what to write in a research statement

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Graduate School Applications: Writing a Research Statement

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What is a Research Statement?

A research statement is a short document that provides a brief history of your past research experience, the current state of your research, and the future work you intend to complete.

The research statement is a common component of a potential candidate’s application for post-undergraduate study. This may include applications for graduate programs, post-doctoral fellowships, or faculty positions. The research statement is often the primary way that a committee determines if a candidate’s interests and past experience make them a good fit for their program/institution.

What Should It Look Like?

Research statements are generally one to two single-spaced pages. You should be sure to thoroughly read and follow the length and content requirements for each individual application.

Your research statement should situate your work within the larger context of your field and show how your works contributes to, complicates, or counters other work being done. It should be written for an audience of other professionals in your field.

What Should It Include?

Your statement should start by articulating the broader field that you are working within and the larger question or questions that you are interested in answering. It should then move to articulate your specific interest.

The body of your statement should include a brief history of your past research . What questions did you initially set out to answer in your research project? What did you find? How did it contribute to your field? (i.e. did it lead to academic publications, conferences, or collaborations?). How did your past research propel you forward?

It should also address your present research . What questions are you actively trying to solve? What have you found so far? How are you connecting your research to the larger academic conversation? (i.e. do you have any publications under review, upcoming conferences, or other professional engagements?) What are the larger implications of your work?

Finally, it should describe the future trajectory on which you intend to take your research. What further questions do you want to solve? How do you intend to find answers to these questions? How can the institution to which you are applying help you in that process? What are the broader implications of your potential results?

Note: Make sure that the research project that you propose can be completed at the institution to which you are applying.

Other Considerations:

• What is the primary question that you have tried to address over the course of your academic career? Why is this question important to the field? How has each stage of your work related to that question?
• Include a few specific examples that show your success. What tangible solutions have you found to the question that you were trying to answer? How have your solutions impacted the larger field? Examples can include references to published findings, conference presentations, or other professional involvement.
• Be confident about your skills and abilities. The research statement is your opportunity to sell yourself to an institution. Show that you are self-motivated and passionate about your project.

/images/cornell/logo35pt_cornell_white.svg" alt="what to write in a research statement"> Cornell University --> Graduate School

Research statement, what is a research statement.

The research statement (or statement of research interests) is a common component of academic job applications. It is a summary of your research accomplishments, current work, and future direction and potential of your work.

The statement can discuss specific issues such as:

• funding history and potential
• requirements for laboratory equipment and space and other resources
• potential research and industrial collaborations
• how your research contributes to your field
• future direction of your research

The research statement should be technical, but should be intelligible to all members of the department, including those outside your subdiscipline. So keep the “big picture” in mind. The strongest research statements present a readable, compelling, and realistic research agenda that fits well with the needs, facilities, and goals of the department.

Research statements can be weakened by:

• overly ambitious proposals
• lack of clear direction
• lack of big-picture focus
• inadequate attention to the needs and facilities of the department or position

Why a Research Statement?

• It conveys to search committees the pieces of your professional identity and charts the course of your scholarly journey.
• It communicates a sense that your research will follow logically from what you have done and that it will be different, important, and innovative.
• It gives a context for your research interests—Why does your research matter? The so what?
• It combines your achievements and current work with the proposal for upcoming research.
• areas of specialty and expertise
• potential to get funding
• academic strengths and abilities
• compatibility with the department or school
• ability to think and communicate like a serious scholar and/or scientist

Formatting of Research Statements

The goal of the research statement is to introduce yourself to a search committee, which will probably contain scientists both in and outside your field, and get them excited about your research. To encourage people to read it:

• make it one or two pages, three at most
• use informative section headings and subheadings
• use bullets
• use an easily readable font size
• make the margins a reasonable size

Organization of Research Statements

Think of the overarching theme guiding your main research subject area. Write an essay that lays out:

• The main theme(s) and why it is important and what specific skills you use to attack the problem.
• A few specific examples of problems you have already solved with success to build credibility and inform people outside your field about what you do.
• A discussion of the future direction of your research. This section should be really exciting to people both in and outside your field. Don’t sell yourself short; if you think your research could lead to answers for big important questions, say so!
• A final paragraph that gives a good overall impression of your research.

Writing Research Statements

• Avoid jargon. Make sure that you describe your research in language that many people outside your specific subject area can understand. Ask people both in and outside your field to read it before you send your application. A search committee won’t get excited about something they can’t understand.
• Write as clearly, concisely, and concretely as you can.
• Keep it at a summary level; give more detail in the job talk.
• Ask others to proofread it. Be sure there are no spelling errors.
• Convince the search committee not only that you are knowledgeable, but that you are the right person to carry out the research.
• Include information that sets you apart (e.g., publication in  Science, Nature,  or a prestigious journal in your field).
• What excites you about your research? Sound fresh.
• Include preliminary results and how to build on results.
• Point out how current faculty may become future partners.
• Acknowledge the work of others.
• Use language that shows you are an independent researcher.
• BUT focus on your research work, not yourself.
• Include potential funding partners and industrial collaborations. Be creative!
• Provide a summary of your research.
• Put in background material to give the context/relevance/significance of your research.
• List major findings, outcomes, and implications.
• Describe both current and planned (future) research.
• Communicate a sense that your research will follow logically from what you have done and that it will be unique, significant, and innovative (and easy to fund).

Describe Your Future Goals or Research Plans

• Major problem(s) you want to focus on in your research.
• The problem’s relevance and significance to the field.
• Your specific goals for the next three to five years, including potential impact and outcomes.
• If you know what a particular agency funds, you can name the agency and briefly outline a proposal.
• Give broad enough goals so that if one area doesn’t get funded, you can pursue other research goals and funding.

Identify Potential Funding Sources

• Almost every institution wants to know whether you’ll be able to get external funding for research.
• Try to provide some possible sources of funding for the research, such as NIH, NSF, foundations, private agencies.
• Mention past funding, if appropriate.

Be Realistic

There is a delicate balance between a realistic research statement where you promise to work on problems you really think you can solve and over-reaching or dabbling in too many subject areas. Select an over-arching theme for your research statement and leave miscellaneous ideas or projects out. Everyone knows that you will work on more than what you mention in this statement.

Consider Also Preparing a Longer Version

• A longer version (five–15 pages) can be brought to your interview. (Check with your advisor to see if this is necessary.)
• You may be asked to describe research plans and budget in detail at the campus interview. Be prepared.
• Include laboratory needs (how much budget you need for equipment, how many grad assistants, etc.) to start up the research.

Samples of Research Statements

To find sample research statements with content specific to your discipline, search on the internet for your discipline + “Research Statement.”

• University of Pennsylvania Sample Research Statement
• Advice on writing a Research Statement (Plan) from the journal  Science

• Enhancing Student Success
• Innovative Research
• Alumni Success
• About NC State

How to Construct a Compelling Research Statement

A research statement is a critical document for prospective faculty applicants. This document allows applicants to convey to their future colleagues the importance and impact of their past and, most importantly, future research. You as an applicant should use this document to lay out your planned research for the next few years, making sure to outline how your planned research contributes to your field.

Some general guidelines

(from Carleton University )

An effective research statement accomplishes three key goals:

• It clearly presents your scholarship in nonspecialist terms;
• It places your research in a broader context, scientifically and societally; and
• It lays out a clear road map for future accomplishments in the new setting (the institution to which you’re applying).

Another way to think about the success of your research statement is to consider whether, after reading it, a reader is able to answer these questions:

• What do you do (what are your major accomplishments; what techniques do you use; how have you added to your field)?
• Why is your work important (why should both other scientists and nonscientists care)?
• Where is it going in the future (what are the next steps; how will you carry them out in your new job; does your research plan meet the requirements for tenure at this institution)?

1. Make your statement reader-friendly

A typical faculty application call can easily receive 200+ applicants. As such, you need to make all your application documents reader-friendly. Use headings and subheadings to organize your ideas and leave white space between sections.

In addition, you may want to include figures and diagrams in your research statement that capture key findings or concepts so a reader can quickly determine what you are studying and why it is important. A wall of text in your research statement should be avoided at all costs. Rather, a research statement that is concise and thoughtfully laid out demonstrates to hiring committees that you can organize ideas in a coherent and easy-to-understand manner.

Also, this presentation demonstrates your ability to develop competitive funding applications (see more in next section), which is critical for success in a research-intensive faculty position.

2. Be sure to touch on the fundability of your planned research work

Another goal of your research statement is to make the case for why your planned research is fundable. You may get different opinions here, but I would recommend citing open or planned funding opportunities at federal agencies or other funders that you plan to submit to. You might also use open funding calls as a way to demonstrate that your planned research is in an area receiving funding prioritization by various agencies.

If you are looking for funding, check out this list of funding resources on my personal website. Another great way to look for funding is to use NIH Reporter and NSF award search .

3. Draft the statement and get feedback early and often

I can tell you from personal experience that it takes time to refine a strong research statement. I went on the faculty job market two years in a row and found my second year materials to be much stronger. You need time to read, review and reflect on your statements and documents to really make them stand out.

