Ambo Institute of Technology

Research methods and presentation

Lecture 03: Report writing

M. Mamo Electrical and Computer

Engineering Department
Research phases

• Research question/problem statement

– What are you interested in?
– What do you have to know about it?
• Background/observation
– Make observations and gather background information about the problem
• Formulate hypothesis
– An educated guess
– It shall be possible to measure or test it
– It should help answer the original question
• Design experiment
– How will you test your hypothesis?
– What tests will answer your question?
• Test hypothesis / collect data
– Test your hypothesis by executing your experiments. Collect data from them

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Research phases…

• Interpret / analyze results

– What do your results tell you?

– Do they prove or disprove the hypothesis?

– It‟s okay to be wrong

• Publish findings

– Write papers for conferences and journals

– Write dissertation

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Other ways

• Classical research phases

– Idea

– Literature review

– Problem and hypothesis

– Experiments / analysis

– System prototype

– Theory / paper

• New knowledge

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Research methods in engineering

• Research methods

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Thesis / report structure

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Thesis structure

• Preliminaries

– Abstract

– Introduction

• Statement of the problem

• Objectives

• General and specific

• Significance of the study

• Background information (optional)

– Literature review

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Thesis structure…

– Methodology(System design and simulation or implementation)

• Devices and methods

• Experimental developments, and /or Simulation

– Results and Discussion

– Conclusions and future work

– References

– Annexes (optional)

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Abstract

• Should serve as a concise and accurate description of the proposal

• Must stand in its own
• It is the first (and probably the only) part that is read, and this sets the first
impression
• Should be written at last
• Should reflect:
– Problem Statement
– Research objectives
– Brief Methodology

• Should explain why the proposal is unique, important, significant, and worth
supporting (reading)!
• Do not put information in the abstract that is not in the main text of your research
proposal.
• Do not put references, figures, or tables in the abstract.

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Abstract

• Issues to remember!
– The abstract is a concise summary of the material presented in the thesis.
• A well-prepared summary enables the reader to:
– Identify the basic content of a document quickly &accurately,
– Determine its relevance to their interests, and
– Decide whether they need to read the document in its entirely

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Abstract: an example

• High speed electronic beam switching is a desirable feature of smart antennas.

Most smart antennas are too large for most applications and require significant
power during normal operations. A thirteen element switched parasitic antenna
was optimised for gain, speed and beam coverage. Antenna characteristics
were determined at 1.8 GHz by finite element modelling and measurements on
a prototype. The antenna had a gain of +9.8 dBi, a footprint of less than one half
wavelength squared and was switched ion less than 100 ms. This is a better
performance compared to previous antennas.

• Abstract General guide

– 2 sentences on the wider field – context and significance.
– 2 sentences on the research method
– 2 sentences on the results and conclusions.

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Abstract

• Most people usually write the abstract last

• Abstract is used by program committee members to decide which papers to
read
• Four sentences [Kent Beck]
– State the problem
– Say why it’s an interesting problem
– Say what your solution achieves
– Say what follows from your solution
• The abstract should be as informative as possible and yet not too cumbersome
or too long
• Some people will only read the abstract
– you should give them as much information as possible
• Some people may access the paper in ways that

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The abstract need not:

• Motivate the model

• List and/or recall the contents of prior work
• Provide accurate description of the paper’s results. Instead, it may merely
convey the flavor or nature of results
• Provide a description of all paper’s results. Rather, it may confine itself to the
most important ones

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Introduction

• Brief summary of the research question

• Motivation or reasons why it is a worthwile question
• Your hypothesis / thesis
– The reader will be looking for your thesis.
– Make it clear, strong and easy to find.

• The research method adopted (instantiation of scientific method)

• Perhaps an overview of main results
• Not just a description of the contents of each section !

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Introduction

• Your thesis statement is not your topic.

• Your topic tells your reader what you are talking about
• Example:
– I will compare marijuana usage over the last 5 years
• Your thesis tells your reader your position on your topic
• Example:
– Marijuana usage has decreased over the past five years due to the successful
“war on drugs”.
• Your thesis statement is not a fact about your topic.
• Surprisingly your thesis should be an arguable opinion – not a fact!
• Because that‟s what makes your paper / thesis interesting to your reader
• Your thesis should always be a statement that demands proof.
• You spend the rest of your paper / thesis convincing your reader of why your
opinion is true!
• Your thesis prepares your reader for the facts that will prove your opinion about
your topic to be true – it cannot be a fact itself

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Introduction

• “Does an engineering thesis need a hypothesis?

• Hypotheses may be relevant to science theses, but are they relevant to
engineering theses? Because engineers invent rather than discover, does
an engineering thesis need a hypothesis?
• Yes, all the more so, because invention is a more tightly directed activity
than discovery; and the two are not mutually exclusive any way!
I prefer the word hypothesis: that which underlies a thesis; you may be
more familiar or comfortable with aims or objectives.
• The hypothesis is the electromotive force for your thesis.
• Suppose your project involves using Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), in
conjunction with appropriate hardware, to sort good apples from bad.
The hypothesis for this project may be,
• „It is possible to sort good apples from bad [if we use] using ANNs and
suitable hardware‟. Note that implicit in your hypothesis is a definition of
acceptable levels of accuracy (how do you quantify the words „possible‟,
„good‟, and „bad‟?).”

