What is research?
Research is an active process of learning from others. As we research, we read, borrow, and synthesize ideas and facts from others. As researchers, however, we must credit these sources of ideas, facts, and specific language for two important reasons: First, we acknowledge the people from whom we learned and second, we create a record of sources so that researchers who follow us can build on our work.
Research: basic elements
• Critical
• discover
• interpretation
• laws, theories, principles

How to find a research of your interest

Scientific research: the procedures
• 1. The problem and problem statement
• 2. The hypothesis (or best guess) as the the “answer” to that problem.
• 3. Data collection of “facts” relevant to the problem.
• 4. Analysis of the data
• 5. Reaching conclusions about the problem.

Decide on a topic for your research
Select a topic which you are interested in and you do have some understanding and new insights about.
The topic should be either theoretically or practically meaningful or both.
your research should contribute something to this field or this issue in question.

This topic has not been touched upon before, or not studied from this angle,
The previous studies are not correct or deficient in one way or another. There is room for improvement.
The latest theories can provide better accounts of this question.

Select a small topic rather than too big or general ones,
A big or general topic cannot be fully explored in a short thesis of less than 30 thousand words
Compare:
On ESL Writing
On the Use of discourse connectives in Writings of Chinese Non-major Students
The Influence of Chinese Cultural Pattern in ESL Writing
A Contrastive Study of English Linguistic Abstracts by Native Speakers and Chinese Writers
Three levels (of adequacy)

A research should be falsifiable.

How to collect data
1. Informants
2. Recording (audio/video)
3. Elicitation
4. Corpora
5. Experiments
6. Reconstruction

Use database
Questionnaire
Experiments
Tests

Introspected data
Elucidated data

Generative linguists usually use introspected data. They rely on the native speaker’s language competence.
Native speaker’s intuition
Literature Reading and Collection
Search index database
Search online full-text database
Books, Journals and other sources (pay special attention to the bibliographies of other scholars, which will lead you to more literature)
Google (http://scholar.google.com)
CNKI 清華學術期刊網
人大復印資料
萬方數據
Online full-text electronic database
There are many full-text electronic databases accessible within the Zhejiang University Campus Computer Network Domain.#p#分頁標題#e#
http://libweb.zju.edu.cn
Note-taking
For future citation
As a reminder
Avoid risk of plagiary
Two Types of Research

Empirical
Formal
Research Methodology
Methodology of linguistic research
Basic guide to research methods in applied (esp. educational) linguistics:
Chris Alexanders article: http://www.staff.amu.edu.pl/~przemka/IFA_writing/Undertaking_Academic_Research.doc
Primer to conducting research in linguistics:
Wray, A. (ed.). 2002. Projects in Linguistics. London: Arnold.
More on empirical methods in linguistics:
See: Prof. Sobkowiaks bibliography.

Basic principles and caveats in corpus linguistics research logic:
Johansson, S. 1995. "ICAME - quo-vadis - reflections on the use of computer corpora in linguistics". Computers and the Humanities, 1995, Vol.28, No.4-5, pp. 243-252.
The use of the scientific method in corpus research:
Wallis, S. 2003. "Scientific experiments in parsed corpora: an overview". In: Granger, S. & Petch-Tyson, S. (eds.), Extending the scope of corpus-based research: New applications, new challenges [ICAME 22 papers], Amsterdam-Atlanta: Rodopi. 27-38.
How to combine corpus research with questionnaires and interviews:
de Mönnink, I. 1997 "Using Corpus and Experimental Data: a multimethod approach" In: Ljung, M. (ed.), Corpus-Based Studies in English. [ICAME 17 papers], Amsterdam-Atlanta: Rodopi. 227-244
de Mönnink, I. 1999. "Combining Corpus and Experimental Data". International Journal of Corpus Linguistics Vol. 4(1), 1999. 77-111.

Jordan, R.R..1996. Academic Writing. London: Longman.
Spatt, B..1996. Writing from sources. New York: St. Martins Press.
Swales, J.M. & Feak, C.B..1994. Academic Writing for Graduate Students: A Course for Non-Native Speakers of English. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Blaxter L, Hughes C, and Tight M (2001) How to Research, Second Edition, Buckingham/Philadelphia: Open University Press.
Sebba, Mark (1995) Focussing on Language: A students guide to research planning, data collection, analysis and writing up (Revised Edition). Lancaster: Definite Article Publications.
Cermak, F (2002) Research Methods in Linguistics, Essential Principles, Based on a General Theory of Science . Prague.

http://www.aresearchguide.com/
桂詩春、寧春巖. 1997. 語言學方法論[M]. 北京: 外語教學與研究出版社.