It is important to have your supervisor and other faculty read and give feedback on your critical application documents and especially your research statement. Also, finding peers to provide feedback and in return giving them feedback on their documents is very helpful. Seek out communities of support such as Future PI Slack to find peer reviewers (and get a lot of great application advice) if needed.

4. Share with nonexperts to assess your writing’s clarity

Additionally, you may want to consider sharing your job materials, including your research statement, with non-experts to assess clarity. For example, NC State’s Professional Development Team offers an Academic Packways: Gearing Up for Faculty program each year where you can get feedback on your application documents from individuals working in a variety of areas. You can also ask classmates and colleagues working in different areas to review your research statement. The more feedback you can receive on your materials through formal or informal means, the better.

5. Tailor your statement to the institution

It is critical in your research statement to mention how you will make use of core facilities or resources at the institution you are applying to. If you need particular research infrastructure to do your work and the institution has it, you should mention that in your statement. Something to the effect of: “The presence of the XXX core facility at YYY University will greatly facilitate my lab’s ability to investigate this important process.”

Mentioning core facilities and resources at the target institution shows you have done your research, which is critical in demonstrating your interest in that institution.

Finally, think about the resources available at the institution you are applying to. If you are applying to a primarily undergraduate-serving institution, you will want to be sure you propose a research program that could reasonably take place with undergraduate students, working mostly in the summer and utilizing core facilities that may be limited or require external collaborations.

Undergraduate-serving institutions will value research projects that meaningfully involve students. Proposing overly ambitious research at a primarily undergraduate institution is a recipe for rejection as the institution will read your application as out of touch … that either you didn’t do the work to research them or that you are applying to them as a “backup” to research-intensive positions.

You should carefully think about how to restructure your research statements if you are applying to both primarily undergraduate-serving and research-intensive institutions. For examples of how I framed my research statement for faculty applications at each type of institution, see my personal website ( undergraduate-serving ; research-intensive research statements).

6. Be yourself, not who you think the search committee wants

In the end, a research statement allows you to think critically about where you see your research going in the future. What are you excited about studying based on your previous work? How will you go about answering the unanswered questions in your field? What agencies and initiatives are funding your type of research? If you develop your research statement from these core questions, your passion and commitment to the work will surely shine through.

A closing thought: Be yourself, not who you think the search committee wants. If you try to frame yourself as someone you really aren’t, you are setting the hiring institution and you up for disappointment. You want a university to hire you because they like you, the work you have done, and the work you want to do, not some filtered or idealized version of you.

So, put your true self out there, and realize you want to find the right institutional fit for you and your research. This all takes time and effort. The earlier you start and the more reflection and feedback you get on your research statement and remaining application documents, the better you can present the true you to potential employers.

More Advice on Faculty Job Application Documents on ImPACKful

How to write a better academic cover letter

Tips on writing an effective teaching statement

More Resources

See here for samples of a variety of application materials from UCSF.

• Rules of the (Social Sciences & Humanities) Research Statement
• CMU’s Writing a Research Statement
• UW’s Academic Careers: Research Statements
• Developing a Winning Research Statement (UCSF)
• Academic Packways
• ImPACKful Tips

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How to Write a Research Statement

Last Updated: April 25, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Christopher Taylor, PhD . Christopher Taylor is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of English at Austin Community College in Texas. He received his PhD in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2014. There are 7 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 67,837 times.

The research statement is a very common component of job applications in academia. The statement provides a summary of your research experience, interests, and agenda for reviewers to use to assess your candidacy for a position. Because the research statement introduces you as a researcher to the people reviewing your job application, it’s important to make the statement as impressive as possible. After you’ve planned out what you want to say, all you have to do is write your research statement with the right structure, style, and formatting!

Research Statement Outline and Example

Planning Your Research Statement

• For example, some of the major themes of your research might be slavery and race in the 18th century, the efficacy of cancer treatments, or the reproductive cycles of different species of crab.
• You may have several small questions that guide specific aspects of your research. Write all of these questions out, then see if you can formulate a broader question that encapsulates all of these smaller questions.

• For example, if your work is on x-ray technology, describe how your research has filled any knowledge gaps in your field, as well as how it could be applied to x-ray machines in hospitals.
• It’s important to be able to articulate why your research should matter to people who don’t study what you study to generate interest in your research outside your field. This is very helpful when you go to apply for grants for future research.

• Explain why these are the things you want to research next. Do your best to link your prior research to what you hope to study in the future. This will help give your reviewer a deeper sense of what motivates your research and why it matters.

• For example, if your research was historical and the documents you needed to answer your question didn’t exist, describe how you managed to pursue your research agenda using other types of documents.

• Some skills you might be able to highlight include experience working with digital archives, knowledge of a foreign language, or the ability to work collaboratively. When you're describing your skills, use specific, action-oriented words, rather than just personality traits. For example, you might write "speak Spanish" or "handled digital files."
• Don’t be modest about describing your skills. You want your research statement to impress whoever is reading it.

Structuring and Writing the Statement

• Because this section summarizes the rest of your research statement, you may want to write the executive summary after you’ve written the other sections first.
• Write your executive summary so that if the reviewer chooses to only read this section instead of your whole statement, they will still learn everything they need to know about you as an applicant.
• Make sure that you only include factual information that you can prove or demonstrate. Don't embellish or editorialize your experience to make it seem like it's more than it is.

• If you received a postdoctoral fellowship, describe your postdoc research in this section as well.
• If at all possible, include research in this section that goes beyond just your thesis or dissertation. Your application will be much stronger if reviewers see you as a researcher in a more general sense than as just a student.

• Again, as with the section on your graduate research, be sure to include a description of why this research matters and what relevant skills you bring to bear on it.
• If you’re still in graduate school, you can omit this section.

• Be realistic in describing your future research projects. Don’t describe potential projects or interests that are extremely different from your current projects. If all of your research to this point has been on the American civil war, future research projects in microbiology will sound very farfetched.

• For example, add a sentence that says “Dr. Jameson’s work on the study of slavery in colonial Georgia has served as an inspiration for my own work on slavery in South Carolina. I would welcome the opportunity to be able to collaborate with her on future research projects.”

• For example, if your research focuses on the history of Philadelphia, add a sentence to the paragraph on your future research projects that says, “I believe based on my work that I would be a very strong candidate to receive a Balch Fellowship from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.”
• If you’ve received funding for your research in the past, mention this as well.

• Typically, your research statement should be about 1-2 pages long if you're applying for a humanities or social sciences position. For a position in psychology or the hard sciences, your research statement may be 3-4 pages long.
• Although you may think that having a longer research statement makes you seem more impressive, it’s more important that the reviewer actually read the statement. If it seems too long, they may just skip it, which will hurt your application.

Formatting and Editing

• For example, instead of saying, “This part of my research was super hard,” say, “I found this obstacle to be particularly challenging.”

• For example, if your research is primarily in anthropology, refrain from using phrases like “Gini coefficient” or “moiety.” Only use phrases that someone in a different field would probably be familiar with, such as “cultural construct,” “egalitarian,” or “social division.”
• If you have trusted friends or colleagues in fields other than your own, ask them to read your statement for you to make sure you don’t use any words or concepts that they can’t understand.

• For example, when describing your dissertation, say, “I hypothesized that…” When describing your future research projects, say, “I intend to…” or “My aim is to research…”

• At the same time, don’t make your font too big. If you write your research statement in a font larger than 12, you run the risk of appearing unprofessional.

• For instance, if you completed a postdoc, use subheadings in the section on previous research experience to delineate the research you did in graduate school and the research you did during your fellowship.

Expert Q&A

You might also like.

• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/graduate_school_applications/writing_a_research_statement.html
• ↑ https://www.cmu.edu/student-success/other-resources/handouts/comm-supp-pdfs/writing-research-statement.pdf
• ↑ https://postdocs.cornell.edu/research-statement
• ↑ https://gradschool.cornell.edu/academic-progress/pathways-to-success/prepare-for-your-career/take-action/research-statement/
• ↑ https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/executivesummary
• ↑ https://www.niu.edu/writingtutorial/style/formal-and-informal-style.shtml
• ↑ https://www.unr.edu/writing-speaking-center/student-resources/writing-speaking-resources/editing-and-proofreading-techniques

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Research Statements

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A research statement is used when applying for some academic faculty positions and research-intensive positions. A research statement is usually a single-spaced 1-2 page document that describes your research trajectory as a scholar, highlighting growth: from where you began to where you envision going in the next few years. Ultimately, research productivity, focus and future are the most highly scrutinized in academic faculty appointments, particularly at research-intensive universities. Tailor your research statement to the institution to which you are applying – if a university has a strong research focus, emphasize publications; if a university values teaching and research equally, consider ending with a paragraph about how your research complements your teaching and vice versa. Structures of these documents also varies by discipline. See two common structures below.

Structure One:

Introduction: The first paragraph should introduce your research interests in the context of your field, tying the research you have done so far to a distinct trajectory that will take you well into the future.

Summary Of Dissertation: This paragraph should summarize your doctoral research project. Try not to have too much language repetition across documents, such as your abstract or cover letter.

