Before starting
ELEMENTS OF A RESEARCH PROJECT
1. Reasons for Selecting the Study Subject: The number of these reasons is limited for some researchers, while it is quite high for others. However, what is of prime significance is the explanation of the reasons for the selected subjects. Mentioning these reasons is important for revealing the true dimensions of the subject. These reasons are occasionally accepted as the valid terms regarding the selection of the study. They also help researchers form an opinion about the study before the readers. As noted before, these reasons are divided into two, as general and particular, and the importance of particular reasons is greater than that of the general reasons. Another important issue to consider is to establish a relationship between these reasons, and the importance and objectives of the study.
2. Importance of the Study: Within this section, the importance of a study is where researchers mention the basic focal points about why they selected the specific subject of their study. They can determine the subject following a long period of thinking because many other subjects that are relevant to the subjects selected by authors do not bear the same level of importance. Therefore, researchers achieve their ideal authenticity expected from a doctoral thesis by reviewing their specifically selected subjects in their studies. The importance for research arises from its capability to find solutions to relevant problems. Moreover, there is a relationship between the “importance of a research”, reasons for selecting the subject and objectives of the study.
3. Objectives of the Study: Objectives complete the “reasons” and “importance” in terms of the target which a scientific study aims to achieve. These objectives should be clearly set to ensure that the study reaches its essence that enables the researchers to clearly reveal the facts and achieve success through their studies. These objectives bear intense as well as essential information and are close to the previously-mentioned elements with their content and volume.
4. Problems of the Study: This section follows the reasons, importance and objectives of a study, reflecting the direction of this study. Problems of a study are deemed as critical.
What is meant by problems are the facts and essence of the study. Problems are the elements that direct researchers to perform a study or deliver theoretical or practical information in a specific field. The limits and dimensions of problems should be set clearly in order for the researchers to manage their study in a balanced and flexible form. The problems in this regard are not the difficulties experienced by the researchers or the efforts made by them.
5. Questions of the Study: Questions of a study emerge in relation to the problems and increase in number to cover the essence and facts of a study and to review the subject in all of its dimensions. Directing questions meticulously at the correct time and avoiding repetitious and meaningless questions is a must. In addition, questions should be short or essential, in parallel with the main sections of a study, and the sections and subjects of a study should answer these questions. To ensure integrity between the sections, the subject and content of a study are expected to reflect the content of its questions.
6. Hypothesis of the Study: The hypothesis of a study is presented after the problem is determined and questions are submitted. The hypothesis helps the researchers focus on the study through the discussions of the evidence and analyses, which helps them achieve critical results in terms of conducting the study and achieving the target. Consequently, a collective integrity is established between these elements.
7. Definitions and Concepts : The limitations of the study, as well as the subject, time period and location of the study, are introduced by the researcher. These definitions limit the title of the study when they are absolute, and make this title particular when they are general (particularly in terms of time period and location). The definitions regarding the title of the study subject and keywords are highly and incontrovertibly important. These definitions are presented following the etymology and lexical meanings of terms, and help understand the subject and content of a study.
8. Methods of the Study: Research methodology indicate the techniques used by researchers to collect, present, examine and analyze the data. There are many methods used in all Islamic and human sciences, such as historic, inductive, descriptive or psychological methods, and the most frequently-used ones among them are the inductive and descriptive methods. Accordingly and in this regard, it can be mentioned that the extraction of the Quran and hadith texts and practices are undertaken to present evidence to provide footnote references.
9. Previous Studies: Researchers meticulously perform screening activities to find and reveal the relevant scientific research and studies. They generally conduct such activities for scientific theses at master’s or doctoral level, studies published in scientific journals, or international conferences and symposiums, and while doing so, they focus on two important points:
a. A strong and close relationship with the title of the stody These activities are in parallel with the title of the study subject and concepts. . The similarity between the keywords from different studies means that the researcher of that study has carefully examined the previous studies Researchers do not need to neglect studies that are closely relevant to their studies, or have to prefer irrelevant titles to prove the importance and significance of the subjects of their studies because the relevance between the subjects does not hinder studying the particular topics as the issues reviewed in researchers’ studies are different than the previous theses from the field of literature.
b. Relevant studies that have been recently conducted with respect to the historical closeness between the literature and researchers’ studies. In the abovementioned case, studies undertaken in the last five years are preferred. If this is not possible, older studies are examined and while doing so, researchers get the opportunity to access many studies. While mentioning these studies, researchers list these research pieces in chronological order, from oldest to newest. The objective here is to benefit from these studies and help the researchers in their to further accumulate to the formally established knowledge.
10. Plan/ Outline of Chapters: The most important elements in the study is the plan, which has the outline of the chapters. The structure of a book is organized as sections or subheadings etc. Titles of sections can be organized as first, second or third while the main titles can be presented as A, B and C, and subheadings can be reflected as 1, 2 and 3. While undergoing this organization, the relationship between these elements should be observed, and balance should be set between the volume of these elements.
In a proper academic research, the following should be present: introduction, conclusion, attachments, index, references, a particular index for verses, hadiths and proper nouns, and a content index which is authored at the end of the study.
These ten elements should be in an academic research such as a master’s or doctoral thesis. The number of these elements can vary in different studies, based on the nature of the study or the researchers’ interests. What really matters is to ensure that these elements and their importance are understood, and that efforts are made in this regard.