Format of Research Proposal
1. General Description
2. Significance of the Study
3. Objectives
4. Methodology
5. Value of Research Outcomes
6. Preliminary Literature Review
7. Provisional Outline
8. Tentative Schedule
9. Selected Bibliography#p#分頁標題#e#
The makeup of a thesis
Title
Acknowledgements
Chinese abstract & key words (<1000 words)
English Abstract & Key words (<1000 words)
TOC (Table of Contents)
Introduction (1 chapter)
Main body (more than 2 chapters)
Conclusion (1 chapter)
Notes (Footnotes or Endnotes)
(Appendix)
References
Writing the Introduction
Your introduction should cover the following three items:
What: what is your study concerned with?
Why: why are you doing this research? Namely the value of this study.
How: How will you carry out your research?
Literature review
Literature review is very important in your writing of thesis. Without a good literature review, it would be impossible for you to write a good thesis.
Literature review is a survey of the previous studies, the achievements and the deficiencies.
How to write the literature review
Your literature review should not be a list of what each of your predecessors did or thought. Rather, you should comb the literature you have read and summarize the different viewpoints and their respective representatives. What’s the difference between those schools? How and in which respects will their viewpoints or research outcomes help solve the problem? What are their shortcomings or limitations?

You can either provide an entirely new proposal to the solution of the problem, or suggest a solution relying on one of the previous viewpoints.
This topic has not been touched upon before, or not studied from this angle. You call people’s attention to this issue or provide a new perspective.
The previous studies are not correct or deficient in one way or another. There is room for improvement. How will you improve people’s understanding of the issue.
About “How”
Your theoretical framework
Your research methodology
Your organization of the thesis (how many parts your thesis will be composed of and what you do in each part to embody your methodology and therefore achieve your research goal)

If your methodology is very complicated, usually you have to devote a special chapter to introduce your methodology, theoretical framework, and analytical framework.
Otherwise, a special section will do.
Writing the conclusion
Conclusion is not simply a summary of your preceding chapters, which makes up only a part of your conclusion.
The conclusion or outcome of your research
You should reveal the research value. Whether the value of the study you claimed in your introduction is fully embodied.
Limitations and suggestions for further research. You should not make a sweeping statement. You should leave room for defense. The suggestions for further research are not your own future research program, but what can be done by other researchers as well as yourself in this field in the future. There will certainly be limitations due to your realm of knowledge, methodology, theoretical framework, access to resources and so on.#p#分頁標題#e#
Writing the abstract
A good abstract is of great importance in your thesis.
Usually, it should not be a list of what you discuss in each chapter of your thesis.
You should first cover the following items:
What is the thesis concerned with? (what you study)
Why did you study on this topic?
How did you do your research?
What is your outcome of research?
Citation of paragraphs
See the APA or MLA style PDF
Notes (footnotes and endnotes)
If in-text citations will do, do not use notes.
Microsoft Word: Menu “Insert”, “footnotes and endnotes”. Do not insert notes manually. Otherwise, you will have a lot of trouble later if you add one more note between two existing notes.
In-text (parenthetical) Citations
Sample 1
As in the above treatment of V-de and V-dao, V-le is also usually treated as lexical constituent. (Wang 1965; Chao 1968; Li and Thompson 1981; L.Wee 1997).

Sample 2
The main aim of this article is to provide an explanation accounting for the production of English derived nouns in -ee. In line with Barker (1998), I will argue that analyses based on the syntactic argument structure of the verbal base are unsatisfactory, and that the conditions for this derivational process must be searched for within semantics. My intention is to explore the semantic factors that might be taken to be pre-eminent in the different sets of verbs taking the suffix using the Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) framework. It will be shown that a semantic analysis based on a theory of lexical representation like RRG is relevant to account for the formation of derived nouns in –ee in English.

Sample 3
One of the problems concerning -ee nominalizations is the apparently limited productivity of the process. Bauer (1983: 250) points out that while some types are not very productive, at least one type seems to be increasingly productive.
References/Bibliography works cited
Citation styles: three popular norms
APA
MLA
Chicago
APA
APA Style Examples
For details, see the attached file.
MLA
MLA Style Examples
For details, see the attached file.
Chicago citation style
Plagiarism
Don’t plagiarize!
Any contribution by others should be acknowledged.

Simply stated, plagiarism is the dishonest use of someone elses thoughts or words. Its cheating.
1. submitting someone elses paper as your own
2. "borrowing" a nice sounding phrase,
3. using a source without citing it correctly,
4. "padding" a bibliography by making up sources or including sources you didnt use in your research.
Whenever you use a general concept or idea, quotation, statistic, fact, illustration, or phrase that was not your own without giving proper credit to the author, you are guilty of plagiarism.
How to use sources correctly?#p#分頁標題#e#
Often people dont know they are plagiarizing when they cite sources incorrectly. One easy guideline for using sources is the "documentation frame," which shows how source material should be includedUK thesis base in your paper.
paraphrase
Introductory tag
quotation (citation)
fact