Craft of Research Series
How do you write a research paper? How do you review the literature and write about theory? How do you best present your methodology and your analysis? How do you keep track of references and format a bibliography? And how to finish on time with your love of the subject still intact?
In the spring term, the CBS Library is running a series of weekly talks about the research process. The talks will be especially useful for students who are working on their year-end projects. You are free to attend as many or as few of the sessions as you like.
They will be held from 17:10 to 18:50 (CET) every Wednesday from January 31 to April 24 (except March 29). Every week, there will be a one-hour lecture followed by plenty of time for questions and comments. If you’re a CBS student, please sign up below. If you don’t have a CBS e-mail account, please send an e-mail to Thomas (tb.lib@cbs.dk) and let him know which talk you’d like to attend so he can sign you up. You will receive a reminder two days before it starts.
There is no required reading or preparation for these talks, but you are encouraged to consult Wayne Booth et al.’s The Craft of Research as a kind of “textbook” for the series.
Thursday Talks
The talks will be held from 17:10 to 18:50 every Wednesday.
| Date | Theme |
| 31 January |
How to Write a Research Project Scholarship is a conversation among knowledgeable people. Writing a research project teaches you how to participate in that conversation, and in this talk you will learn how to identify your reader and develop an effective rhetorical posture in your prose. |
| 7 February |
How to Review the Literature The scholarly literature frames your research questions and informs your thinking. When you do a literature review you are developing your understanding of the conversation that is going on among experts on your topic. This talk will help you organize your search and the results it discovers. |
| 14 February |
How to Write the Theory Section Your theory section lets you shape the reader’s expectations of your object. This talk will explore some ways to build a conceptual framework or model to that end. |
| 21 February |
How to Write the Method Section In your methods section, you are giving your readers insight into what you have done to collect your data so that they will trust your results. In this talk, we’ll discuss how best to do that. |
| 28 February |
How to Write the Analysis The analysis tells your reader what your data shows. It’s important here to distinguish between your observations and the conclusions you draw from them. This talk will help you do so. |
| 6 March |
How to Structure a Research Paper A research paper should present a logical line of argument in a series of coherent paragraphs, organized into sections. For each section, you want to have a good sense of what you are trying to say and what you are basing it on. This talk will go through a standard outline that you can adapt to your own ends. |
|
13 March |
How to Write the Background Section While you will generally assume that your reader is a knowledgeable peer working in your own discipline, there are often things the reader will not know about the organization, country, industry, product or practice you are studying. The background section provides this information in a helpful and documented fashion. |
| 20 March |
How to Write the Discussion Your empirical conclusions will often have either theoretical or normative implications. In your discussion section, you make these consequences for theory or practice explicit. |
| 3 April |
How to Finish a Research Project or Thesis As your project nears completion you want to make sure that the written product present your best arguments in the clearest light. |
| 10 April |
How to Write Philosophy of Science In addition to the familiar theory and methods sections, many research papers and theses include a section on the "philosophy of science". This is a famously tricky subject to write about and that's why we have included this extra talk. |
| 17 April |
How to Write the Introduction and Conclusion A good research paper needs to have a strong introduction and conclusion to open and close your presentation. |
| 24 April |
How to Format and Reference Properly Before submitting you’ll want to make sure that your written work meets the formal requirements of good academic writing. |