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Pre-proposal and ideas stage.

The pre-proposal stage involves generating a set of questions and ideas that will later determine the focus of your research.

What is the Pre-proposal stage?

Ideas for research problems or topics can arise from a range of sources such as:

Click for additional information on the pre-proposal stage (idea development)

Funding

There are so many different ways to fund a postgraduate study. Funding is not always guaranteed and you might need to consider applying to a wide variety of sources to make up the funding required to complete your research.

One of the things to consider when looking for funding is to contact the Faculty for the course you want to pursue. They might be able to advise you on any funding that is specifically attached to that course and provide you with the details of application procedures and deadlines. You should also contact the Postgraduate School as they have the details for NRF funding, supervisor linked bursaries and merit bursaries.

Typical sources of funding include:

Recommended Library Books:

Research Proposal

A research proposal is a concise and coherent summary of your proposed research. It sets out the central issues or questions that you intend to address. It outlines the general area of study within which your research falls, referring to the current state of knowledge and any recent debates on the topic. It also demonstrates the originality of your proposed research.

Research proposals contain summarised literature reviews. They must provide persuasive evidence that a need exists for the proposed study. A proposal describes the detailed methodology you will use for conducting your research. Additionally, your proposal also shows how your research meets ethical standards set by the UJ research ethics committee. It is important to include the theoretical lense or basis on which your research will be done.

If your research leads to the development of new products that have commercial potential, you will need to obtain intellectual property rights. Intellectual property rights help protect creations of the mind that include inventions, designs, trademarks, literary or artistic work, images, symbols, etc. These rights protect your creation or work from unfair use by others. The Technology Transfer Office is responsible for managing UJ’s inventions, and licensing or commercializing them to industrial partners. It guides the evaluation process, helps inventors to define the context of the invention and identify its commercial potential. Please contact Varonique De La Rey (vdelarey@uj.ac.za: 011 559 3747)

The actual format of the research proposal, as well as its contents can vary from study to study. However, a research proposal is made up of several elements. Useful information on the elements of a proposal can be found here. It is advised that you contact your Supervisor for a template that is specific to your Faculty.

Video: Writing a research proposal

Click here for additional information on proposal writing.

Recommended Library Books:

Recommended books

Once your proposal has been accepted by the Higher Degrees Committee, you will need to start the process of doing your research i.e. doing your thesis /dissertation. Conducting research is an inquiry-based process that involves identifying a question, gathering information, analyzing and evaluating evidence as well as drawing conclusions. Choosing the right research method (which should be done at the proposal stage) is fundamental to obtaining accurate results. Research methods can be used to solve a problem or explore a question as part of a piece of work. They can also be a key part of writing a thesis or dissertation.
Doing research often takes certain approaches or methods namely qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods. Your choice of analysis method will depend heavily on your choice of research method. (New). The UJ Library provides tremendous support while you do your research. This section will help you to make the most of the available Library resources and point you towards the direction of useful tools (including software to analyze your data e.g SPSS and ATLAS Ti). Please note that data analysis software is available via the student portal (ULink) Please go to the UJ tools link when on the site.

Once your proposal has been accepted by the department, you will need to start the process of writing your thesis. Writing up your thesis or dissertation requires special attention to structure, writing style, formatting, and academic integrity. Thesis or dissertation structure: consult UJ previous theses or dissertations in your discipline and your supervisor. There can be variations within disciplines. Writing: Faculties have specific writing styles for writing, and citing. Please check with your supervisor. See the template for the HARVARD style and the APA style as well as the HARVARD reference quick guide. Please note that the Postgraduate School offers a range of workshops on writing. Please see the upcoming workshops here. Reference management tools: save time by using Mendeley and RefWorks to cite and create bibliographies. Academic integrity: when doing or writing your research, values of honesty, respect and responsibility must be observed at all times. Please use Turnitin to check for text similarities. It is available via the student portal (ULink) Please click here for some advice on writing a journal article.

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Why is it so important to publish your research?

Questions you might ask yourself before publishing:

Click here for more information on publishing your research

Recommended books

Recommended books

Maximizing the visibility of your research entails the promotion and dissemination of your research in ways that have the highest exposure and/or impact. This includes finding opportunities to present your research at conferences, making your research open access, publishing in high impact publications or making it freely available on the institutional repository

The benefits of maximizing the visibility of your research include:

Ways to increase the visibility of your research

Author impact analysis

An author's impact can help scholars not only identify significant voices in their field but also provide an indicator of an author's perceived value - by demonstrating where and how one's work has been cited. There are a few ways to measure impact.
Web of Science Author Impact Beamplots are a new way of visualizing the citation performance of an author’s entire publication list in a single view. Please see this video

Library services for assessing research impact

The Faculty Librarians can create bibliometric profiles (use of statistical methods to analyze books, articles, and other publications) for researchers and academics. These profiles assist you to understand the impact of your published research. Other services related to research impact include: performing article citation analysis, finding your h-index and the impact factor of journals as well as helping you to identify possible collaborators for your research.

Click here for additional information

The Library offers a series of postgraduate workshops aimed at empowering you with the skills needed to identify and access information from different resources. Please see our monthly schedule of workshops here. Please note that the Faculty Librarians also offer workshops specific to your Faculty. Contact your Faculty Librarian for inquiries. We have also created a series of videos to assist you in finding the relevant library resources. Please see the training videos below and find more here.

Click here for additional information