See also: the Art of Learning series.
In the spring of 2025, I held a series of weekly talks about the research process. The talks were intended for students who are working on their year-end projects, including their bachelor projects and master’s dissertations. There was no required reading or preparation for the talks, but participants were encouraged to consult Wayne Booth et al.’s The Craft of Research as a kind of “textbook” for the series. If you click on the title of a talk, you will be led to a stand-alone page with some notes and resources from for that session, as well as a video of the talk.
In the Spring of 2026, I will hold a Thursday-afternoon colloquium based on the 2025 talks.
[See the course calendar for dates.]
The format will be “flipped” in the sense that participants are asked to watch the video for the talk in advance, and come to the session with their questions, comments, and experiences to share. While we will roughly follow the plan of the series (discussing literature, theory, method, analysis, etc. in turn) all of the colloquia are open to discussions about any part of the research and writing process.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me, Thomas Basbøll, by email.
How to Write a Research Project. (Feb 5) Scholarship is a conversation among knowledgeable people. Writing a research project teaches you how to participate in that conversation, and in this talk you will learn how to identify your reader and develop an effective rhetorical posture in your prose, while grounding it solidly in your sources.
How to Review the Literature. (Feb 12) The scholarly literature frames your research questions and informs your thinking. When you do a literature review you are developing your understanding of the conversation that is going on among experts on your topic. This talk will help you organize your search and the results it discovers. [Register here]
How to Write the Background Section. (Feb 19) While you will generally assume that your reader is a knowledgeable peer working in your own discipline, there are often things the reader will not know about the organization, country, industry, product or practice you are studying. The background section provides this information in a helpful and documented fashion. [Register here]
How to Write the Theory Section. (Feb 26) Your theory section lets you shape the reader’s expectations of your object. This talk will explore some ways to build a conceptual framework or model to that end. [Register here]
How to Write the Methods Section. (Mar 5) In your methods section you are giving your readers insight into what you have done to collect your data so that they will trust your results. In this talk we’ll discuss how best to do that. [Register here]
How to Structure a Research Paper. (Mar 19) A research paper should present a logical line of argument in a series of coherent paragraphs, organized into sections. For each section, you want to have a good sense of what you are trying to say and what you are basing it on. This talk will go through a standard outline that you can adapt to your own ends. [Register here]
How to Write the Analysis. (Mar 26) The analysis tells your reader what your data shows. It’s important here to distinguish between your observations and the conclusions you draw from them. This talk will help you do so. [Register here]
How to Write the Discussion. (Apr 9) Your empirical conclusions will often have either theoretical or practical implications. In your discussion section, you make these consequences for theory or practice explicit. [Register here]
How to Finish a Research Project or Thesis. (Apr 16) As your project nears completion you want to make sure that the written product presents your best arguments in the clearest light. Note: this talk is intended to help you through the last few weeks of the process, but it should not be the first time you think seriously about planning and execution. [Register here]
How to Write the Introduction and Conclusion. (Apr 23) A good research paper needs to have a strong introduction and conclusion to open and close your conversation with your reader. In this talk, we will go through some effective ways of spending the first and last few minutes of your reader’s attention. [Register here]
How to Write Philosophy of Science. (TBA) In this talk we’ll go through some general strategies with which you can approach your “ontology” and “epistemology”, decide whether you’re a “positivist” or a “pragmatist”, sort your “phenomenology” from your “hermeneutics”, and even come to terms with the fundamental nature of “truth” and “reality”.
How to Format and Reference Properly. Before submitting you’ll want to make sure that your written work meets the formal requirements of good academic writing. [Please consult the library calendar for occasions to get help with your references.]