Unit III

Chapter-1
Specifications for Research
Transcription
• Structuring phrasing and summarizing of title and
abstract
• Structuring phrasing and summarizing of introduction
• Critical review of literature
• Limitations of previous work and demonstration of
innovation in proposed research.
How to Structure a Research Paper Title
• The title is perhaps the single-most important
element of your research paper
• It is the first thing that journal editors and
reviewers see when they look at your paper and
the only piece of information that fellow
researchers will see in a database or search
engine query.
• Therefore, you want to make sure the title
captures all of the relevant aspects of your study.
What is a good title?

• It is the fewest possible words that

adequately describe the contents of the
paper.
• Indexing and abstracting services depend
heavily on the accuracy of the title
• An improperly titled paper may be virtually
lost and never reach its intended audience.
Length of the title:
• Occasionally, titles are too short
• Eg: “Studies on Brucella.”
• Much more often, titles are too long
• waste words appear right at the "Studies on,”
“Investigations on,” and “Observations on.”
start of the title, words such as
• An opening A, An, or The is also a waste word.
Certainly, such words are useless for indexing
purposes
Structuring and phrasing of Title:
• Most of the grammatical errors in titles are due to faulty
word order.
• A grammatical aside: Please be careful when you use
“using.”
• Eg: A manuscript was submitted to the Journal of Clinical
Microbiology under the title “Characterization of Bacteria
Causing Mastitis by using Gas-Liquid Chromatography.”
Isn’t it wonderful that bacteria can use Gas-Liquid
Chromatography?
• It normally is not a sentence. Since it is not a sentence,
with the usual Subject-Verb-Object arrangement, it is
simpler than a sentence, but the order of the words
becomes even more important.
• In short, the terms in the title should be those that highlight
the significant content of the paper
• Titles should almost never contain abbreviations, chemical
formulas, proprietary (rather than generic) names
• “How would I look for this kind of information in an index?”
the author should have the answer for this question while
phrasing a title.
 Follow these steps to create a perfect title
for your paper:
I. Answer some basic questions about your
paper
• What is my paper about?
• What methods or techniques did I use to
perform my study?
• What or who was the subject of my study?
• What were the results?
II. Identify and list key words and phrases
III. Write one long sentence using these key words.
IV. Create a working title
Delete unnecessary and redundant words.
Keep up the important information.
Rephrase to make it more natural.
Average journal title words should be around 16.
V. Delete all extra words and phrases put keywords at
beginning and end.

Source:https://www.wordvice.com
Keep these tips follow to write a title:
• Write the title after your paper and abstract
• Include essential terms
• Keep it short(~16 words or less)
• Avoid using abbrevations
• Use keywords closely related to the content
Structuring and phrasing abstract:

