• Introduction - Brief description of the research question/topic/focus and the method of its investigation (to lead into what follows). 4 questions: WHY? , I,? am doing THIS?, NOW? Make it clear in this section what your initial hypotheses and hunches are – these are your neonate research questions.

• Literature Review - A discussion of the literature in terms of similar studies and previous explanations that have been offered. This should not become an end in itself - your review should be concerned with putting your own study in the context of other work, preferably drawing out aspects which your research was intended to explore further. Don’t forget that you will need to fully reference all works cited (used indirectly, referred to and quoted from). Make sure you note all the necessary bibliographic details when you first read the books, especially page numbers for direct quotations which should be given in the text (see ‘References’ below). It’s a real nuisance and a waste of valuable writing time to have to hunt for these in the library at a later stage. Also, use single rather than double quotation marks for short quotations and indent longer extracts (which may be single-spaced) without quotation marks. This section should end with a revisiting, refinement and restatement of your main research questions.

• Methodology - Describe the methods you chose to collect data/explore your topic and explain why you chose to undertake your research in this way.  Explain briefly within what paradigm your choice lies including a discussion of the ethical issues involved.

• Findings - Description of what you found out, an account of the information/data you gathered. By all means make this a narrative (like a story), making use of the interesting bits from your data collection, giving more detailed stuff in one or more appendices.

• Discussion – Here, you should relate your findings back to the literature review, putting the findings in the context of previous research and/or theory, testing/generating explanations/hypotheses, ie have you confirmed your expectations and those of other researchers in the field or have you found something different/new/contradictory/anomalous? Can you make sense of your findings? Can you offer some sort of explanation, however tentative?

• Conclusion and Recommendations - Summarise what you have achieved in terms of the research and its implications. What are the professional/practical/political implications of your findings? Critically evaluate your research - what are its strengths and what are its weaknesses? What would you do differently? What have you learnt about the topic, about doing research and about Education itself?