Do’s and Don’ts in writing research aim and objectives

Once you choose the topic for your research project, then it is time for you to turn your project into a statement on what you will be going to investigate. This is called the research aim. Most researches require more than one aim but don’t be overly ambitious in your research career. Try to limit it to one sentence because this will help you to focus more on thinking. Don’t make your research aim statement unclear and complicated, be concise. Try to phrase it as a question if you can. Whenever you write research aim always imagine that you are writing for the person who doesn’t know anything about it. Following are the examples of research aims that are extracted from thesis writing services. 

• Will compare two approaches on improving heart failure patients with medicines. 
• Which is the best method to educate doctors by means of hospital formulary.
• Investigation on diabetes patient counseling by a pharmacist can reduce the rate of admission in hospitals.
• How a pharmacy staff can control the wastages and expenditure in medicines.

The do’s in writing research objectives 

The research objectives should be listed in numbers. They are the steps that show how aims are going to be achieved. It is very helpful to divide the practical work into smaller parts so that you can mark them when you are done with your research. Achieving these research objectives represents your command and control of the project as well as helps you to stay in context. 

By following the SMART approach you will be able to write the research objective concisely. The following approach is associated with Peter Drucker.

1. Specific: Talk in a clear and concise way about what you are going to achieve?
2. Measurable: How do you know you will achieve your aim?
3. Achievable: Recognize whether you have the resources, support, and facilities to complete your research project?
4. Relevant: Why is the aim important to achieve your research project?
5. Time bound: Determine when each of the objectives will be completed?

Remember they only contain the framework and timeframe of what you will do to solve the aim. They do not contain questionnaires, they are taken as read. Usually, the eight and nine research objectives are the maximum you need to address the aim, but sometimes you can go far, it depends if you have multiple aims. 

Research Aim 

Investigation on diabetes patient counseling by a pharmacist can reduce the rate of readmission in hospitals.

Objectives

1. The literature review
2. What is readmission and how data can be collected?
3. Specify the patient group that needs to be investigated: type of diabetes, age, etc.
4. Prepare protocol that includes code of methods and patient information file. 
5. Look at whether you will get the acceptance of this study from the ethics committee.
6. Design the methods of patient counseling and follow-up.
7. Analysis and collection of data.
8. Report on findings.
9. Publish the findings.

Having properly written research aims and objectives will help you and readers to see whether you succeeded in what you said. If this is your first time writing a research paper then it is better to keep the research aim and objectives simple.

Don’ts in writing research aim and objectives 

• Making broad research aim 

If you have a broad research aim then it is very difficult to achieve it. This occurs when a student develops their research aim early. This means writing research aims before having sound knowledge on the research topic. Moreover, having a lengthy research aim means that you will have to answer each aim at the end of the project and the viva defense that you have achieved all of them. If you have too many research aims then it is impossible to achieve them all. At the very start of your research project, it is important to narrow down the research to a specific area. To do so, take some time to research the previous study literature, find limitations, question their approaches, and as well as finding out whether there are any gaps that can be investigated. 

• Too many listed research aim

Avoid listing too many research aims. Because, your degree does not take as much time as you think and you won’t have as much time, not more than 6 months. Don’t focus on more than two to three aspects in order to meet the research project deadline. 

• The irrelevant connection between research aims

Make sure to have a logical connection between each of the aims. Aims should make sense together and separate as well, which can become the bigger approach after summing them together. 

• Making too ambitious research objectives 

Be sensible about what you can achieve in the given deadline. It is okay to set ambitious research objectives which require complex data and analysis but make them possible to complete in 6 months.

• Repetition research objectives 

Each research objective must have its own purpose and different measurable outcome. In this process, the students usually make a common mistake that they form too many objectives and in the end, they become overlapping. This makes it difficult to understand when the actual objective will be completed. This also will create challenges to estimate the duration of the objectives while making deadlines for the research project. Moreover, it becomes difficult for you to structure each chapter of the research project and challenges in writing and for the audience to read.

However, this problem can be triggered by using the approach of SMART objectives.

In A nutshell

Always remember whenever you write your research aims and objectives, make it clear as much as you can. Pay attention to the word “you can”. This means that you should write them as clearly as possible with the fact that your study and your research paper are complex. Moreover, things are not as complicated and unclear as they should be. 

Make your reader’s job easy as you can because later on, they will thank you for that, and in return, your paper will be appreciated and recommended by many people. 

If you are still having difficulty then get in touch with one of the writers at dissertation help online UK and then you can work through it.

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