Contribution To Field And Publications: Describe the significance of your projects for your field. Detail any publications initiated from your independent doctoral or postdoctoral research. Additionally, include plans for future publications based on your thesis. Be specific about journals to which you should submit or university presses that might be interested in the book you could develop from your dissertation (if your field expects that). If you are writing a two-page research statement, this section would likely be more than one paragraph and cover your future publication plans in greater detail.

Second Project: If you are submitting a cover letter along with your research statement, then the committee may already have a paragraph describing your second project. In that case, use this space to discuss your second project in greater depth and the publication plans you envision for this project. Make sure you transition from your dissertation to your second large project smoothly – you want to give a sense of your cohesion as a scholar, but also to demonstrate your capacity to conceptualize innovative research that goes well beyond your dissertation project.

Wider Impact Of Research Agenda: Describe the broader significance of your work. What ties your research projects together? What impact do you want to make on your field? If you’re applying for a teaching-oriented institution, how would you connect your research with your teaching?

Structure Two:

25% Previous Research Experience: Describe your early work and how it solidified your interest in your field. How did these formative experiences influence your research interests and approach to research? Explain how this earlier work led to your current project(s).

25% Current Projects: Describe your dissertation/thesis project – this paragraph could be modeled on the first paragraph of your dissertation abstract since it covers all your bases: context, methodology, findings, significance. You could also mention grants/fellowships that funded the project, publications derived from this research, and publications that are currently being developed.

50% Future Work: Transition to how your current work informs your future research. Describe your next major project or projects and a realistic plan for accomplishing this work. What publications do you expect to come out of this research? The last part of the research statement should be customized to demonstrate the fit of your research agenda with the institution.

Humans To Robots Laboratory

Empowering every person with a collaborative robot, writing a research statement for graduate school and fellowships.

Writing a research statement happens many times throughout a research career. Often for the first time it happens when applying to Ph.D. programs or applying to fellowships. Later, you will be writing postdoc and faculty applications. These documents are challenging to write because they seek to capture your entire research career in one document that may be read in 90 seconds or less.

Think of the research statement as a proposal. Whether you are applying for a Ph.D. program or for a faculty position, you are trying to convince the reader to invest in you. To decide whether to make this investment they need to know three things: 1) what will you do with the investment, 2) why is that an important problem ? and 3) what evidence is there that you will be successful in achieving the goals that you have set out.

The first paragraph, therefore, should describe what problem you are aiming to solve, and why it is an important problem. One common failure mode is to be too general and vague in this paragraph. Yes we all want to solve AI! But you want to write about your specific take, angle, or approach. This will set up the rest of the statement, about why you are the one person uniquely qualified to solve the problem you set up here. Sometimes people shy away from being too specific, because they worry that it will put them in a box. Don’t worry! Research interests always evolve, and you will not be signing in blood to do this exact research plan. It is better to ere on the side of being too specific because it shows you can scope out an exciting project and that you have good ideas, even if you are not sure that this specific idea is the one you will eventually pursue.

The next paragraphs should describe your past work as it fits into the research vision you have outlined in the first paragraph. You can start with a paragraph for each project or paper you have worked on. The paragraphs can be more or less the abstract for the paper . However you should be clear exactly what your role in the project was, give credit to collaborators, and spend more time on the parts of the project you contributed to directly. You also need to tie it to the research vision in paragraph 1. The strongest statement presents your life, as an arrow that points unambiguously towards solving the research question you have outlined in paragraph 1. Of course, no one’s life is actually an unambiguous arrow! However I think it helps to think that way because you are trying to tie the projects together to show how they have prepared you and furthered you along the research trajectory. Even if this project wasn’t directly connected in terms of its research questions, you can write about how it taught you technical tools that you can apply to your research objective, or how it taught you something that led to your current research objective.

The last paragraphs should describe concretely what you plan to do next. If you are applying to a Ph.D. program, you should name the groups you wish to work with and explain why they are a good fit for you. For a fellowship, you should describe why this work is a good fit for the work done by the organization you are applying to.

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How to Write a Research Statement

• Experimental Psychology

Task #1: Understand the Purpose of the Research Statement

The primary mistake people make when writing a research statement is that they fail to appreciate its purpose. The purpose isn’t simply to list and briefly describe all the projects that you’ve completed, as though you’re a museum docent and your research publications are the exhibits. “Here, we see a pen and watercolor self-portrait of the artist. This painting is the earliest known likeness of the artist. It captures the artist’s melancholic temperament … Next, we see a steel engraving. This engraving has appeared in almost every illustrated publication of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and has also appeared as the television studio back-drop for the …”

Similar to touring through a museum, we’ve read through research statements that narrate a researcher’s projects: “My dissertation examined the ways in which preschool-age children’s memory for a novel event was shaped by the verbal dialogue they shared with trained experimenters. The focus was on the important use of what we call elaborative conversational techniques … I have recently launched another project that represents my continued commitment to experimental methods and is yet another extension of the ways in which we can explore the role of conversational engagement during novel events … In addition to my current experimental work, I am also involved in a large-scale collaborative longitudinal project …”

Treating your research statement as though it’s a narrated walk through your vita does let you describe each of your projects (or publications). But the format is boring, and the statement doesn’t tell us much more than if we had the abstracts of each of your papers. Most problematic, treating your research statement as though it’s a narrated walk through your vita misses the primary purpose of the research statement, which is to make a persuasive case about the importance of your completed work and the excitement of your future trajectory.

Writing a persuasive case about your research means setting the stage for why the questions you are investigating are important. Writing a persuasive case about your research means engaging your audience so that they want to learn more about the answers you are discovering. How do you do that? You do that by crafting a coherent story.

Task #2: Tell a Story

Surpass the narrated-vita format and use either an Op-Ed format or a Detective Story format. The Op-Ed format is your basic five-paragraph persuasive essay format:

First paragraph (introduction):

• broad sentence or two introducing your research topic;
• thesis sentence, the position you want to prove (e.g., my research is important); and
• organization sentence that briefly overviews your three bodies of evidence (e.g., my research is important because a, b, and c).

Second, third, and fourth paragraphs (each covering a body of evidence that will prove your position):

• topic sentence (about one body of evidence);
• fact to support claim in topic sentence;
• another fact to support claim in topic sentence;
• another fact to support claim in topic sentence; and
• analysis/transition sentence.

Fifth paragraph (synopsis and conclusion):

• sentence that restates your thesis (e.g., my research is important);
• three sentences that restate your topic sentences from second, third, and fourth paragraph (e.g., my research is important because a, b, and c); and
• analysis/conclusion sentence.

Although the five-paragraph persuasive essay format feels formulaic, it works. It’s used in just about every successful op-ed ever published. And like all good recipes, it can be doubled. Want a 10-paragraph, rather than five-paragraph research statement? Double the amount of each component. Take two paragraphs to introduce the point you’re going to prove. Take two paragraphs to synthesize and conclude. And in the middle, either raise six points of evidence, with a paragraph for each, or take two paragraphs to supply evidence for each of three points. The op-ed format works incredibly well for writing persuasive essays, which is what your research statement should be.

The Detective Story format is more difficult to write, but it’s more enjoyable to read. Whereas the op-ed format works off deductive reasoning, the Detective Story format works off inductive reasoning. The Detective Story does not start with your thesis statement (“hire/retain/promote/ award/honor me because I’m a talented developmental/cognitive/social/clinical/biological/perception psychologist”). Rather, the Detective Story starts with your broad, overarching research question. For example, how do babies learn their native languages? How do we remember autobiographical information? Why do we favor people who are most similar to ourselves? How do we perceive depth? What’s the best way to treat depression? How does the stress we experience every day affect our long-term health?

Because it’s your research statement, you can personalize that overarching question. A great example of a personalized overarching question occurs in the opening paragraph of George Miller’s (1956) article, “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information.”

My problem is that I have been persecuted by an integer. For seven years this number has followed me around, has intruded in my most private data, and has assaulted me from the pages of our most public journals. This number assumes a variety of disguises, being sometimes a little larger and sometimes a little smaller than usual, but never changing so much as to be unrecognizable. The persistence with which this number plagues me is far more than a random accident. There is, to quote a famous senator, a design behind it, some pattern governing its appearances. Either there really is something unusual about the number or else I am suffering from delusions of persecution. I shall begin my case history by telling you about some experiments that tested how accurately people can assign numbers to the magnitudes of various aspects of a stimulus. …

In case you think the above opening was to a newsletter piece or some other low-visibility outlet, it wasn’t. Those opening paragraphs are from a Psych Review article, which has been cited nearly 16,000 times. Science can be personalized. Another example of using the Detective Story format, which opens with your broad research question and personalizes it, is the opening paragraph of a research statement from a chemist:

I became interested in inorganic chemistry because of one element: Boron. The cage structures and complexity of boron hydrides have fascinated my fellow Boron chemists for more than 40 years — and me for more than a decade. Boron is only one element away from carbon, yet its reactivity is dramatically different. I research why.

