STEPS TO A RESEARCH PROPOSAL IN LEGAL STUDIES

T. BRETTEL DAWSON

General resources on Research Proposals:

http://www.nrf.ac.za/yenza/research/proposal.htm

http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/learningconnection/student/research/proposal.asp

Step 1: The Research Question

Discussion:

The key to an effective research project is having a sound research question, and a well thought out plan.

The first component is a ‘research question’ or what the Graduate Student Handbook calls “the statement of objectives” which requires you to "demonstrate clearly that [you have] identified a potentially solvable, resolvable problem. It may be in the form of a general statement and/or list of more specific aims" and it should "make clear what is being sought."

The key to being able to formulate research objectives is to have a clear research question or problematic to animate your inquiry. Professor Neil Sargent articulated the nature of the "research question" as referring

to more that the general topic that you have chosen to do research in. It may be useful to think of the research question as the particular angle you have chosen to address, or the particular issue or issues that you want to consider in the research. The point is that you should be able to articulate the issues that you want to address or explore in the research. And, the more clearly you can articulate these issues or research questions at the outset, the more coherent and compelling or convincing the research is likely to be. Also, by identifying the particular issues or research questions that your research is designed to address, you will be able to situate your own research more clearly in relation to other research that has been done in the field. In other words, you will be able to identify where you differ theoretically or methodologically from other researchers, and where you share common points. This is important, since research never takes place in a vacuum, but always against a backdrop of other research that has already been done. (Neil Sargent, 51.501*Fall 1993, Assignment Three)

The starting point, then, is the ‘research question’. The next thing to note is that the ‘research question’ isn’t a single phrase that distills your thoughts into a short sentence completed with a question mark. Rather it describes the problem that will animate your inquiry in the thesis and its context. The process of shaping a research question has been referred to as an intensely demanding intellectual process, with Madsen making the following observation, the merit of which will come home to you throughout the semester: “Although a good research question may seem to be reducible to a few seemingly simple parts, the actual process of its formulation is anything but simple. Rather, it is the product of the most vigorous intellectual effort and may, in fact, be regarded as the quintessence of scholarship” (Madsen at 45).

See further: http://www.theresearchassistant.com/tutorial/2-1.asp “Formulating a Research Question”.

Getting Started

Assuming you have a general idea of the area that you want to do research in (eg. Criminal justice instead of electronic commerce etc); and assuming that you had something in mind that interested you when you applied to a research intensive M.A. program in legal studies; and assuming that new ideas will have come to you in the past few months:

1. The first point then is to select a topic: what are you proposing to write about? Before you select a topic, "you should conduct a preliminary review of relevant research" and begin to get a sense of what issues exist and "what authoritative theories or explanations bear directly on the topic" (Madsen at 49).

Your topic needs to be one which will:

• (promise to) sustain your interest;
• be within your range of competence;
• be manageable in size;
• have the potential to make an original contribution/be worth solving;
• be based on obtainable data; and
• permit you demonstrate independent mastery in the area.

To do this, I advise you to reflect on what you have been reading and thinking about: identify any key articles or books that you already know about and have found particularly challenging or stimulating in relation to your broad area of interest. You can also find ideas from theses done by others as well: Dissertation Abstracts International includes abstracts by the authors of dissertations in the US and Canada and is a useful source of ideas. All of these can become resource leads for you: an access point to other relevant literature, a sense of the kind of method/analysis you find useful or interesting and how it is done, and a clue to what kind of legal studies research you want to do.

2. See if you can identify a problem that has captured your interest: there needs to be an "intellectual itch" that makes you want to do research and good research often niggles away at ‘anomalies’ or things that don’t add up. Another way of getting at this is to think about why you think research need to be done in the area that interests you. What are you curious about? To help you get at this, take the following three steps:

• First, has an issue or concern drawn you to your general area or topic of interest? If so, what have you noticed about it that bothers you; that makes you think that more or different research is required? What’s wrong or not working or unresolved or bothering you, specifically, in the area or topic of interest? Is there a theoretical or practical anomaly? Have politicians, judges, policy makers, scholars, and/or activists been doing or saying something that doesn’t make sense?
• Second, once you have an idea of a puzzle or problem, reflect on what about it engages ‘law’, broadly understood as a “juridicial field generated by the intersecting activities of agents and institutions” related to rights, regulation and governance in our society (Hunt).
• Third, think about your "hunches" about this problem -- your preliminary explanation(s) of what might be going on or at issue (the working thesis). This will allow you to sharpen and focus your particular angle and approach to the problem and clarify where you might want to take the research.

In the case of my own LL.M thesis (sometime ago!), the ‘problem’, anomaly, or thing I was curious about was the use by judges of a very flexible ‘equitable doctrine’ called estoppel which prevented parties from relying on their so-called ‘strict legal rights’ under a contract. This doctrine kept popping up when something unexpected had happened over the life of the contract and it looked like it would be unfair for the ‘contract’ to be enforced as written. The parties had themselves modified it from their contract, the ‘price’ of the contract had radically shifted, or one or both of them had been acting on an assumption about the contract and the future of the relationship that was not consistent with what was actually in the contract. The thing that bothered in ‘in theory’ was that this sort of thing shouldn’t be happening if the rules of contract law that we’d been taught in law school were actually used ‘in practice’. The development that ‘triggered’ my particular interest, was the re-emergence of a doctrine called ‘conventional estoppel, which had last seen the light of day a couple of hundred years earlier but here is was being dusted off and used as if self-evidentally ‘normal’ by judges, when of course, it certainly wasn’t. I thought that figuring out what really went on in contractual relationships and how this related to the ‘legal rules of the game’ would be worth knowing about even if just to understand the parameters of ‘obligation in the market.

