ABSTRACT
This chapter describes some of the standards for preparing technical documents and presents suggestions for helping readers acquire and use a scientific writing style. It provides information on reviewing the literature, stating research questions, writing research proposals for evaluation by others. The chapter deals with information on disseminating information from studies. A literature review has three main functions. Those are articulating what is known and not known about a topic; building a foundation and rationale for a study or series of studies; and improving plans for future studies by identifying successful procedures, measures, and designs used by other investigators and detecting issues and problems they encountered. Introductions to study reports contain less detailed information about the reviewed studies than do stand-alone reviews. Dissertations, conference presentations, final reports and similar documents may be peer reviewed, but the level of evaluation may less rigorous.