When truest to the genre of Detective Story format, the full answer to your introductory question won’t be available until the end of your statement — just like a reader doesn’t know whodunit until the last chapter of a mystery. Along the way, clues to the answer are provided, and false leads are ruled out, which keeps readers turning the pages. In the same way, writing your research statement in the Detective Story format will keep members of the hiring committee, the review committee, and the awards panel reading until the last paragraph.

Task #3: Envision Each Audience

The second mistake people make when writing their research statements is that they write for the specialist, as though they’re talking to another member of their lab. But in most cases, the audience for your research statement won’t be well-informed specialists. Therefore, you need to convey the importance of your work and the contribution of your research without getting bogged down in jargon. Some details are important, but an intelligent reader outside your area of study should be able to understand every word of your research statement.

Because research statements are most often included in academic job applications, tenure and promotion evaluations, and award nominations, we’ll talk about how to envision the audiences for each of these contexts.

Job Applications . Even in the largest department, it’s doubtful that more than a couple of people will know the intricacies of your research area as well as you do. And those two or three people are unlikely to have carte blanche authority on hiring. Rather, in most departments, the decision is made by the entire department. In smaller departments, there’s probably no one else in your research area; that’s why they have a search going on. Therefore, the target audience for your research statement in a job application comprises other psychologists, but not psychologists who study what you study (the way you study it).

Envision this target audience explicitly.Think of one of your fellow graduate students or post docs who’s in another area (e.g., if you’re in developmental, think of your friend in biological). Envision what that person will — and won’t — know about the questions you’re asking in your research, the methods you’re using, the statistics you’re employing, and — most importantly — the jargon that you usually use to describe all of this. Write your research statement so that this graduate student or post doc in another area in psychology will not only understand your research statement, but also find your work interesting and exciting.

Tenure Review . During the tenure review process, your research statement will have two target audiences: members of your department and, if your tenure case receives a positive vote in the department, members of the university at large. For envisioning the first audience, follow the advice given above for writing a research statement for a job application. Think of one of your departmental colleagues in another area (e.g., if you’re in developmental, think of your friend in biological). Write in such a way that the colleague in another area in psychology will understand every word  — and find the work interesting. (This advice also applies to writing research statements for annual reviews, for which the review is conducted in the department and usually by all members of the department.)

For the second stage of the tenure process, when your research statement is read by members of the university at large, you’re going to have to scale it down a notch. (And yes, we are suggesting that you write two different statements: one for your department’s review and one for the university’s review, because the audiences differ. And you should always write with an explicit target audience in mind.) For the audience that comprises the entire university, envision a faculty friend in another department. Think political science or economics or sociology, because your statement will be read by political scientists, economists, and sociologists. It’s an art to hit the perfect pitch of being understood by such a wide range of scholars without being trivial, but it’s achievable.

Award Nominations . Members of award selection committees are unlikely to be specialists in your immediate field. Depending on the award, they might not even be members of your discipline. Find out the typical constitution of the selection committee for each award nomination you submit, and tailor your statement accordingly.

Task #4: Be Succinct

When writing a research statement, many people go on for far too long. Consider three pages a maximum, and aim for two. Use subheadings to help break up the wall of text. You might also embed a well-designed figure or graph, if it will help you make a point. (If so, use wrap-around text, and make sure that your figure has its axes labeled.)

And don’t use those undergraduate tricks of trying to cram more in by reducing the margins or the font size. Undoubtedly, most of the people reading your research statement will be older than you, and we old folks don’t like reading small fonts. It makes us crabby, and that’s the last thing you want us to be when we’re reading your research statement.

Nice piece of information. I will keep in mind while writing my research statement

Thank you so much for your guidance.

HOSSEIN DIVAN-BEIGI

Absolutely agree! I also want to add that: On the one hand it`s easy to write good research personal statement, but on the other hand it`s a little bit difficult to summarize all minds and as result the main idea of the statement could be incomprehensible. It also seems like a challenge for those guys, who aren`t native speakers. That`s why you should prepare carefully for this kind of statement to target your goals.

How do you write an action research topic?? An then stAte the problem an purpose for an action research. Can I get an example on language development?? Please I need some help.

Thankyou I now have idea to come up with the research statement. If I need help I will inform you …

much appreciated

Just like Boote & Beile (2005) explained “Doctors before researchers” because of the importance of the dissertation literature review in research groundwork.

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About the Authors

Morton Ann Gernsbacher , APS Past President, is the Vilas Research Professor and Sir Frederic Bartlett Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She can be contacted at [email protected] . Patricia G. Devine , a Past APS Board Member, is Chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She can be contacted at [email protected] .

Careers Up Close: Joel Anderson on Gender and Sexual Prejudices, the Freedoms of Academic Research, and the Importance of Collaboration

Joel Anderson, a senior research fellow at both Australian Catholic University and La Trobe University, researches group processes, with a specific interest on prejudice, stigma, and stereotypes.

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Ana Sofia Morais and Ralph Hertwig explain how experimental psychologists have painted too negative a picture of human rationality, and how their pessimism is rooted in a seemingly mundane detail: methodological choices. 

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Writing a Research Statement

What is a research statement.

A research statement is a short document that provides a brief history of your past research experience, the current state of your research, and the future work you intend to complete.

The research statement is a common component of a potential student's application for post-undergraduate study. The research statement is often the primary way for departments and faculty to determine if a student's interests and past experience make them a good fit for their program/institution.

Although many programs ask for ‘personal statements,' these are not really meant to be biographies or life stories. What we, at Tufts Psychology, hope to find out is how well your abilities, interests, experiences and goals would fit within our program.

We encourage you to illustrate how your lived experience demonstrates qualities that are critical to success in pursuing a PhD in our program. Earning a PhD in any program is hard! Thus, as you are relaying your past, present, and future research interests, we are interested in learning how your lived experiences showcase the following:

• Perseverance
• Resilience in the face of difficulty
• Motivation to undertake intensive research training
• Involvement in efforts to promote equity and inclusion in your professional and/or personal life
• Unique perspectives that enrich the research questions you ask, the methods you use, and the communities to whom your research applies

How Do I Even Start Writing One?

Before you begin your statement, read as much as possible about our program so you can tailor your statement and convince the admissions committee that you will be a good fit.

Prepare an outline of the topics you want to cover (e.g., professional objectives and personal background) and list supporting material under each main topic. Write a rough draft in which you transform your outline into prose. Set it aside and read it a week later. If it still sounds good, go to the next stage. If not, rewrite it until it sounds right.

Do not feel bad if you do not have a great deal of experience in psychology to write about; no one who is about to graduate from college does. Do explain your relevant experiences (e.g., internships or research projects), but do not try to turn them into events of cosmic proportion. Be honest, sincere, and objective.

What Information Should It Include?

Your research statement should describe your previous experience, how that experience will facilitate your graduate education in our department, and why you are choosing to pursue graduate education in our department. Your goal should be to demonstrate how well you will fit in our program and in a specific laboratory.

Make sure to link your research interests to the expertise and research programs of faculty here. Identify at least one faculty member with whom you would like to work. Make sure that person is accepting graduate students when you apply. Read some of their papers and describe how you think the research could be extended in one or more novel directions. Again, specificity is a good idea.

Make sure to describe your relevant experience (e.g., honors thesis, research assistantship) in specific detail. If you have worked on a research project, discuss that project in detail. Your research statement should describe what you did on the project and how your role impacted your understanding of the research question.

Describe the concrete skills you have acquired prior to graduate school and the skills you hope to acquire.

Articulate why you want to pursue a graduate degree at our institution and with specific faculty in our department.

Make sure to clearly state your core research interests and explain why you think they are scientifically and/or practically important. Again, be specific.

What Should It Look Like?

Your final statement should be succinct. You should be sure to thoroughly read and follow the length and content requirements for each individual application. Finally, stick to the points requested by each program, and avoid lengthy personal or philosophical discussions.

How Do I Know if It is Ready?

Ask for feedback from at least one professor, preferably in the area you are interested in. Feedback from friends and family may also be useful. Many colleges and universities also have writing centers that are able to provide general feedback.

Of course, read and proofread the document multiple times. It is not always easy to be a thoughtful editor of your own work, so don't be afraid to ask for help.

Lastly, consider signing up to take part in the Application Statement Feedback Program . The program provides constructive feedback and editing support for the research statements of applicants to Psychology PhD programs in the United States.

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Writing an Effective Research Statement

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A research statement is a summary of research achievements and a proposal for upcoming research. It often includes both current aims and findings, and future goals. Research statements are usually requested as part of a relevant job application process, and often assist in the identification of appropriate applicants. Learn more about how to craft an effective research statement.

Writing a research statement

By michael ernst, december, 2011 last updated: march 29, 2016.

A research statement lays out your vision of your research, including both your accomplishments to date and your plans for the future. It is a required part of many applications — for graduate school , for fellowships , for jobs (especially academic jobs ), for awards, etc.

This is a short collection of advice regarding some mistakes I have seen people make in their statements. It is incomplete at present, but still useful if it helps you avoid those common but important blunders.

Write your statement in the first person.