A current research project in the area of sexual assault law has been motivated from my ongoing dissatisfaction with how effective legal reforms have been. Is the problem the ‘form of the law’ (which can be fixed if we ‘just get the legislation right’) or is it an underlying set of perceptual dynamics in the courtroom and investigative process – the stories that can be told and heard about sexual violence and the ways in which these are translated into the legal process. If its an underlying system problem, then most likely both the crown and the defence will fall into patterns that are based on the problem and which will end up perpetuating it. How can be address or ‘get to’ such a system problem? Work by a social scientist analyzing sexual assault trials has opened a crack for me to be able to ‘see’ how to perhaps think about the problem by giving me some evidence to back up my hunches.

3. Next, see if you can identify what you want to find out.

· What questions do you need to ask? What is it that you don't know that will help you to address/resolve the problem? A good research question involves the search for relationships between two or more factors or variables; it is well defined and focused on specifics; and moves from description towards making a claim about something. A good research question:

Ø involves the search for relationships between two or more factors or variables;

Ø is well defined and focused on specifics;

Ø moves from description towards making a claim about something.

Ø is also quite concrete: it should actually tell you and others what it is that you are looking at in particular.

How you go about shaping the research question can seem a bit daunting. In my view, the process involves a movement:

· from idea to topic

· from broad topic to narrow topic

· from disparate elements to exploring relationships, concepts, variables, phenomona, events, theory and application:

· from description or information orientation to the potential to make, explore or test claims about the subject

· from statements (what you know or feel you know; what is given) to questions (what do you know that you feel you must).

Practically speaking, barrage lots of questions first that explore the parts of the topic and the problem, and the larger whole, that trace history and changes; that identify categories and characteristics -- then see if there is a thread or pattern of particular interest – and state a question that captures it.

When you have the ‘main question’, you will need a couple more things too:

· Subsidiary questions: once you have the core research question, it will be helpful to set out (tease out) subsidiary questions. These are smaller aspects of the question that you will need to (be able to) answer as aspects of solving the main question.

· Definition of terms: Just as “facts” are made up, words are not self-defining. The words you choose to frame your question may include concepts or ideas that you understand or plan to use in a particular way. Setting out your definitions adds a layer of richness, depth and clarity to your research question. It also provides you with a new resource in coming to understand what precisely it is that you will be looking at or for.

4. It is also important to be able to state a rationale for the research: what is the point of doing this research? What will your research contribute to solving the problem? What will be significant or worth while about doing the work? What are you doing the research in order to understand? Related to this is a sense of the significance of doing the work: why bother? What will you be adding to the debate?

5. Finally, review your conceptual baggage and any pre-judgement that may be in play:

• Prejudgments aren’t necessarily “a bad thing”. Gadamer (whose work is cited by Neilson) argued that the interplay between one’s existing cognitions or values (prejudgments) and elements of other cultures or new theories is indeed the way that one develops new knowledge. In his view, in order “to know”, one must be aware of one’s own prejudice. As such, throughout the process of formulating and executing research it will be necessary to go back and forth between old and new theories, paradigms, cultures or worldviews to create a new synthesis (Neilson, 28).
• Another way of getting at some of this on a day-to-day level is to examine whether you are bringing any conceptual baggage to the topic from previous experience or research. This includes opinions or prejudices on the topic; particular preferred goals or shaping worldviews that may be influencing how you are looking at the topic. Teasing out the assumptions you have made in how you are phrasing your interest or focus can be useful. Have you “coded in” any assumptions? Pulling these out will help you ensure that you don’t end up asking a question in a way that will influence or predetermine the outcomes of the research. In fact, Kirby and McKenna suggest that you initiate an ongoing inventory of "conceptual baggage" as part of this process throughout the whole period of work on your thesis.

Further readings:

UNISA Learning Connection
Extract from:

http://www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au/learningconnection/

Three stages of research

There are three stages of research: reading, research design and implementation, and writing up the research report or thesis. Each of these stages has associated activities.

1. Reading

· keeping notes

· thinking

· comparing

· critically evaluating existing knowledge

2. Research design and implementation

· dealing with practicalities

· thinking logically and planning

· concept-mapping

· hypothesising

· organising the experiment, testing, interviewing

· data gathering and recording

· reducing data and analysing

· deciding on the implications of the findings

3. Writing up the research report or thesis

· considering structure, purpose, sequence, voice and language for each section; devising frameworks

· constructing arguments

· using existing notes as a basis for expanded text

· using conventions correctly

· using headings logically

· writing often

· keeping words flowing

Use an active, cyclical writing process: draft, check, reflect, revise, redraft.

Establishing good practice

1. Keep your research question always in mind.
2. Read widely to establish a context for your research.
3. Read widely to collect information which may relate to your topic, particularly to your hypothesis or research question.
4. Be systematic with your reading, note-taking and referencing records.
5. Train yourself to select what you do need and reject what you don't need.
6. Keep a research journal to reflect on your processes, decisions, state of mind, changes of mind, reactions to experimental outcomes etc.
7. Discuss your ideas with your supervisor and interested others.
8. Keep a systematic log of technical records of your experimental and other research data, remembering to date each entry, and noting any discrepancies or unexpected occurrences at the time you notice them.
9. Design your research approaches in detail in the early stages so that you have frameworks to fit findings into straightaway.
10. Know how you will analyse data so that your formats correspond from the start.
11. Keep going back to the whole picture. Be thoughtful and think ahead about the way you will consider and store new information as it comes to light.