the spine) including edition if other than the first.
Details concerning the imprint (publisher and place of publication).
The most popular referencing systems for books are the Harvard system, the APA system, the Author-date system and the Vancouver system.
The Harvard and APA systems. Two widely adopted styles of referencing, well established in the natural sciences and quite widespread in the social sciences and education, are the Harvard and APA (American Psychological Association) systems.
Characteristic of the Harvard system is the use of author and date as the form of referring to sources in text with author’s works listed alphabetically in a separate list of references. The vastly simplified system, in comparison with the previously universal academic practice of footnotes that used Latin abbreviations (op. cit., loc., id., ead., et al., and ibid.) are currently in use by many different academic disciplines.
Some universities require that, in the text, initials are not used with the Harvard system unless there is more than one author with the same surname.
Example: (K Maree 2011:72) versus (Maree 2011:72)
There are, however, many different interpretations of the Harvard system with the result that you might get rather confused if you consult too many sources to find the “right” referencing system. Use the one that your university prescribes or accepts. Most importantly, whatever system you decide to use, you must use it consistently. If you decide not to use initials, then do not, unless there is more than one author with the same surname. To avoid making mistakes it is probably better to use initials with all references. If you do not add a space between the colon and the page number, then do so consistently. If you use a space, then also do this consistently. If you use, or omit, commas then do so the same in all the sources that you acknowledge.
The same applies to the bibliography at the back of your thesis or dissertation. If you put the publisher first followed by the city where the book was published, then do so with all the references that you list. If you do it the other way around, also maintain consistency.
The APA is a variation of the Author-date system. Minor and subtle differences exist between the Harvard and APA systems and writers often adopt a mixture of the two (rather do not do this unless the system in use by your university happens to be one).
The Author-date system. The Harvard and APA systems have in common the author followed by the date, and it is the Author-date system of referencing that now is followed in many universities. Such “modified” systems mostly have at least some of the following characteristics:
Full stops after initials and date without brackets around the date.
To link authors – without a preceding comma where there are just two authors.
Use and rather than & to link two authors.
Use title case for book and periodical names.
Put the edition number in brackets.
Publisher followed by the place of publication (joined by a comma).
Normal punctuation rules for abbreviations.
Here is an example showing these features:
Chaka, C. and Bourke, K.S. 2010. Writing Official Letters (2nd ed.). Butterworth, London.
The Vancouver system. In the Vancouver system, a number in brackets is used in the text to cite an author or work, and this number identifies the work whenever reference is made to it. Here is an example:
Binto’s key study (1) on lifelong learning shows that it is especially adults above the age of forty who find it difficult to return to the books. Lakgoba (2) and Majeko (3) came to similar conclusions.
The references then list the cited works in the order that these are referred to in the text. Adopting the Harvard system, references in the Vancouver system would appear as follows:
Binto, K (2011) The Road to Lifelong Learning, Third edition, Juta, Cape Town.
Lakgoba, R (2008) The Principles of Adult Learning Applied, Mc Graw Hill, New York.
Majeko, E (2010) What’s Wrong with our Educational System?, Longman, New York.
Advantages of the Vancouver system are its simplicity and readability. Further, reference details are often more quickly located when ordered numerically rather than alphabetically. A potential difficulty is that if a paragraph or section containing references is cut from a report, the remaining references need to be renumbered, though the problem is overcome using a word processor with an automatic footnote/endnote facility (which all the latest office software can do).
Journal article references. The place of publication and the publisher are not included when journal articles are referenced, because this information is usually well known, particularly for the more important periodicals, or is not of much significance. However, you should include the volume number, issue number if used, and the inclusive page numbers for the article. The essential information, then, for journal articles also has three components and, as for book references, each component is followed by a full stop:
The name(s) and initials of the author(s) together with the date of the periodical.
The title of the article.
The title of the periodical, volume or issue number and page numbers.
Here is an example of a reference to an article in a journal:
Khoapa, S. 2010. Perspectives in Education. The Quality Assurance Journal, 121, 23 – 27.
If both the volume and issue numbers are available, the volume number comes first with the issue number following in parenthesis. Here is an example:
Khoapa, S. 2010. Perspectives in Education. The Quality Assurance Journal, 121 (12), 23 – 27.
In the same way as citing books, citing references to journals in the text of a research report may take the form of author name(s) and date in a sentence or appended in brackets:
Khoapa (2010) is of the opinion that …
Some authors (Khoapa 2010; Blom 2011) disagree with the notion that…
If reference is made to more than one work as in the last example above, it is common to order the works by date.
Articles or chapters in edited works. Both the author and title of the chapter or article, together with the editor and other details of the book are included in the one bibliographical entry where reference is made to a chapter or article in an edited book. There are three components to such information that are necessary to list, each followed by a full stop, namely the name(s) and initials of the author(s) together with the date of the edited work; the title of the chapter or article; and the name(s) of the editor(s), title of the edited work, publisher and place of publication.
Page numbers of a chapter or article can be added after the title of the edited work. The third component is preceded by the word In which serves to link all its sub-parts together:
Cele, J-P. and Koen, D. 2011. Epistemology. In K.T.L. Kotta, Concepts in Educational Research, Mc Graw-Hill, Cape Town.
Drieke, S. 2009. The shortage of science teachers. In L.L. Lalu (ed.) The Scarce and Critical Skills Needs Dilemma, Longman, Toronto.
Note that the initials of editors precede their names since this information is not used to order reference entries alphabetically. The hyphen in front of the second initial indicates a hyphenated name as in the first example shown above (here Jean-Pierre). The date that you will show in the list of references is the date of the edited work, which is not always the date of the original article, because the edited work is listed as the source of the information.
Including references in the text of an article, book or chapters in edited works follow the pattern illustrated above with books and journals, with the name(s) of author(s) and date as part of the sentence or appended in brackets. The reference is to the author(s), not the editor(s). For example:
According to Mabokang and Mabokela (2018), ….
A different situation exists in rural areas (Long 2017) ….
The internet. Online sources are increasingly being cited in assignments, dissertations and theses. Academic conventions for referencing online information are not yet as well established as referencing other information sources. However, the basic principles and the purposes are the same: to acknowledge one’s indebtedness to others and to provide readers with sufficient information to locate the original source. It is important to write the web site address 100% correctly else it will not be traceable. The university with which you are involved might have its own rules for acknowledging online sources and they might differ from what is given here, so make sure that you know what the rules are and apply them consistently.
Do not lean too heavily on internet sources and always be wary of sources that might be incorrect, poorly researched or just false. Even so, the contents of books and magazine articles can also be incorrect, poorly researched, outdated or false. One should always seek corroboration of data regardless of the source. Give web site addresses where you found data as accurately as possible so that others can check what you wrote. Acknowledge the author of an internet article and, as far as you possibly can, try to establish the trustworthiness of the author. Contact the author if an email address is given.
As with books and journals you will need to write the author’s name first if one is given. If not, you will need to list the web sites alphabetically according to the title of the article. An online source will normally consist of three lines, with the author and title of the article on the first line, the web site address on the second line and the date on which you accessed the web site on the third line. Here are two examples:
If an author is given:
McEwen, B. 1 January 2007. Tips for assignment writing.
Accessed on 24/08/2011 (or 2011/08/24, just as long as you use it consistently the same)
If an author is not given:
Assignment Writing Tips.
Accessed on 24/08/2011 (or 2011/08/24, just as long as you use it consistently the same)
Close
In addition to the essential information that should appear in references, there are two salient requirements that you should keep in mind.
The first is consistency and the second is to abide by the policies of the university where you study.
