Research: The Journey from Pondering to Publishing

Despite having a workforce consisting of highly qualified staff, some universities do not have high levels of research productivity and lack a research culture. The possible reasons for research-inactive staff may be due to a lack of mentoring for “new” members of staff in terms of research proposal preparations, viable research strategies, ongoing research supervision as well as finding and targeting funding agencies. This book has been divided into three sections: the first defines and characterizes research, with chapters identifying strategies for research and pinpointing ethical issues; the second section discusses in detail developing the research proposal, formulating the research problem, using statistics effectively and evaluating the successful research project; and the final section addresses ways to write the research results in such a way as to secure funding and publish in peer-reviewed journals. It contains useful checklists, activities and practical suggestions to facilitate research productivity and output. The work is of interest to graduate students, junior-level faculty, and university administrators committed to increasing research productivity and global research funding and rankings.