Republic of the Philippines

CAMARINES SUR POLYTECHNIC COLLEGES

Nabua, Camarines Sur

GE 5 – Purposive Communication

Lesson 13: Principles of Research

ESSENTIALS OF RESEARCH WRITING

Research is essential in the academe, industry, governance, or in any

organization. One who is an expert in this area plays a more functional role in a
situation in which his/her research knowledge or experience is applied. A teacher, for
example, can easily adjust his/her teaching practices and style to specific student types
because of his/her active involvement in relevant research.

Research writing a may be struggle at first especially for movies, but readability
(i.e clear and concise writing) can be taught and learned.

But what is research? Research is a systematic and scientific way of

investigating and gathering information to answer a particular problem, establish facts,
and reach conclusions. Conducting a research can be done in any fields such as arts,
humanities social sciences, natural sciences, technology, and health sciences. Any
research begins with a topic. For most student researches, clarifying a topic through a
questions form is especially useful.
QUALITIES OF EFFECTIVE RESEARCHERS

The success of research paper depends on the ability of researchers who write it. Below
are some of the qualities that researchers must possess:
1. They must be organized especially with time.
2. They must be highly motivated and creative.
3. They must read often to get new ideas and identify knowledge gaps.
4. They must be effective communicators.
5. They must be participative and collaborative.
6. They must be analytical about matters relevant to them, to others, or to the
society.
7. They must be open-minded and good listeners.

PARTS OF A RESEARCH PAPER

Generally, a research report includes the following sections: title page, abstract,
introduction, literature review, methodology, results, discussions and references.
1. Title page – contains an informative title (i.e describes the content of the paper),
name of author/s with their addresses of affiliation, and fate submitted. Below are
examples of informative titles:
a. Effects of Facebook on the Academic Achievement of First Year Students
b. Development and Validation of a Software for Detecting Plagiarism

There are different types to titles according to Derntl (2014) these are descriptive,
declarative, interrogative, and compound.

Types Descriptions Examples

Descriptive Describes what the Investigating the Impact of ASEAN
paper is about Integration Policy on Higher
Educational Institutions in the
Philippines
Declarative States the results of the ASEAN Integration Policy Impacts
research Higher Educational Institutions in the
Philippines
Interrogative Poses a question Does ASEAN Integration Policy
Impact Higher Institutions in the
Philippines
Compound Combines two titles and Does ASEAN Integration Policy
separate them with a Impact Higher Institutions in the
colon Philippines: An Empirical Study

2. Abstract – contains the summary of the findings and conclusions. It briefly

presents the context of the study, research questions or objectives, methodology,
major findings, conclusions and sometimes implications. An abstract does not
contain any citation and a great deal of statistical results. Its length ranges from
100 to 250 words.
● Background/Motivation: Why was the research conducted? (30%)
● Aim/Purpose/Problem Statement: What is the purpose of your research?
(10%)
● Methods or techniques did you use? (10%)
● Results: What are your most important findings? (40%)
● Conclusion: What are your conclusions? (20%)

Your abstract should not include references, slang words, abbreviations, and
non-essentials numbers and statistics. Ideally, your abstract should not exceed 250
words.

Sample Abstract
● Background (30%)
● Purpose (10%)

● Method (10%)

● Results (40%)

● Conclusion (10%)
 3. Introduction – explains the current state of field and identifies research gaps. It
also presents your research focus in a way that it addresses the identified gaps
and put the research topic in context. Its length usually ranges from three to five
graphs.

Sample Introduction
● Current State of the Topic
4. Literature Review – contains the summary and synthesis of all available
sources directly related to your study. It is divided into two sections: related
concepts and related studies. Related concepts explain some of the fundamental
concepts needed by readers to better understand the study. In this section, some
concepts and theories are defined, explained, and elaborated. Unlike related
concepts, related studies are based on previously conducted studies directly
related to the paper. Both the related concepts and studies will help the writer
explain the phenomena that may arise in the study. This section ends with a
paragraph that synthesizes all of the studies presented and puts the study in
context. Hence, the last paragraph may include the topic and specific research
problems. Its length may range from two to three pages. Note that in some
cases, the literature review is integrated into the introduction.

