OVERVIEW of RESEARCH RESOURCES

The resources on this website cover key issues which research students in Law need to consider in doing research and writing a thesis.

The first step, of course, is developing a topic. This is a continuing process, beginning with the proposal you must provide when enrolling. You may find that you define and redefine your topic several times. This is discussed in the first coursework seminar of each session.

The topic you choose and the approach you take to it will be strongly influenced by the purpose of your research. People may choose topics in law for the sake of pure knowledge, to make technical improvements in particular systems, or to find better ways to conserve the environment or to advance human rights. Legal research, like other areas of policy or social sciences, must come to terms with its aims because it is embedded in our political system and our social values. The second seminar considers these issues in relation to students' own topics.

Before we can begin to research a topic, we must work out what we need to find out. This is the stage of developing research questions. These questions will arise out of the topic, and will help to determine the sort of methods you will need to use. Above all, they must be answerable! This is addressed in the third seminar.

Only after clarifying the topic and purposes of your research, and your research questions, can you begin to consider the research methods you will use. Once you decide what methods to use, you will need to learn how to use them well. The resources and seminar on methods are designed to give you an overview of some of the methods which may be available, so you can make an informed choice.

There is a lot of mystique surrounding research methodology, and of course some of the techniques you will use are quite technically sophisticated. But research methods are not an end in themselves. We use them to find out information which will contribute to answering our research questions, and to develop the reasoned arguments which will sustain our thesis (in both senses of the term!). This is why methods and arguments are both covered in the same seminar (the fourth one).

Obviously these seminars give only the barest overview of the research issues facing postgraduate students. There is a lot more material in the resources, including further readings, particularly on various research methods. The discussion in the seminars fills out the issues and how they relate to the many different types of research which students are engaged in. Further seminars and discussions can be arranged around methods or styles of argument by popular request.

The resources on Inference, which cover the use of numbers, statistical and other forms of generalisation and probablility, are not discussed in any of the scheduled seminars. They will be considered in more depth as required by students. The University of Wollongong offers a Statistical Consulting Service free to higher degree research students.

New or established students wishing to explore these issues further should work through the resources, attend the seminars, and approach the coordinator and fellow students to arrange further seminars on topics of interest.

Revised Warwick Gullett 17 March 2010