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Tag: annotated bibliography

Dissecting The Literature Review

Dissecting The Literature Review

The foundation of a dissertation is a thorough review of the current literature related to the problem so you can develop a plan for further investigation. Reviewing the literature should start early in doctoral studies, expand during coursework, and continue until you defend the dissertation. All the chapters in the dissertation depend on a solid grasp of the literature. Even writing a problem statement is difficult to do without understanding what is already known about the topic. The literature review…

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The Weak Link in the Research Process…and how to fix it.

The Weak Link in the Research Process…and how to fix it.

To be successful in a graduate program, students must be able to write a clear, concise literature review with a logical flow that provides a convincing rationale for conducting the proposed research. The literature review is the foundation for identifying a research problem/question and creating the plan to address it. There are good online tutorials that explain how a thorough knowledge of the literature allows students to go from a broad perspective of a topic to that minuscule slice that…

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Finding the specific problem

Finding the specific problem

What is a focused problem? In my experience, the most difficult things for graduate students to understand are the importance of focusing their research on a single specific problem, how to find that problem, and how specific it should be.   Here is a story that might help. As a birder, I spent many years roaming around in Southeast Arizona with my birding buddy, a retired teacher. Our routine was to spend two weeks camping in various parts of the southeast corner…

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