Your statement will likely discuss multiple research projects or results. Readers are unlikely to remember each of the projects in detail (though they may remember that you are broad, which is good). It will be easiest for readers to remember your work, and equally importantly to place it in context as they read your statement, if you can show how the projects are related. They might be in the same research subarea, or use related techniques, or stem from your own experiences, etc. Find a way to tie them together, which will make readers more likely to understand them. Furthermore, readers will be more likely to believe that you may continue to produce similar results in the future, if they see a pattern. After starting out with an overview (which might describe the general topic and its importance), tie the description of each result or project into that overview.

Somewhere — maybe at the beginning, though more likely at the end — you need to bring the statement to life and let your personality show through. Permit yourself to gush about how much you enjoy research: show that you really care about this and why. For example, you might state how important it is to you and how it has changed the way you think about your research area computing. Another way to address this (not incompatible with the others) is to say why you got involved in research at all; that might go at the beginning. If readers believe that you are enthusiastic about the topic, they will be more likely to believe that you are doing a great job and will be more favorably inclined toward you in general.

Research Statements

The research statement is a critical document in academic and research applications, such as postdoctoral fellowships or faculty positions. It is a concise summary of your research background, current research activities, and future research goals. It serves as a tool to showcase the independent research you conduct, highlight your research agenda and goals, demonstrate your writing ability, and articulate potential funding opportunities you plan to pursue.

Printable Research Statement Guide

Length and Format

• 1-2 single-spaced pages (unless specified otherwise) • Adheres to the specific length and content requirements of each application

Audience and Context

• Write your research statement for an audience of professionals in your field. • Assume that the readers have a solid foundation in the subject matter.

Introduction

Begin with an introduction that contextualizes your work within your broader field. Discuss the larger questions your research addresses and the significance of those questions within the field.

Research Interests

Describe your specific research interests within the broader context. What questions or problems are you focused on, and why are they important?

Mention any academic publications, conference presentations, or collaborations resulting from your past research.

Incorporating your Research

This is an accordion element with a series of buttons that open and close related content panels.

Past Research

Provide a concise history of your past research. Discuss the initial questions you aimed to answer, the findings you obtained, and how your work contributed to the field.

Present Research

Discuss your ongoing research. What questions are you currently investigating, and what have you discovered so far? Explain how your current work connects to the broader academic discourse, and mention any forthcoming publications, conferences, or other professional activities. Include specific examples of your successes.

Future Research

Detail plans for future research. What questions do you intend to address next, and how do you plan to answer them? Explain how the institution and program to which you are applying can support your research goals. Discuss the potential implications of your future work.

Tie It All Together

Ensure your statement is logically connected, showing a progression in your research journey. Highlight the primary question or theme that has guided your academic career, its importance to the field, and how each stage of your work has contributed to addressing that question.

Your research statement should convey your motivation and passion for your work. Ultimately, a well-crafted research statement should demonstrate your expertise, potential contributions to the field, and compatibility with the academic institution to which you are applying. It should provide a clear and compelling narrative of your research journey and ambitions.

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Research statements for faculty job applications

The purpose of a research statement.

The main goal of a research statement is to walk the search committee through the evolution of your research, to highlight your research accomplishments, and to show where your research will be taking you next. To a certain extent, the next steps that you identify within your statement will also need to touch on how your research could benefit the institution to which you are applying. This might be in terms of grant money, faculty collaborations, involving students in your research, or developing new courses. Your CV will usually show a search committee where you have done your research, who your mentors have been, the titles of your various research projects, a list of your papers, and it may provide a very brief summary of what some of this research involves. However, there can be certain points of interest that a CV may not always address in enough detail.

• What got you interested in this research?
• What was the burning question that you set out to answer?
• What challenges did you encounter along the way, and how did you overcome these challenges?
• How can your research be applied?
• Why is your research important within your field?
• What direction will your research take you in next, and what new questions do you have?

While you may not have a good sense of where your research will ultimately lead you, you should have a sense of some of the possible destinations along the way. You want to be able to show a search committee that your research is moving forward and that you are moving forward along with it in terms of developing new skills and knowledge. Ultimately, your research statement should complement your cover letter, CV, and teaching philosophy to illustrate what makes you an ideal candidate for the job. The more clearly you can articulate the path your research has taken, and where it will take you in the future, the more convincing and interesting it will be to read.

Separate research statements are usually requested from researchers in engineering, social, physical, and life sciences, but can also be requested for researchers in the humanities. In many cases, however, the same information that is covered in the research statement is often integrated into the cover letter for many disciplines within the humanities and no separate research statement is requested within the job advertisement. Seek advice from current faculty and new hires about the conventions of your discipline if you are in doubt.

Timeline: Getting Started with Your Research Statement

You can think of a research statement as having three distinct parts. The first part will focus on your past research and can include the reasons you started your research, an explanation as to why the questions you originally asked are important in your field, and a summary some of the work you did to answer some of these early questions.

The middle part of the research statement focuses on your current research. How is this research different from previous work you have done, and what brought you to where you are today? You should still explain the questions you are trying to ask, and it is very important that you focus on some of the findings that you have (and cite some of the publications associated with these findings). In other words, do not talk about your research in abstract terms, make sure that you explain your actual results and findings (even if these may not be entirely complete when you are applying for faculty positions), and mention why these results are significant.

The final part of your research statement should build on the first two parts. Yes, you have asked good questions and used good methods to find some answers, but how will you now use this foundation to take you into your future? Since you are hoping that your future will be at one of the institutions to which you are applying, you should provide some convincing reasons why your future research will be possible at each institution, and why it will be beneficial to that institution and to their students.

While you are focusing on the past, present, and future or your research, and tailoring it to each institution, you should also think about the length of your statement and how detailed or specific you make the descriptions of your research. Think about who will be reading it. Will they all understand the jargon you are using? Are they experts in the subject, or experts in a range of related subjects? Can you go into very specific detail, or do you need to talk about your research in broader terms that make sense to people outside of your research field, focusing on the common ground that might exist? Additionally, you should make sure that your future research plans differ from those of your PI or advisor, as you need to be seen as an independent researcher. Identify 4-5 specific aims that can be divided into short-term and long-term goals. You can give some idea of a 5-year research plan that includes the studies you want to perform, but also mention your long-term plans so that the search committee knows that this is not a finite project.

Another important consideration when writing about your research is realizing that you do not perform research in a vacuum. When doing your research, you may have worked within a team environment at some point or sought out specific collaborations. You may have faced some serious challenges that required some creative problem-solving to overcome. While these aspects are not necessarily as important as your results and your papers or patents, they can help paint a picture of you as a well-rounded researcher who is likely to be successful in the future even if new problems arise, for example.

Follow these general steps to begin developing an effective research statement:

Step 1: Think about how and why you got started with your research. What motivated you to spend so much time on answering the questions you developed? If you can illustrate some of the enthusiasm you have for your subject, the search committee will likely assume that students and other faculty members will see this in you as well. People like to work with passionate and enthusiastic colleagues. Remember to focus on what you found, what questions you answered, and why your findings are significant. The research you completed in the past will have brought you to where you are today; also be sure to show how your research past and research present are connected. Explore some of the techniques and approaches you have successfully used in your research, and describe some of the challenges you overcame. What makes people interested in what you do, and how have you used your research as a tool for teaching or mentoring students? Integrating students into your research may be an important part of your future research at your target institutions. Conclude describing your current research by focusing on your findings, their importance, and what new questions they generate.

Step 2: Think about how you can tailor your research statement for each application. Familiarize yourself with the faculty at each institution, and explore the research that they have been performing. You should think about your future research in terms of the students at the institution. What opportunities can you imagine that would allow students to get involved in what you do to serve as a tool for teaching and training them, and to get them excited about your subject? Do not talk about your desire to work with graduate students if the institution only has undergraduates! You will also need to think about what equipment or resources that you might need to do your future research. Again, mention any resources that specific institutions have that you would be interested in utilizing (e.g., print materials, super electron microscopes, archived artwork). You can also mention what you hope to do with your current and future research in terms of publication (whether in journals or as a book); try to be as specific and honest as possible. Finally, be prepared to talk about how your future research can help bring in grants and other sources of funding, especially if you have a good track record of receiving awards and fellowships. Mention some grants that you know have been awarded to similar research, and state your intention to seek this type of funding.

Step 3: Ask faculty in your department if they are willing to share their own research statements with you. To a certain extent, there will be some subject-specific differences in what is expected from a research statement, and so it is always a good idea to see how others in your field have done it. You should try to draft your own research statement first before you review any statements shared with you. Your goal is to create a unique research statement that clearly highlights your abilities as a researcher.

Step 4: The research statement is typically a few (2-3) pages in length, depending on the number of images, illustrations, or graphs included.  Once you have completed the steps above, schedule an appointment with a career advisor to get feedback on your draft. You should also try to get faculty in your department to review your document if they are willing to do so.

