Transcript Slide 1

SEM 555
RECAP- How to Write a
Research Proposal?
Dr. Salma Chad
I. Why Research Proposal?
To be certain of your direction
in research
II. What is a Research Proposal?
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Simply, your research proposal should reflect:
• what you are going to research
• why you are going to research this particular area
• what is the significance of researching this area
• how you are going to conduct the research
III. Research Proposal Outline
(15-20 pages)
• Title page
• 1.0 Project Background/Introduction
*Objectives
• 2.0 Literature Review
• 3.0 Methodology
• 4.0 Expected Outcomes
• References
• Work Schedule/Attachments
Title Page
Title
A Proposal by
……..
Name
Matric number
Department of Biological Sciences
Faculty of Science and Technology
Universiti Malaysia Terengganu
2010
1.0
Project Background/
Introduction
– Statement of the problem or
gap in the current research in
your field of study.
- Introductory paragraphs
- Statement of the Problem
- Significance of the Study
Focal point of a research proposal:
Introductory
paragraphs
• The primary goal:
to catch the attention
of the readers and to
get them "turned on"
about the subject.
• When writing the
introduction, put
yourself in your
reader's position would you continue
reading?
Statement of the Problem
• It is just one sentence (with
several paragraphs of
elaboration).
• You are looking for
something wrong.
....or something
that needs close
attention
....or existing
methods that no
longer seem to be
working.
Significance of the Study
• It points out how your
study relates to the larger
issues
• The significance of the study
answers the questions:
- Why is your study important?
- To whom is it important?
- What benefit(s) will occur if
your study is done?
1.1
Objectives
• A few typical statements are:
The goal of this study is to...
... overcome the difficulty with ...
... discover what ...
... understand the causes or effects of ...
... refine our current understanding of ...
... provide a new interpretation of ...
... understand what makes ___ successful or
unsuccessful
2.0
Literature Review
– Context in which the problem
arises; historical and current
researches in the field
• Important - shows what previous
researchers have discovered (and
have not discovered).
• *One of the key elements that
proposal readers look at, when
deciding whether or not to approve a
proposal.
Never say that your area is so new
that no research exists.
!!!
Contoh:
• Characterization and purification of
polysaccharide from aquatic plants
Trace mineral profiles of the bivalve species
Chamelea gallina and Donax trunculus
Antioxidant activities of aqueous extracts of
selected plants
Antioxidant activities of aqueous extracts of selected plants
present in the plants. For use in foods, plant extracts made
availability of information on the antioxidant properties of
with water are nutritionally more relevant and would have
many tropical plants are sporadic and lacking. The multitude
obvious advantages in relation to certification and safety
and vastly differing methods used by various workers do not
(Møller, Madsen, Aaltonen, & Skibsted, 1999). The use
facilitate comparisons between various plants. In this study,
of a crude extract as an additive needs to be considered so
the free radical scavenging
that the sensory properties of the food product are not
activities of the plant extracts were followed via their
adversely affected.
reaction with the stable DPPH (1,1-diphenyl-2Vitamins A, C and E and carotenoids are antioxidants derived picrylhydrazyl) free radical and their ferric ions reducing
from the diet. Another group of compounds, flavonoids, also abilities were determined using the ferric ion reducing
possess antioxidant properties and may account for part of antioxidant potential (FRAP) assay. In this study, antioxidant
the benefits associated with the consumption of fruits and
activity is given as a quantity relative to that of Trolox. The
vegetables. Flavonoids belong to a large family of
usage of the Trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC)
compounds with a common diphenylpropane structure
parameter as well as the two popular assaying methods used
(C6C3C6) with different degrees of hydroxylation, oxidation in this investigation will offer the benefit of allowing
and substitution. These compounds, also called polyphenols, comparisons to be made with other food and plant materials
commonly occur as glycosides in
examined by other authors.
plants (Pietta, 2000). As antioxidants, flavonoids have been The objectives of this investigation are to determine the total
reported to be able to interfere with the activities of enzymes polyphenol contents and characterise the free radical
involved in reactive oxygen species generation, quenching scavenging, ferric ion reducing and cupric ion chelating
free radicals, chelating transition metals and rendering them capabilities of some tropical plants consumed in the
redox inactive in the Fenton reaction (Heim, Tagliaferro, & Southeast Asian region. Principal component analysis (PCA)
Bobilya, 2002). Antioxidant compounds
is used to identify the total variation in the antioxidant
present in plant extracts are therefore multi-functional and activities of the plants by the methods used. Results from this
their activity and mechanism would largely depend on the
preliminary study will provide a better understanding of the
composition and conditions of the test system.
antioxidant properties of these plants and allow the
Many authors had stressed the need to perform more than one identification of plants with high antioxidant activity for
type of antioxidant activity measurement to take into account further investigation and development into value-added foods
the various mechanisms of antioxidant action (Frankel &
and neutraceuticals.
