Course Archives: Documentation Research and Training Centre Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore

Course Archives Documentation Research and Training Centre Unit

Course: Research Methodology and Technical Writing
Level: Postgraduate
Time: Currently not offered

Syllabus:
Module 1: Introduction to Research
Unit 01: Fundamentals of Research: Concept, meaning, need and process of research
Unit 02: Types of Research: basic research, applied research, action research, fundamental, survey, historical, including interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approach
Unit 03: Research Methods: scientific, historical, descriptive, survey methods, case studies, , delphi and experimental methods, exploratory, constructive, empirical, primary and secondary research; qualitative and quantitative research
Unit 04: Approaches to research: descriptive research, comparative research, exploratory research, diagnostic research, social research
Unit 05: Research Design: conceptualization and operationalization
Unit 06: Research process: process of conducting research- identification of research topic and for mulation of research problem, literature search, formulation of hypotheses
Unit 07: Systematic collection of evidence or data, literature review or rigorous evaluation of resources, data interpretation and synthesis, nominal and operational definition, validity checking; limitations
Unit 08: Research Ethics and Plagiarism
Unit 09: Current trends in library and information science research: (assignment on the topic) - Trend report
Module 2: Research Techniques and Tools
Unit 10: Variables and sampling: types of variables- random variable, discrete and continuous ran dom variable; distribution function, probability density functions Unit 11: Measurement of data: census versus sample survey
Unit 12: Sampling Procedure and Types of sampling: simple random sampling (srs), systematic ran dom sampling, stratified random sampling, multistage sampling, quota sampling, snowball sampling
Unit 13: Data collection methods: interviews, observation, questionnaire, telephonic surveys
Module 3: Hypothesis formulation and Testing
Unit 14: Procedure for Hypothesis Testing; Measuring the Power of a Hypothesis Test; Important Parametric Tests; Limitations of the Tests of Hypotheses
Unit 15: Hypothesis Testing of Means;Hypothesis Testing for Differences between Means; Hypothesis Testing for Comparing Two Related Samples
Unit 16: Hypothesis Testing of Proportions;Hypothesis Testing for Difference between Proportions
Unit 17: Hypothesis Testing for Comparing a Variance to Some Hypothesized Population Variance; Testing the Equality of Variances of Two Normal Populations; Hypothesis Testing of Cor-relation Coefficients
Module 4: Citation and Referencing
Unit 18: Citation style manual MLA
Unit 19: Citation style manual APA
Unit 20: Citation style manual CHICAGO
Unit 21: Reference management tools such as Mendeley, Zotero
Module 5: Technical Communication
Unit 22: Introduction to Technical Communication -oral communication, audio-visual communication- quality of contents, structural organisation, physical production; written communication- individual writing, corporate writing, office communication, oral presentation; creative writing
Unit 23: Technical Writing
Unit 24: Writing Research plans/proposals
Unit 25: Research reports: structure, style, concepts, guidelines for research reporting
Unit 26-32: Practicals on Reference tools and technical communication

Reference Texts:
1. Booth, W. C., Williams, J. M. & Colomb, G. G. (2003). The Craft of Research. University of Chicago Press.
2. Brady, John. (1997). The Craft of Interviewing. Vintage.
3. Gilliam, Bill. (2000). The Research Interview. Continuum Press.
4. Goddard, W. and Melville, S. (2004). ResearchMethodology : An Introduction, Juta Academic.
5. Kish, Leslie. (1995). Survey Sampling. Wiley.
6. Kothari, C. R. (2014). Research Methodology: Methods and Techniques, New Age International.
7. Kumar Ranjit (2021) Research Methodology: A step-by-step guide for beginners, SAGE.
8. Marshall, Catherine & Rossman, Gretchen B .(2006). Designing Qualitative Re- search. Sage.
9. Patterns Rea, Louis M & Parker, Richard A. (2005). Designing and Conducting Survey Research. Jossey-Bass.
10. Rubin, Herbert and Irene (2004). Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data.Sage, USA.
11. Sudman, Seymour (1976). Applied Sampling. Academic Press.

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