Your assignment is to write a research project that includes a review of the current understanding of the topic, a clearly stated hypothesis, a description of the experimental or observational methods you would use to test your hypothesis, and a discussion of how your research will contribute to the field of International Law. Before you begin writing your proposal, you must conduct considerable research to determine what studies have been done and what questions remain unanswered. This library research should continue as you write to help you dig deeper into the topic, formulate your ideas, and devise your methods. Be prepared to make room for this back and forth between research and writing as you consider and reconsider your project ideas and begin drafting your proposal. You are free to select a topic you feel comfortable with. For more details see instructions below.
Title of the Paper
(Individual Research Project Writing Instructions)
Author’s Name
Place, date
I. Organisation
1. Abstract
The objective of this very short statement is to tell the reader something about the purpose of the course work and its content. You should explain what you intend to do and why. Then you should tell the reader what you did and what you would recommend.
The Abstract should be written at the end, when you have finished your work and the structure is complete. It may duplicate some statements included in the Introduction and/or Conclusion. The length of the Abstract should be no more than 50 words.
2. Introduction
The Introduction provides reader with an overview of the paper:
· introduce the topic, relevance/reasons for the topic to be researched;
· identify your primary aims and objectives;
· outline the key areas to be covered/define research questions;
· describe methodologies used while conducting research (in one paragraph).
The background section, if needed should be short and focused on the topic, real statistical data can be included, if needed.
3. Title 1
This chapter gives you an opportunity to show the reader that you have learned to analyze and to synthesize the views of others in relation to your paper.
You will summarize contents of books, articles, laws and/or regulations that have direct relevance to your course work. You should compare and contrast ideas, theories, legislation and/or views relevant to your proposed topic.
(Possibilities: present situation, practice in your country, regulations and practice, experiences from other countries, trends, and examples in different fields of border guard work…)
At the end of this chapter, identify the principal research questions/objectives to be addressed. Explain what is under researched and why and how particular research questions were selected. This will form the basis of your subsequent writing.
(You may categorize collected information/data by titles and sub-titles, if necessary)
4. Findings and Discussion
You might divide this chapter into two – Analysis of Findings and Discussion.
This is the most important part of your work. Your findings may be derived from the analyses of literature, legislation, statistical data, interviews or any viable combination of instruments used for collection of data and information (from your country and/or other countries, agencies, systems, etc.)
Discuss your findings and link important points of this chapter back to principle ideas in previous chapters with the evidence obtained in your own research.
End this chapter with a brief summary of your findings. This gives you the entry in the concluding chapter.
5. Conclusions and Recommendations
Again you can divide this chapter into two parts.
The Conclusions and Recommendations chapter gives you the opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of your research work and to offer recommendations, if desired.
Conclusions can be rather short, because the main body of the analysis and synthesis of material will be taking place in the chapter of Findings and Discussion.
In the Conclusions be sure that all of the questions raised in the Introduction have been addressed. Weigh the final results of your research against the aims and objectives of the final report. Deviations from expected, for example, can be important and interesting.
Recommendations are important. Ideas for further examinations or for implementations in the working areas, strategies advocated for better management of the issue are particularly useful.
6. References
This part gives you the opportunity to show to the reader what sources were used in your work.
All books, articles, sources of data and web sites used must be listed. Additional sources consulted should be also placed in the literature.
Entries should be placed in alphabetical order. Web sites should be grouped together separately at the end of the chapter.
II. Layout of the course work
For the front page follow the example of this document!
Use Arial fonts with 1.5 line spacing and justify the text. The text should be broken into paragraphs for readability and there should be a free line between each paragraph.
The texts should also be divided into section and sub-section, with section titles (font 12 bold) and sub-title (font 11 bold).
Lists and bullet points should only be used sparingly.
When using the idea of someone else (but not the exact words), there should be a footnote. When copying parts of someone else’s text (use sparingly), the text should be between “inverted commas” and there should be a footnote. Make sure to keep track of sources and references!