• The abstract should

(1) state the principal objectives and scope
of the investigation,
(2) describe the methods employed,
(3) summarize the results, and
(4) state the principal conclusions.
• Most or all of the abstract should be written in
the past tense because it refers to work done.
• The abstract should never give any information
or conclusion that is not stated in the paper
• Literature must not be cited in the abstract
ECONOMY OF WORDS
• Abstract be written clearly and simply.
• The reviewer may be perilously close to a final
judgment of your manuscript after reading the
abstract alone
• Abstract is simply a very short version of the
whole paper
• Use of clear, significant words
What should I include in an abstract?
• Why we should care.?
• Explain why your research study is important
• What the problem was.?
• Elaborate on why your investigation is essential to filling a gap in
your current understanding of the topic.
• How the problem was solved?
• Briefly describe the methods you used (qualitative vs. quantitative,
empirical vs. theoretical, models, study type, types of evidence
used, etc.).
• The answer to the problem.
• State your key findings.
• Explain how the results of your research benefit others and how
they can apply your findings to other research projects or
applications (i.e., describe your study’s implications).
• Readers skim abstracts, so make sure your first
sentences contain the most important information.
• Your abstract should include the key terms by which
people can search and find your research paper, and it
should maintain consistency with the same
terminology or language used in the primary
document.
• You should choose roughly six keywords, and make
sure that the phrasing matches what people might use
when searching for your topic.
• By doing so, your paper will appear higher in search
results.
• However, beware of including acronyms (abbreviations)
or highly specific jargon (e.g. CIE) that would make
your abstract unintelligible for a reader who wants to
get a sense of what your paper is about.
What should I exclude from an abstract?
• Make sure your abstract covers only the scope
of your academic paper.
• After all, it should be a working substitute for
your main article.
• You also should not use this precious space to
cite other papers.
• Again, the abstract is meant to highlight your
research.
Tips to write your abstract:
• Treat your abstract like an outline of your main paper.
• Review each section of your paper and highlight one or two
sentences that capture the main idea of that part.
• Some segments of your draft may contain multiple paragraphs.
However, each subdivision builds on a central theme.
• What is the overarching concept that ties all those subsections
together? That idea should be the sentence you include in your
outline.
• In many regards, remember that the Introduction and
Discussion/Conclusion sections will contain your paper’s most
significant points.
• Spend time thoroughly digesting these parts of your draft and make
sure your abstract aligns with the messages in the beginning and
closing sections of your paper.
• Once you have identified the key phrases and ideas in your paper,
string them together using appropriate transitional phrases to paint
a coherent picture of your paper.
 Durability performance of concrete with recycled aggregates
from construction and demolition waste plants
Sample Abstract
This research intends to analyse the durability performance of concrete with recycled aggregates
(RA) from construction and demolition waste (CDW) from various locations in Portugal. To that
effect water absorption by immersion and capillarity, carbonation resistance and chloride ion
penetration resistance tests were performed.
To better understand the experimental results, the characteristics of the various aggregates (natural
and recycled) used in the production of concrete were analysed in detail. The composition of the RA
was determined and various physical tests of the aggregates were performed. 33 concrete mixes with
RA from different CDW recycling plants were evaluated in order to understand the influence that the
RA’s collection point, and therefore their composition, has on the characteristics of the concrete mixes
produced. Both coarse and fine RA were used to determine the influence of their size on concrete’s
performance.
The analysis of the durability performance allowed concluding that the use of RA is highly
detrimental. This is mostly true when fine RA are used. The carbonation resistance is the property
most affected by the use of RA, leading to increases in the carbonation depth between 22.2% and
182.4% for the various RA types. However, the most influencing factor is by far the RA’s
composition.

Keywords: Recycled aggregates, Construction and demolition waste, Recycling plants, Concrete,
Durability performance
Structuring phrasing and summarizing of introduction

A bad beginning makes a bad ending.

—Euripides
Factors to be considered to phrase introduction
• Consider the background of the audience you are writing
for
• Begin writing the paper while the work is still in progress
• Choose references carefully to provide the most important
background information
• Introduction should be written in present tense (because
you are referring primarily to your problem and the
established knowledge relating to it)
• The purpose of the introduction is
❑ To supply sufficient background information
❑ To allow the reader to understand and evaluate the results of the
present study
❑ Not to refer the previous publications on the topic
❑ To provide the rationale(reasons) for the present study
Guidelines for a good introduction

✓ The introduction should present first, the nature

and scope of the problem investigated.(why the
overall subject area of the research is important)
✓ It also should identify the gap in the literature that
the current research was intended to address.
✓ Make clear the objective of the research.
✓ State the method of the investigation.
✓ Finally, principal results of the investigation and the
principal conclusions suggested by the results.
• The literature review in the introduction typically
should be brief and selective, journals in some
disciplines favor an extensive literature review,
almost resembling a review article within the
paper.
• Should mention literatures with the citation in
the introduction
• Define any specialized terms or abbreviations
that you will use
Critical review of literature
✓ First, list only significant published references
✓ A paper that has been accepted for publication can
be listed in the literature cited, citing the name of
the journal followed by “in press” or “forthcoming.”
✓ Ensure that all parts of every reference are accurate.
✓ Don’t forget, as a final check, to ensure that all
references cited in the text are indeed listed in the
literature cited
✓ Check wheather all references listed in the literature
cited are indeed cited somewhere in the text
Limitations of previous work and demonstration of
innovation in proposed research

❑ Your own present work must be referred to in the

past tense.
❑ Whenever you state previously published findings,
you should use the present tense
❑ The materials and methods and the results sections
should be in the past tense
❑ First, you need to clarify what problem you
attacked, how and why you chose that problem,
how you attacked it, and what you learned during
your studies