Recommended Exercise

Before advancing to the next module, try the following exercise.

Select two journal articles useful for your research and rank which one was more understandable to read. Then, going paragraph by paragraph through each article, highlight what is its introduction, discussion, and conclusion. Was the article previously chosen as easier to read more consistent with providing an introduction, discussion, and conclusion? Was it easier read because the length of the introduction, discussion and conclusion was shorter in each paragraph? Did the conclusion of one paragraph link to the introduction of the next paragraph? This analysis will help you in preparing to write your own article.

Recommended Exercise:

Before advancing to the next module, try the following exercise.

Based on your current research studies, identify five publications to which you might want to submit your findings. Generate a table listing the socio-demographics and the psychographics of the desired audience for each publication. Socio-demographic factors that may affect the receptiveness of that publication’s audience to your message include their age, race, creed, language, education, knowledge/ expertise, interests, and social groups. Psychographics refers to the psychological motivations of the audience, like their attitudes, beliefs, emotions, opinions, and lifestyle. Depending on your discipline, only some factors under each category will be possible to determine from the websites of these publications. Once the table is complete, select the ideal publication for your findings and clearly explain why.

Recommended Exercise:

Before advancing to Part 2, try the following exercises.

1. Pick one of your favourite research papers from the literature. Using “Google Scholar” and “Connected Papers” identify this paper as landmark paper, paper specific to your sub-field, or closely related to what you do.
2. Using that same paper, find the most highly cited paper,

• • which is used as a reference.
  • which is more recent and cites this paper.

Part Two – Recommended Exercise:

Before advancing to the next module, try the following exercise.

A lot of Maters and Ph.D. thesis at your university are now online and accessible to wider audience. Please, chose a and download a couple of theses, a Masters and a Ph.D. thesis, preferably from your field of interest/research and try critique the thesis using the criteria presented in the module. In particular, focus on the argument given for the purpose of the research/study of the thesis. A trivial purpose of a thesis is always clear – to fulfill the requirement of the graduate programme. But you should critique if the thesis presents a good case for the research/study. Is it convincing – play a devil’s advocate and try finding arguments why not to do it and see how well the thesis’ arguments for doing so hold up. If the thesis contain numeric or quantitative data, see whether they are presented in a way that informs you. The same for graphs/diagrams if there are any. Then critique the Conclusion and try determine if it is a true Conclusion or more of a Summary.

Recommended Exercise:

Before advancing to the next module, try the following exercise.

A lot of Maters and Ph.D. thesis at your university are now online and accessible to wider audience. Please, chose a and download a couple of theses, a Masters and a Ph.D. thesis, preferably from your field of interest/research and try critique the thesis using the criteria presented in the module. In particular, focus on the argument given for the purpose of the research/study of the thesis. A trivial purpose of a thesis is always clear – to fulfill the requirement of the graduate programme. But you should critique if the thesis presents a good case for the research/study. Is it convincing – play a devil’s advocate and try finding arguments why not to do it and see how well the thesis’ arguments for doing so hold up. If the thesis contain numeric or quantitative data, see whether they are presented in a way that informs you. The same for graphs/diagrams if there are any. Then critique the Conclusion and try determine if it is a true Conclusion or more of a Summary.

Recommended Exercise:

Before advancing to the next module, try the following exercise.

Choose a relatively small topic in your field of interest/research. Prepare a few slides to present the topic. The slides are not to be too busy, meaning not to curry complex information in textual or graphical form. Then time yourself how much time it takes you to read silently your slide and comprehend what the text or the diagrams or the tables mean. It is hard to pretend to see it for the first time as you prepared the slides, but try nevertheless.

If it takes more than a minute to do so, the slide contains too much information. Try trimming the slides down to accommodate this time limit. Then make the presentation, i.e. speak about the topic based on the slides. Try two levels of abstraction, i.e. how detailed your talk is. In the low level of abstraction (suitable to non-expert audience), you should not talk more that 2 minutes per slide and to elaborate many details from the slides. In the higher level of abstraction (suitable to expert audience), you should be able to elaborate more on the information of the slides. The talking about the information on each slide should take you approximately 2-4 minutes. If you have good friends willing to sacrifice, repeat this with your friends being your audience.

Note: There are many presentations to be found on the Internet, but most are bad as either the speaker is just showing off, or they are business pitches or plain propaganda bordering on disinformation. If you want to follow an oral presentation on the Internet, use the criteria from this module to determine if the presentation is good enough for you to emulate.