132 11 Before You Submit
- Do the background chapters justify the formulation of the hypotheses or research
questions? - If you are using a case-study approach, does the reason for selecting the case
study, and a description of it, appear among the background chapters? (It should
not, as it is part of your research method, and such material should not be de-
scribed until you have selected your method).
Design of Your Own Work
- Do your hypotheses or research questions spring logically from your reviews of
theory or practice, or from your preliminary surveys or experiments? - Do you discuss the possible methods for enabling you to test your hypotheses or
answer your questions? - Do you explicitly select a particular method or methods, and justify your selec-
tion through your review of possible methods? - Do you explicitly design experiments or other research programs to implement
the selected method or methods? - Are tests for your hypotheses or ways of investigating your questions unequivo-
cally built into your research programs? - If you have decided on a case-study approach, have you justified this decision
adequately? - Have you justified the selection of your case-study activity or area in terms of its
representativeness or typicality or other appropriate criteria? - Unless offset by a colon and designated as such, does the name of the case study
appear in the title or aim of your thesis? (It should not. If it does, you still have
not sorted out the difference between a study of something in its own right, and
the use of a case study to investigate something else).
Results
- Are the results of your experiments or surveys or other own work clearly pre-
sented and explained? - Are displays, such as graphs, tables and figures uniform in style and numbered?
- Are the major trends or findings outlined? (You should not be discussing the
implications of them while you are reporting them. For a short paper this might
be appropriate, but for a thesis you should keep them separate).
Discussion
- Do you discuss your own findings in terms of their implications for one of the
four areas of possible contribution, particularly with respect to modifying or ex-
tending existing theory or practice?