Additional Resources

For further tips, tricks, and strategies for writing a research statement for faculty jobs, see the resources below:

• The PhD Career Training Platform is an eLearning platform with on-demand, self-paced modules that allow PhDs and postdocs to make informed decisions about their career path and learn successful job search strategies from other PhDs. Select the University of Pennsylvania from the drop-down menu, log in using your University ID, and click the “Faculty Careers” tab to learn more about application documents for a faculty job search.
• Writing an Effective Research Statement
• Research Statements for Humanities PhDs
• Tips to Get Started on Your Research Statement (video)

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How to write a research statement

When you are applying for an academic position, you are often requested to write a research statement. A research statement is a document of typically 2-3 pages in which you describe your past, present, and future research.

Your past research experience can detail various projects you have worked on, the skills you learned, the publications that resulted from this work, and how this work was funded. For your present work, you can focus on a brief discussion of how you went from your past experience to your current project, and how it fits within the broader field. For your future work, you can discuss the main research line you would want to develop if you get hired by the institution where you are applying.

Since research statements are quite a standard part of an academic job application process, you can find various examples for different fields online. In this post, I have summarized my eight best tips for you:

1. Ask colleagues for examples

Ask colleagues in your field and at your goal institution for their examples of research statements, so that you get a better feeling of what is expected from you. You may get inspiration from typical examples that are available online, but you need to realize as well that each field and each university have their own preferences.

2. Read the instructions carefully

As with every type of application, you need to make sure you follow the instructions in terms of formatting and length to the letter. If your application does not follow the template, it may be headed for a straight rejection.

3. Explain why your research is important

When you discuss your research experience and plans for the future, make sure you explain the broader importance of your work. Why does your research matter? Which challenge for our society does your research contribute to, in one way or another?

4. Talk about funding and funding potential

Through which institutions have you obtained funding so far? How is your experience in terms of applying for funding? Have you worked in consortia yet in the past? All of these topics can be important to address to let the search committee know that you have experience with obtaining funding, and if you don’t have experience yet, that you have outlined where you will apply and how you will get support to get your proposals checked by somebody who can give you good advice before submission.

5. Write for a broad search committee

Academic search committees may bring together people from various fields, so try to write clearly and avoid jargon. Any person on the committee should be able to understand the topic you are working on, why it matters, and – at large- why you would be a good hire for them.

6. Show consistency in your career

Try to explain how you went from past to current research, and how you plan to continue in the future. This type of consistency does not mean that you need to be working on one single topic your entire research career, but means you show how you have built up skills and how you plan to use these for your future research topics.

7. Set realistic goals for the future

Avoid being vague and setting extremely lofty goals for your future research. Instead, show that you can tackle a realistic topic, based on your career trajectory, but that has significant impact as well. Make it as precise and detailed as possible.

8. Tailor to the institution

Part of being realistic, is tailoring your research statement to the institution as well. It’s tempting to make a single academic job application package and submit the same package to various institutions, but the search committee will notice this quickly. Tailor your application by explaining, for example, how your skills would be complementary to those in the institution, or how the laboratory facilities of this university would be a perfect match for the research you want to carry out.

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The Professor Is In

Guidance for all things PhD: Graduate School, Job Market and Careers

Dr. Karen’s Rules of the Research Statement

By Karen Kelsky | September 16, 2016

We’ve looked at the Cover Letter and the CV  and the Teaching Statement .  Today we look at the Research Statement.

An expanded and updated version of this post can now be found in chapter  27 of my book, the professor is in: the essential guide to turning your ph.d. into a job ..

Today, at long last, and in response to popular demand, a post on the Research Statement.

I have, perhaps, procrastinated on blogging about the Research Statement because at some level I felt that the rules might be more variable on this document, particularly with regard to length.

But in truth, they really aren’t.

The RS should be be two pages long for any junior candidate in the humanities or soft social sciences.  Two pages allows for an elaboration of the research well beyond the summary in the cover letter that gives the search committee substantial information to work with. Those junior candidates in the hard sciences and fields like Psychology can have 3-4 page research statements.

I strongly urge all job-seekers to investigate the norms of their individual fields carefully, and follow the advice they receive on this matter from experts in their own fields.  Just never simply ASSUME that longer is better in an RS or in any job document.

By the way, the RS to which I refer here is the document sometimes requested as part of a basic job application.  This is NOT the “research proposal” required by specific fellowship or postdoc applications!   Those will specify a length, and should be written to follow the outline I describe in Dr. Karen’s Foolproof Grant Template .) They are a totally different genre of document; don’t confuse the two!

Anyway, back to the RS: there are undoubtedly a number of excellent reasons that people could give for writing a longer RS, based on thoroughness or detail or concerns for accuracy. And I would acknowledge those principles as valid ones.

But they would all come second to the single most important principle of all job market writing, in my view, which is the principle of search committee exhaustion.

Search committee members are exhausted, and they are overwhelmed and distracted. There simply is no bandwidth in their brains or their psyches to handle the amount of material they are required to read, when searches routinely garner between 300 and 1000 applications.

Anything that feels “long” is going to be resented just by virtue of its length. And resentment is categorically what you don’t want a search committee member feeling about your job application materials.

So, in short, the Research Statement, just like the Teaching Statement , needs to be one to two pages in length, single spaced.  And like the TS, it needs to be in 11 or 12 point font, and have decent one-inch margins.

What are the other rules? Here they are:

• Print the RS on regular printer paper. Do not use letterhead for this or the TS, and do not use any special high grade paper.
• Put your name and the words “Research Statement” centered at the top.
• If unsure how to structure, use a 5-paragraph model as follows:

[… edited… ] 

Here are some additional principles:

• A RS (like a TS) is not tailored to a school overtly. While you may subtly adjust your project descriptions to speak to a specific type of job, you do not refer to any job or department or application in the statement itself.
• Do not refer to any other job documents in the RS (ie, “As you can see from my CV, I have published extensively….”)
• As in all job documents, remain strictly at the level of the evidentiary. State what you did, what you concluded, what you published, and why it matters for your discipline, period. Do not editorialize or make grandiose claims (“this research is of critical importance to…”).
• Do not waste precious document real estate on what other scholars have NOT done. Never go negative. Stay entirely in the realm of what you did, not what others didn’t.
• Do not position yourself as “extending” or “adding to” or “building off of” or … [what follows is edited…]
• Do not refer to other faculty or scholars in the document. The work is your own. If you co-authored a piece…
• Do not refer to yourself as studying “under” anybody…
• Do not forget to articulate the core argument of your research. I am astounded at how often (probably in about 80% of client documents) I have to remind clients to …
• Give a sense of a publishing trajectory, moving from past to present…
• Make sure you are not coming across as a one-trick pony. The second major project must be clearly distinct …
• Use the active voice as much as possible, but beware a continual reliance on “I-Statements”, as I describe in this post, The Golden Rule of the Research Statement.

I will stop here. Readers, please feel free to add more in the comments.  I will add to this post as further refinements come to mind.

Similar Posts:

• This Christmas, Don’t Be Cheap
• The Dreaded Teaching Statement: Eight Pitfalls
• The Golden Rule of the Research Statement
• What is Evidence of Teaching Excellence?
• How To Identify Yourself as a Diversity Hire

Reader Interactions

August 30, 2012 at 12:38 pm

I am interested in applying for Ph.D programs in the UK and they ask for a Research Proposal…is this the same thing as a Research Statement?

August 30, 2012 at 12:59 pm

No, they are looking for what you might think of as a research protocol, so literally your background, literature review, hypotheses and methods. You would need to convey how this is a unique area of research that is novel and adds to the existing literature; they are assessing the novelty of your research and how you would conduct the study. PhD programs in the UK are heavily researched based; you would need to show that you could literally hit the ground running to do your PhD. A major difference is that UK PhD’s usually take 3-4 years full-time and this is stringently enforced. I have a PhD from the UK and there are obviously pros and cons compared to the US system but you need to be a confident researcher if you’re planning to take that route.

August 30, 2012 at 1:28 pm

No: a Research Proposal is intended as a pitch for a specific project, or the research programme you will undertake within a specific timeframe (such as a PhD or a post-doc). A Research Statement is used for applications for jobs and occasionally fellowships, and outlines the research you have *already* completed, and what you plan to pursue next. So your Research Statement will describe your doctoral thesis as a finished (or very nearly finished) product, and list the publications generated by your doctoral work and any subsequent projects.

August 30, 2012 at 2:12 pm

No, a research proposal is a description of what you would like to do for you PhD research. Essentially an outline of your expected PhD thesis (which can of course change later once you’ve been accepted and started working on your research) with a short lit review, an identification of a research gap that you plan to address and a brief outline of proposed methods.

August 30, 2012 at 12:46 pm

What about in the case where you are asked to provide a “Teaching and Research Statement” in addition to a statement of your teaching philosophy? I have gone for a one page statement which focuses on my research but links that to my teaching so as not to repeat too much from my philosophy or my cover letter. Any thoughts from others?

August 30, 2012 at 5:02 pm

I’m preparing a “Teaching and Research Statement” and have kept it at 2 pages (1 page for teaching and 1 for research). Do others think that’s OK? If it’s 1 page total, for both teaching and research, then how much could I really say? That’s so short, less room than a 2-page cover letter.

