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Preparing your project
Purpose of project
It is crucial that you state the purpose of your project clearly. This may
be in the form of-
- Aim(s) / objective(s)
- a question or hypothesis
- a statement of the problem to be addressed.
Your reasons for doing the project are important as
they help to put the project in context. Your method should be strongly
linked to the aim so as to avoid "thinness".
Relevant Literature
It is important that you show that you have taken account of existing
literature on your subject. If you are unable to find any directly
relevant papers (unlikely!) think about looking for papers on the
methodology you want to use, or on similar or related subjects. Don't
forget that the Internet is a mine of information, and references to
websites are acceptable. We do not specify the style of referencing, but
please be consistent and give the name of the author, title of the
article, the journal, date, volume, and page, or in the case of a book the
author / editor, title, and publisher. The Vancouver style of referencing
is recommended and this is used by the British Medical Journal. The number
of references you cite will depend on your subject, but normally we would
expect a minimum of six. It is important to link the references to the
text. If you wish to cite guidelines, these should be included as an
appendix.
Method
The general rule is that you should describe what you did so that the
reader would be able to repeat the study. Make sure that the method you
are using will meet the aims of the study. Don't be over-ambitious - the
project must be manageable within your time and resources. You should
write your method in the protocol before starting the project.
It is vital that you discuss the ethics
of your project with your trainer. If your project requires local Ethical
Committee approval you should discover how long this usually takes as in
some districts this can be a very slow process.
Presentation of Relevant Results
Think about how you are going to present your results when you are
planning your data collection. Clarity of presentation is very important,
and will be helped if you only include what is relevant to the aims of the
study. If you have a lot of numbers, think how you might present them
graphically. Get some feedback from your trainer or a colleague on how
easy they find it to understand your results.
Discussion and conclusions
Think about the strengths and weaknesses of your work and include
these in your discussion. Will you change your practice as a result of
what you have learned from your project? The discussion should lead on to
the conclusions, which must be justified by the evidence you have
presented.
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