Meyer, 2000; Prior & Cao, 1999). Currently, the study and
Toxicity and bioaccumulation of copper and lead in five marine microalgae
BRACKISH-WATER MOLLUSKS OF SURAT THANI
PROVINCE, SOUTHERN THAILAND
Butterflies and diurnal moths along road verges:
Does road type affect diversity and abundance?
fragmentation of semi-natural grasslands (Rassi et al.,2001). Butterflies, in particular, have suffered from the decline of
meadow area resulting from the rationalisation of farming methods (Pitka¨nen et al., 2001; Saarinen, 2002). This
development has increased the importance of road verges and other linear elements in the landscape, such as field verges,
power line cuttings and railroad embankments, in the conservation of biodiversity.
The Finnish road network, totalling approximately 384,000 km in 2003, consists of public roads (20%), urban streets (7%)
and private roads (73%) (Heinio¨ and Oras, 2003). Although private roads predominate, the public roads, which carry 66% of
all road traffic in Finland, have the widest verges under the regular management organised by the Finnish Road
Administration.
In the absence of precise data we have estimated the area of mown verges along the public roads as 85,000 ha (Jantunen et
al., 2004). Including the private roads, urban streets and other inherent structures such as intersections, lay-bys and roadcuttings, the area of managed roadside habitats in Finland comes to approximately 140,000 ha, which is sevenfold in
comparison to the remaining area of semi-natural grasslands (Vainio et al., 2001).
For butterflies, road verges provide large quantities of open habitats, but their quality is reduced by many physical and
chemical features, such as extreme microclimatic conditions (Kontiokari, 1992), traffic-induced dust and pollutants
(Koeleman et al., 1999; Askling et al., 2001), de-icing salts in the soil (Liem et al.,1985) and road kills (Mckenna et al., 2001;
Ries et al.,2001). The structure and nutrient composition of the soil, together with mowing once or twice a year, however, are
features that meadows and road verges have in common.
In Finland, the roadside vegetation is mown between mid-June and September, the cut material is rarely removed and bushes
and other woody plants are also cut at regular intervals of 3–5 years (Finnish Road administration, 2000). Although mowing
is considered to increase plant diversity (Parr and Way, 1988; Persson, 1995), no thorough investigations of the road verge
flora have been conducted in Finland. A diverse flora creates the foundation for a rich fauna of butterflies in the form of
nectar resources for adults and food plants for larvae. These relationships have been well researched in agricultural
environments, but few studies on butterfly communities along roads have as yet been made (Munguira and Thomas, 1992;
Gerell, 1997; Bak et al., 1998).
We studied communities of butterflies and day-active moths along the verges of public roads differing in respect to the
management regime, the size of the road and the width of the verge. Based on the importance of habitat patch area in
butterfly metapopulations (e.g., Hill et al., 1996; Thomas and Hanski, 1997; Wahlberg et al., 2002), the main hypothesis was
that the wider the road and its verge, the higher the species richness and abundance of the verge fauna. The most important
environmental factors related to high species richness and population densities of Lepidoptera, meadow species in particular,
were also determined.
3.0
Methodology
– Methodology you will use to address
the problem / key research questions
•
Instrumentation
• Procedure and time frame
• Analysis plan
• Validity and reliability
• Discuss with your supervisor
Methodology
State clearly how you plan to conduct your
research:
– What methodology are you using? Why?
– What information needs to be gathered?
– Will this data be applicable to the research
questions?
– Who or what will you use as the data source?
– How will you collect data or construct
experiments?
– What controls are in place?
– How will the data be analyzed?
– Do you need ethics approval?
4.0
Expected Outcomes
– Predicted results
– Expected contribution to knowledge
References (*Panduan PITA)
– how to cite in text
- how to list them
Work Schedule
– Time-frame and (special) resources
T.V., Ahalya, N. & Kanamadi, R.D. 2006.
References Ramachandra,
Biosorption: techniques and mechanisms. ……….
Kumar, S.M. 2008. Biosorption.
http://www.cheresources.com/biosorption.shtml
[27 February 2010].
•
Kuyucak, N. & Volesky, B. 1989. Biosorption of heavy
metals. Biorecovery 1:189-204.
Final
research
schedule
Work
Schedule
Month/
Activities
JUNE
JULY
AUG
SEPT
OCT
NOV
DEC
JAN
FEB
MAR
Field
Survey and
Sampling
Germination
Trial
Data Input
Data
Analysis
Final Report
Writing
Final
presentation
*** Insert other compulsory items – written proposal submission and
preparation, proposal presentation and preparation, final presentation
and preparation etc.
• Mind your English
– Proofread your
proposal
Thank you