September 1, 2012 at 9:05 am

Yes, on occasions where jobs ask for that combined statement, I always work with clients to do a two page document, with one page devoted to each part.

September 20, 2017 at 10:09 am

Found the blog this week… I wish I found sooner!! Gongrats! One add-on question: in the case of a combined document, would you start with the RS and then TS, or it doesn’t make much difference?

September 21, 2017 at 9:56 am

I’d start with RS in general, but it would depend on the job – teaching-centric jobs would be the reverse.

September 16, 2021 at 7:13 pm

Hello, so glad I found your blog! The application I am putting together requests a statement of research philosophy, a teaching philosophy, and a combined research and teaching interests statement. In this case, would one page combined be sufficient with a much briefer review of interests in each area (given that so much more detail is available in the philosophy statements)?

August 30, 2012 at 1:21 pm

In my field in R1 jobs it is pretty rare that one is asked to prepare a research statement. This stuff does in the cover letter. Any insight into when one is asked for this?

August 30, 2012 at 1:27 pm

Field dependent, but as KK points out, you should have a research paragraph (or two) in your cover letter anyway…

August 30, 2012 at 1:26 pm

The above echoes my experience. One obvious caveat would be postdocs and such that either stipulate a longer statement length (the ol’ two page Fulbright IIE style), or suggest a wider range of material should be included.

August 30, 2012 at 2:50 pm

Thanks for the tips – a very useful post! How do these apply to postdoc applications?

– If the required length of the research statement is not stipulated, would one page also be sufficient for a postdoc application?

– Also, what is the convention for naming (with title) your advisor in the cover letter – should this also be avoided?

August 30, 2012 at 1:30 pm

In terms of the 5-paragraph model, where would you include subsequent projects, i.e if you are on your second or third post-doc. Do you give equal time/space to each project you have completed, or just the basic run-down and focus more on current or upcoming work?

August 30, 2012 at 3:46 pm

This is a good question. If you’re well beyond the diss, then you will use the “diss” para to describe your most important recent research, then at the end of that para or in the next one, indicate with a sentence or two the research that preceded it (demonstrating an organic connection between them if possible), with a major publication or two. And then from that, move to the next major project. So it’s a bit more of a zig zag, with the past sandwiched between (and subordinate to) the present and the future.

August 30, 2012 at 3:47 pm

Let me respond in a different way. if you are a senior scholar applying for an associate or full position, then your RS may certainly be longer than one page (although I’d cap it at two, myself). The one page rule applies most to those who are seeking their first or second assistant professor position.

August 30, 2012 at 4:10 pm

Where is the appropriate place to highlight (solo or lead-author) publications developed outside of your dissertation work? For example, a secondary area of inquiry that runs tangential to your core area of research.

September 1, 2012 at 9:08 am

That can get another paragraph. Now, this is tricky. If you have an *extensive* secondary body of work for whatever reason then in that case, you may be one of the people who can go onto two pages. This is rare—most job seekers just have their diss, its pubs, and a planned second project, and that can all go on one page. If you have a small body of secondary research, that can also still fit on one page. So the judgment call comes in knowing how much is “too much” to legitimately fit on one page. Questions like that are what people hire me for!

August 30, 2012 at 5:07 pm

I’m wondering about repeating myself. The 5-paragraph format for the research statement is very similar to the format for the cover letter. So should we more briefly discuss points we’ve fleshed out in the cover letter, to save the space for points that are not in the cover letter? Or is repeating the info in the research statement and cover letter OK/expected? (If you’re repeating yourself, then there’s the issue of figuring out X different ways to say the same thing.)

I answer this in another response, but basically you have the space here to go into far more detail about the scholarship itself—the methods, the theoretical orientation, a very brief and edited literature context, and a strong statement of contribution to the discipline. You can give chapter summaries of about one sentence each, and you can also describe the publications in a sentence or two (not possible in the job letter). And the biggest thing in the RS is the description of the second project. The cover letter devotes a very short paragraph to that, of approximately 2-3 sentences, but in the RS, it can get a full-sized paragraph.

January 21, 2020 at 1:11 pm

This is a very delayed response, but I’m hoping you still get the notification! I want to make sure that it’s appropriate to cite specific authors in describing the lit context. Thank you much!

August 30, 2012 at 7:30 pm

I struggle with para. 4 because I have 3 major post-diss projects in mind. 2 are off-shoots of the diss. material in the sense that they contribute to the same field as my diss. but look at very different aspects than my diss. covered. The 3rd project is a completely different trajectory with little-no connection to my diss. I fear it sounds “out of left field” as they say, but it’s my dream-project. So I’m not sure how to communicate all of these interests. Thoughts?

September 1, 2012 at 9:12 am

This is a huge question, and one that I’m going to edit the post to include. It is critical that no job seeker propose more than one next project. This may seem counter-intuitive. Surely, the more ideas I have, the more intellectually dynamic I look, right? Wrong. Anything above one major post-diss project makes you look scattered and at risk in your eventual tenure case. A tenure case requires a clear and linear trajectory from the diss, its pubs, to a second project, and its pubs.

Now, I hasten to add that this rule applies most firmly in the humanities and humanistically inclined social sciences. In the hard sciences, and experimental or lab-based social sciences, the rhythm of research and publishing is different and different rules might possibly apply, with a larger number of smaller-scale projects possible. But in book fields, you need to do one book…and then a second book…for tenure.

September 4, 2012 at 9:49 am

thanks Karen, I will keep this in mind

October 22, 2016 at 9:01 am

Do you know of a source for more information about this problem from the hard sciences and engineering perspective?

August 30, 2012 at 10:02 pm

In a research proposal (i.e., for a specific postdoc), what is the appropriate length of time for revising a dissertation for publication? My instinct is, for a 3-year program, to devote 2 years to revision/publication, and one year to the new research project. Is this too slow, too fast, too hot, too cold, or just right?

September 1, 2012 at 9:00 am

To my mind that is exactly right. However, I know of a major Ivy League 3-year fellowship that expects 3 years to be spent on the first book. I find that baffling. As a postdoc you have few teaching obligations and almost no committee/service work….why would it require three years to transform your diss to a book in that environment? This particular app does allow you to *optionally* propose a second project for the third year, and I recommend that all applicants do that.

August 30, 2012 at 10:07 pm

Karen, thanks for this and all of your other helpful posts. I’m a sociology phd student at a top department, and served on the hiring committee last year. Not a single applicant made it onto our short list (or even the “semifinalist” list of 30 candidates) with less than a 2 page research statement (and most were 2.5-3 pages). Maybe my institution is unique, or maybe they were poorly written and not as detailed as they could have been in one page. But I just wanted to share my experience for any sociologists reading this blog.

September 1, 2012 at 9:01 am

That’s interesting. That would seem to be fetishizing length qua length…. the work can be described in one page when the one page is well written.

September 4, 2012 at 7:45 am

I’m in a top psychology program, and I echo this– I have read many research statements for short-listed candidates in my department, and I have never seen a research statement shorter than two pages, and typically they are three or four.

September 5, 2012 at 10:27 am

I crowd sourced the question on FB and most responses said they favor a one page version. I suppose this could be a field specific thing. The humanities are def. one page. It strikes me that social sciences and psych in particular might be tending toward longer. I really wouldn’t recommend more than two though.

September 17, 2013 at 8:58 am

I am writing my own R.S. and have asked for copies from colleagues in both psychology and the life sciences. In all cases, the R.S. has been at least 4 pages. So, it doesn’t seem specific to just the social sciences. Maybe it’s a difference in the prestige of the universities, with R-1 preferring lengthier research statements, while liberal arts universities prefer a smaller research statement. Most candidates at R-1s also have lengthier C.V.s which would imply a longer R.S. no?

September 17, 2013 at 9:48 pm

October 15, 2013 at 8:17 pm

I’d seen a lot of recommendations online for RSs to have a hard limit of either one or two pages. When I asked my own (Education) professors about it, they said that two pages sounded short and that they’d seen everything from one page to ten pages but recommended keeping it no longer than 3-4. Right now mine is 2.5 pages.

August 30, 2012 at 10:24 pm

Thanks for this really helpful post! A few quick quick follow up questions that I’m sure may benefit others who have similar concerns. 1. As we situate our dissertation research within our fields (paragraph 2/3) does this mean we have license to use field-specific vocabulary or theoretical language? (as opposed to the cover letter, where we’re writing in a much more accessible voice?) 2. Also, many of the items in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th paragraphs you suggest would seem to overlap quite extensively with the cover letter, making it hard to properly differentiate what goes where. For schools that require this statement, should we just strip down our cover letter and include some of these details in our research statement? Or, is there something I’m missing? And finally, 3. A bit of a mega-question, but what is the *point* of a research statement? Why do some schools have them? Understanding the reasons some departments request it would be helpful, especially in differentiating from the cover letter. Sincerely, Grad-student-on-the-market

September 1, 2012 at 8:58 am

Never strip down the cover letter. That is the document that opens the door for the reading of the other docs such as TS and RS. The distinction of the RS is that it can be more field-specific and far more detailed than what you can provide in the single para devoted to the research in the job letter. You can also situate the research vis-a-vis scholarship in the field (carefully and within limits, remembering the rules that the work described is YOUR OWN, and never to devote precious real estate to what OTHER PEOPLE have or have not done).

