This concise, hands-on book by author Elizabeth A. Wentz is essential reading for any graduate student entering the dissertation process in the social or behavioral sciences. The book addresses the importance of ethical scientific research, developing your curriculum vitae, effective reading and writing, completing a literature review, conceptualizing your research idea, and translating that idea into a realistic research proposal using research methods.
The author also offers insight into oral presentations of the completed proposal, and the final chapter presents ideas for next steps after the proposal has been presented. Taking the view that we "learn by doing," the author provides Quick Tasks, Action Items, and To Do List activities throughout the text that, when combined, develop each piece of your research proposal. Designed primarily for quantitative or mixed methods research dissertations, this book is a valuable start-to-finish resource.
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Ethics
Chapter 3: Curriculum Vita
Chapter 4: Area of Specialization
Chapter 5: Effective Reading
Chapter 6: Effective Writing
Chapter 7: Literature Review
Chapter 8: The Academic Village
Chapter 9: Conceptualizing a Research Idea
Chapter 10: Problem Statement
Chapter 11: Research Methods
Chapter 12: Research Proposal
Chapter 13: Oral Presentations
Chapter 14: Next Steps