ABSTRACT
Before making a final selection of research questions, purposes, or hypotheses on which to base your proposal, you should read extensively on the problem area(s) that you have selected. While reading books (especially textbooks) will give you a broad overview, at this point you need to immerse yourself in the specifics of how others have conducted research. These specifics can be found in reports of original research published in academic journals. Such reports (called research articles) can be identified electronically. See Appendix A if you are unfamiliar with conducting such searches. Although electronic databases often provide abstracts (summaries) of the articles, it is essential that you obtain copies of the full articles and carefully read them in their entirety.
