COMP401/901: Research Methods and Communication


Teaching

Dr Diego Molla will be taking this unit. There will be two or three weeks of guest lectures as well.

This is the page for COMP401/901, Research Methods and Communication. I've taken and adapted it from Robert Dale and Mark Dras, who also taught it previously. Robert has a number of other relevant resources on his pages, which I'll point you towards.

iLearn

The iLearn page contains password-protected information such as events, news, submission of assessment, and discussion fora. If you are enrolled in the unit you should be able to see the unit in iLearn. If you have problems to login or to see the unit from iLearn, contact Diego Molla.

Schedule

Most of the classes will take in conjunction with ITEC810, which runs sessions biweekly. Please look at the ITEC810 website for the schedule of classes. In addition there will be specific sessions on the following topics:

  1. Week 1: Reviewing (delivered by Diego Molla)
  2. Week 3: An introduction to LaTeX (delivered by Robert Dale)
  3. Week 5: Writing a Thesis (delivered by Diego Molla)
  4. Weeks 7 and 9: Methodology and Evaluation (delivered by Len Hamey)

These additional sessions will take place on Thursday, 11:00-13:00, in room E6A357.

Assessment

The purpose of this unit is to ensure that you achieve a basic level of competency in both writing about your research, and in giving presentations. These are skills that require practice, so the way assessment works in this unit is different from that in other units.

Resources and Related Links

An excellent book that covers much of the same ground as this unit is the following:

A shorter book with very useful information about writing scientific text is:

An even shorter book on writing English, available online, is:

Resources on the various topics covered in this unit are provided on the following pages:

Some places where you can get citation and reference information:

Here are some other links which are yet to be integrated properly into this site:

You may also find some of Robert's general resources pages on writing advice and on doing a PhD useful.

Please send comments or queries about this web site to Diego Molla
Last Modified: 7th February 2012