5. Methodology – contains how you proceeded with the conduct of your research.
This section contains the context and participants, instrument used,
data-gathering procedure, and data analysis. The context and participants
section explains the number and demographic profile of participants involved as
well as the place where the study was conducted. The Instrument section
presents tools used in gathering data. These may include questionnaires,
interviews, focus group discussion, and tests among others. All of the
instruments used should be described in detail and how they are validated.
Finally, the data-gathering section presents the details on how the data were
collected whereas the data analysis section presents how the data were
analyzed, qualitatively (coding scheme) or quantitatively (statistical tools).

6. Results – factually describes the data gathered. It usually contains tables and
graphs that summarize the collected data. Along with the tables and graphs are
their respective interpretations. The flow of the results section should follow the
flow of the research questions/problems/objective. It is expected that for each
research problem or objective, corresponding results are presented.
 7. Discussion – presents the why’s of the results. This section provides an
explanation of all the results in relation to the previous studies presented in the
literature review. In this section, you need to restate your research problems or
objectives in the first paragraph as well as the major findings.
The succeeding paragraphs should explain whether your study supports
or rejects previous findings and explain the reason for this claim. You should also
state the new findings that you have uncovered. Similar to the flow of the results,
this section follows the flow of your research problems or objectives.

8. Conclusion – contains the restatement of major findings, limitation of the study,

recommendations, and implications. Note that in some cases, the conclusion is
integrated into the discussion section.

9. References – contains the different sources you used in your study. These may
be academic books, journals and other online source. Its format depends on the
school, teacher, or field of study.

STEPS IN WRITING A RESEARCH REPORT

The following are the steps in research writing:
1. Preparation
a. Identify the context.
b. Identify the purpose.
c. Identify the audience.
2. General and Focusing Ideas
a. Choose a topic. Specify it.
b. Check you library or online catalog for relevant resources and/ or references.
c. Prepare a preliminary bibliography
⮚ Modeling (when necessary)
a. Get samples of published paper.
 b. Learn paper structure, style and proper argument structure, among
others.

3. Outlining and Thesis Statement Writing

a. Construct a tentative thesis statement
b. Construct a tentative outline
c. Continue generating ideas through reading and discussing with colleagues.
d. Finalize the thesis statement.
e. Finalize the outline.

4. Drafting
a. Write the first draft of the body.
b. Write the first draft of the conclusion.
c. Write the first draft of the Introduction.
d. Write the first draft of the abstract.
e. Prepare the draft of a reference list.
f. Put together all parts.
g. Continue generating ideas through reading and discussing with colleagues.

5. Providing Feedback
a. Provide self-feedback.
b. Seek feedback from your peers (at least two)
c. Seek feedback from your teacher/s

6. Revising
Consider your own feedback and your peer’s and teachers as well.

7. Editing/Proofreading
Correct the diction or word choice, run-ons and fragments, subject-verb
agreement, pronoun usage, prepositions, dangling and misplaced modifiers
 transition, verb tens, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and other grammatical
and typical errors.

8. Finalizing
Finalize all parts of the paper.

9. Publishing
a. Submit the paper to your teacher.
b. Seek advice from your teacher on how you can publish your work online or
better still to a reputable journal.

POWER TIPS FOR WRITING A RESEARCH REPORT

1. Fifty (50) to seventy five (75) percent of the paper should be devoted to results
and discussion.
2. Be sure to cite all your sources whether they are paraphrased or directly quoted.
3. Use direct quotation sparingly. Paraphrase as much as possible.
4. Strictly follow the require documentation, and citation style.
5. Topics should be relevant, interesting, current and manageable in terms of
resources, skills needed, and time. They should not be too sensitive and
controversial as well.
6. Research questions should directly address the given topic or thesis statement.

______________________________________ (End of Lesson)

Reference: Barrot, Jessie S. and Philippe John S. Sipacio. Purposive Communication in the 21st
Century. Quezon City: C & E Publishing Inc, 2018

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