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Background information

• An optional section ... that may be needed to provide additional information ...
specially if the work has a multi-disciplinary nature
– A brief synthesis of the most relevant aspects related to the thesis in order to
help the reader understand the context and the contributions coming from
other disciplines.
– It can also be used to better motivate the research question.

• The research method can be described here (instead of in the

Introduction).

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Literature review

• This section may have other titles e.g. State of the Art in ....
• Not a literature survey in general, but rather a synthesis of the state of the art
related to the thesis !

• Identify gaps / limitations

• Background & related work may overlap

– Need to discuss related work at start to set scene
– Need to discuss related work at end to demonstrate your originality
– But not cut and paste!
– Exercise your synthesis and critical skills !

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Conceptual contribution

• Here you develop your conceptual contribution

• Discussion of the thesis and different perspectives of analysis
of the research question
• Formulation of concepts, definitions, theories
• Elaboration of frameworks, models, architectures

• Are you answering the research question?

• Is it an original / innovative contribution?

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Experimental developments

• High-level (cleaned up) description of the research experiment

e.g. Description of a prototype system implementation and its use towards
solving the research problem.
• Can include some context information (e.g. Development software, test
environment, procedure, limitations, assumptions, range of validity)

• But not too many details !!!

• ... Just enough to:

– Let the reader believe in your results
– Allow another (experienced) researcher replicate your experiment

• Avoid technological details that get outdated quickly!

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Results and discussion

• One of the most critical parts !!!

• Developing a prototype is (usually) not enough to validate the thesis
... at most it is a proof of feasibility of your system
• Example of hints for discussion:
– What are the major patterns in the observations?
– What are the relationships, trends and generalizations among the results?
– What are the exceptions to these patterns or generalizations?
– What are the likely causes (mechanisms) underlying these patterns resulting
predictions?
– Is there agreement or disagreement with previous work?
– Interpret results in terms of background laid out in the introduction - what is the
relationship of the present results to the original question?
– What are the things we now know or understand that we didn't know or
understand before the present work?

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Results and discussion

• Example of hints for discussion:

• Include the evidence or line of reasoning supporting each interpretation.
• What is the significance of the present results: why should we care
• What is the implication of the present results for other unanswered questions in
your domain?
• Multiple hypotheses: There are usually several possible explanations for results.
Be careful to consider all of these rather than simply pushing your favorite one.
• Avoid bandwagons: A special case of the above. Avoid jumping a currently
fashionable point of view unless your results really do strongly support them.

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Results and discussion

• What if ...
Experimental results are really difficult to obtain?
... or what if they would require a time frame that goes well beyond the duration
of the thesis work?
e.g. If you want to verify the impact in the economy of a new organizational form
for networks of companies
• Try some indirect approaches ...
– Simulation ... but be careful about its validity
– Questionnaires / Interviews (experts in the domain)
– Partial case studies (trends)
– Feedback from conferences, workshops, focused meetings

i.e. Collect enough evidence !!!

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Conclusion and future work

• What is the strongest and most important statement that you can make
from your work?
• If you met the readers at a meeting six months from now, what do you want
them to remember about your thesis?
• Refer back to the problem posed, and describe the conclusions that you
reached from carrying out this investigation, summarize new observations,
new interpretations, and new insights that have resulted from this work.
• Include the broader implications of your results.
• Do not repeat word for word the abstract, introduction or discussion.

• Include a set of recommendations (to overcome limitations) or directions

for future research (maybe new directions opened by this work).

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Bibliography

• Carefully organize the reference list using a common “standard”

– Most frequent: alphabetical order

• Cite all ideas, concepts, text, data that are not your own
– Most common: (Author, year), (Author1, Author2, year), (Author1 et al., year)

• If you make a statement, back it up with your own data or a reference

• All references cited in the text must be listed

• Try to avoid inclusion of references as footnotes

• Are you forgetting any major related work?

• Citing some works from members of the thesis evaluation committee?

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Annex

• This is an optional part.

• It can include:
-Implementation details
-Detailed experiment data
-...
– that may be important to Convince the reader
or
– Help others replicating the experiment

• But are “boring” or too detailed to include in the main body of the thesis.

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The writing process: Main steps

• Plan / elaborate the outline

• Get feedback from supervisor
• Start detailing / organizing the main sections
• After a few chapters, collect feedback from colleagues
• Revise them and start getting feedback from supervisor
• Go through several iterations ! THINK-PLAN-WRITE-REVISE cycle
• Write the Conclusions and then the Introduction
• Read the whole thesis to eliminate repetitions
– Read it to verify / improve ideas
– Read it again for editing.

... And carefully take into account the recommendations of your supervisor !

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Hints

• Generate an Outline:
–A „plot‟ for your thesis writing
–Several Pages -chapter headings / sub headings / figure titles
–Start with „fleshing‟ the structure given
–Target: „logical story‟ for the document
–Discuss / revise with supervisor

• Results
• Start with Tables/Graphs
• Make each ‘stand alone’.. Detailed legends
• Pick the pictures:
• What ‘tells the story’?
• Describe, then number crunch
• Use Appendices for detailed items

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