This course gives students methodological preparation & theoretical and practical background for their research projects. It provides an overview of APA (American Psychological Association) style and where to find help with different APA resources. (adapted from the sixth edition of the APA Publication Manual, © 2010)[1] It, also, provides an annotated list of links to most of APA materials and an APA overview. It is an excellent course to start to learn about APA format. In addition, it covers the main directions in Translating, Interpreting and Linguistic Research. It covers topics such as; Formulating research questions, Identifying research ethics issues in a research project, Documentation and Citation according to APA style, Qualitative data analysis, Quantitative data analysis, Mixed methods, presentation of research projects, avoiding Plagiarism, avoiding Bias, how to write and format research papers, APA Formatting and Writing Style, as well as APA Citations and Reference Lists.& APA Stylistics.
The course provides students with knowledge of theories, research questions, and methods in the field. The course will assist students to define the topic and methodology for their own thesis/project and provide advice on ethics, documentation, citation, data collection and modes of interpretation of data.
This course builds on students’ knowledge base in translation and language approaches with the aim of guiding students to conduct successfully a research project. Students are taught best practices in research and writing and are given a further opportunity to enhance their knowledge of translation/language approaches and practice. Emphasis is given to recent development of translation and linguistic studies as well as to innovations in research methodology.
This course can serve as a preparation for postgraduate studies.
Objectives /Capability Development
Learning outcomes will be:
- A demonstrated familiarity with the main research methods and directions of published research in Translating, Interpreting, and Language studies.
An ability to develop a topic and methodology suitable for a minor thesis, research project or term paper.
Learning Outcomes:
Upon successful completion of the course, students should be able to:
Conduct independent basic research in translation and language studies;
Utilize different resources, reference materials and bibliographic notes for writing a translation/linguistic research paper;
Cite, reference, and document according to APA style of documentation.
Select the most feasible research methodology for a translation/linguistic research paper;
Learn how to formulate a research title, question or statement.
Understand the role of values and ethics in scientific inquiry
learn about the ethics, documentation, citation, data collection etc.
Become familiar with qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods in empirical research
Critically compare theoretical models that can provide a basis for research;
problematize and discuss translation and interpreting on a theoretical basis;
Assess translation theory and examples to conduct a basic translation research project;
Get an overview of the main methods used in qualitative research (e.g., case studies, interviews, observation);
Learn how to categorize or code data using qualitative software;
Become familiar with the various ways of analyzing and interpreting qualitative data;
Learn how to collect data using sampling methods;
Acquire statistical analysis techniques for drawing conclusions from data;
Become familiar with best practices in presenting data and reporting the results of statistical analysis;
Understand the potential and limitations of qualitative methods;
Assess the potential of mixed – qualitative/quantitative – methods;
Become familiar with different types of survey research.
[1] Information on citing and several of the examples were drawn from the APA Manual (6th ed. 2010).