Academic Research Booklet

Planning your research Carefully planning your research will help you both save time and stay organised throughout your project. Not only is it a good idea to think carefully about the questions you need to answer and the sources you need to look at, but you will also need to think about how long you have to get things done. Creating a timeline for completion is incredibly important as project end dates which are over a term away can make it feel like you have all the time in the world, but in reality you have that long because there is a lot to do. Breaking down the tasks early on is essential. Top Tip: use your diary to work back from your deadline and set yourself goals per lesson, week, cycle and per half term. Methodology As you research, you’ll need to make deliberate decisions about which sources to focus on. These decisions form your methodology —your approach to research—which in an EE should be written about in your essay introduction and reflections, or if doing an EPQ your methodology will be covered in further detail in the literature review and your project log. Note: If you're writing a science-based essay, use the term "approach to research" in the introduction. You may also need a separate methodology section to describe your experiment or data collection—check this with your supervisor. If your essay includes a literature review, you don’t need to include your methodology in the introduction, as the literature review will cover your research approach in more detail.

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