You can also briefly sketch the chapters of the dissertation as long as you give no more than about one sentence per chapter. One of the most tedious pitfalls of the RS is the exhaustive chapter-by-chapter description of the diss.

And re #3: that’s a great question. What IS the point? Basically, if the cover letter and CV open the door to your candidacy for the very first cut in a search comm member’s mind (say, from 500 to 100), then the RS gives more detailed indication that are a hard-hitting scholar with a sophisticated research program and a body of dense scholarship that will yield the publications you need for tenure, and also answer the question more clearly as to your fit for the job and for the department.

August 31, 2012 at 9:32 am

Is the Research statement the same as the diss abstract? My field seems to consistently ask for diss abstract and all the examples I have seen are two pages, with page one being a discussion of the project, it’s contributions, etc. and the second being ch descriptions.

August 31, 2012 at 12:05 pm

No, the diss abs. is an abstract of the diss! Common in English.

November 2, 2012 at 11:26 am

thanks for making this distinction. is there a length limit on the diss abstract?

September 1, 2012 at 12:08 pm

I’m in a STEM field and would disagree with limiting the RS to 1 page. Most research statements that I have seen (for searches at R1 schools) have been 2-3 pages. One aspect of this which may be different in STEM fields compared to social sciences/humanities is that in STEM you really should include between 1 and 3 figures in the research statement. We like data and we want to see yours. My research statements always included at least two figures – one from published work and one from a cool new result that wasn’t yet published (but was either in review or accepted but not in press, making it hard to scoop). Depending on the school I also sometimes included a picture of a cool method (it’s a pretty pic too) – that was typically done for SLAC apps where I was also making the point that I would be able to involve their students in that research. With figures that are actually readable, there is no way to get away with less than 2-3 pages for a research statement. Again I think this may be STEM specific but given how scientists read journals – most folks go straight to the figures and then later look at the text – this is probably a good tactic in those fields.

September 4, 2012 at 12:21 pm

I love the idea that a research statement could include figures. I’ve never seen one like this (I’m in biological anthropology) and have never thought this would be something that could be included.

September 5, 2012 at 10:25 am

In the hard sciences this is not uncommon.

September 1, 2012 at 4:33 pm

Forgive me for bringing up/asking the perhaps obvious. So no master’s thesis mention?

Also, you mention not providing two second projects. Would that still apply if one is far-away foreign, and the other local?

September 4, 2012 at 9:43 am

Another question on the MA – mine was empirical research published in a general science journal (Proc B) so I definitely need to mention it. But my question is whether I should explicitly say that this was my MA project?

I’m entering the job market ABD.

September 5, 2012 at 10:26 am

avoid framing yourself as a student, particularly MA.

September 4, 2012 at 9:32 am

I’d say, especially for humanities fields, the “baseline” of 1 page single-spaced that Karen mentions is correct. As she says in the post, there are obvious exceptions (STEM might want more, specific jobs might want more), but assuming 1 page without any other specific information is a good standard rule. In fact, from my own experience, 1 page generally works for any document that isn’t your vitae or your job letter.

The reason I say this is because you basically want to make a good impression pretty quickly. Job committees have limited time, and they are probably going to scan your document before deciding whether it is worth reading it in full. I’d also suggest reading up on document design, and making your documents easy to scan by putting in effective headers that give a powerful overall impression of your candidacy. You should also design those headers to lure your readers to look at your work more closely.

September 4, 2012 at 12:04 pm

I’m going through the process right now as an ABD, following advice from many quarters including TPII and a number of junior and senior faculty in top departments in my field. I have collected sample statements from 5 successful candidates and they are all in the 3-5 page range, closer to what the sociologist above describes. I have not seen a single statement at one page.

September 4, 2012 at 6:23 pm

When proposing future research, do you still recommend we avoid stating what others have NOT done? Can these types of statements, “yet others have not yet address xxx and yyy”, be helpful in justifying the need for our proposed topic?

It is always good to indicate, rather briskly, “in contrast to other work that has emphasized xxx…” or “no studies to date have examined xxxx.” What I am cautioning against is the very common temptation among young candidates to harp on and on about other scholars’ shortcomings, or how their diss topic is “badly understudied” (a phrase I’d give my right hand never to have to read again). Can the self-righteousness and just describe your work and its contribution.

September 7, 2012 at 12:54 pm

thanks for the post!

I had a question about not giving the sense that one is “extending” past work. As you say in this post: “Avoid the temptation to describe how you will “continue” or “extend” your previous research topics or approaches.”

In my case, my book will be comprised of about half new material and half dissertation research. “Extending” feels like an accurate word to describe the relationship between the diss and the book. Like, ‘Extending my diss research on xxx, the book offers new ways of thinking about issues yyy and zzz. …’

So is this the wrong way to describe the relationship between book and diss (even if it seems accurate?) What are *good* ways to talk about the relationship between the two when the book really does “build on” groundwork laid in the diss?

September 7, 2012 at 2:45 pm

This question actually requires a blog post on its own. There is a weird fixation among job seekers on the word ‘extend.” I don’t get it, and find it mystifying and irritating. Of course books or second projects will typically have some organic connection to the diss. But the insistence on saying that they “extend” the diss makes the DISS primary, and the new work secondary. But on the job market and in your career, the diss must NOT be primary. The diss is something a grad student writes. You are not applying to be a grad student. You are applying to be professor. So it’s the new material that should have primacy. Yet young job seekers are so myopically fixated on their diss that all they ever do is harp on and on about how every single damned thing they’re going to do next is basically a reworking of the diss material. Yuck! Who wants that?

As you can see, I am a bit reactive at this point…

September 7, 2012 at 2:53 pm

ok! I hear you saying that it is more about not giving the sense, throughout the letter, that the book is a mere “extension” of the dissertation, and that typically this word is overused by applicants and thus gives that impression. That makes sense. Personally, the sentence I noted above about is my only reference to the diss–the rest is all about the book and future project since I’m a postdoc and the diss is really in the past. 🙂 thanks!

September 15, 2012 at 7:19 pm

Thanks for the helpful guidelines, Karen!

How would you recommend shifting the focus of the paragraphs for those of us going on the market as postdocs? For me, I’ll have completed 2 years of a postdoc in Education, and so I have many new projects more relevant to my future research than my dissertation was. However, except for a few conference proceedings, I have no publications on my postdoc research yet. In fact, some of my proposed “new” research will be to continue what I began in my postdoctoc. Do hiring committees look down upon this?

Thanks for your advice!

September 22, 2012 at 5:58 am

Does anyone here know if this is an effective format for British Oxbridge postdocs as well? I’m finishing a UK PhD and pretty keen to stay in the country, and obviously these are madly competitive. I know my research is good, but the eternal question of how to make anything in the humanities sound important to other people, you know?

October 13, 2012 at 5:31 pm

Please tag this post so that it appears under the teaching and research statement category!

October 13, 2012 at 9:05 pm

October 29, 2012 at 4:38 pm

Karen: “Just never simply ASSUME that longer is better in an RS or in any job document”

Yours Truly: “Just never simply ASSUME that they are going to read what you write. Often they a long CV, RS, and list of publications to tick all the boxes and cover their backs.”

November 20, 2012 at 1:35 pm

If I consider teaching and curriculum development part of my research, is it okay to mention this in the RS–specifically if written for a university more focused on teaching than research? My assumption is that R1 schools would look down on this…?

November 20, 2012 at 2:56 pm

Unless you’re in the field of education, you can’t include teaching or curric. in a RS.

December 16, 2012 at 11:44 pm

Than you very much Karen. A valuable guide

December 31, 2012 at 7:37 pm

Does the rule of no more than one future project description apply to the field of developmental psychology?

*Please delete above post with my full name, I did not realize it would post

January 1, 2013 at 9:35 am

You would need to investigate that among your profs and colleagues. I don’t know the expectations of all fields well enough to advise.

September 18, 2013 at 4:10 pm

I wrote a research statement and asked a friend in my department look at it. She said I should include a paragraph on collaborative work I’ve done as well. The problem is that all of my “collaborative” work is really “assistance”. I do not want to frame myself as a graduate student, but I also see the value in highlighting my ability to produce scholarship with other people. Any thoughts on this, Karen or others?

September 27, 2013 at 8:37 pm

Many thanks! I searched through a tone of sites for samples and examples, but yours is the most helpful.

September 29, 2013 at 7:32 am

Does one use references and include a reference list in a research statement?

October 24, 2013 at 10:40 am

I’d like to know the answer to this question, too.

Karen’s advise (Do not refer to other faculty or scholars in the document. The work is your own. If you co-authored a piece, do not use the name of the co-author. Simply write, “I have a co-authored essay in the Journal of XXX.”) sounds like you shouldn’t, but I personally see more advantages (that’s what scholars are used to, you can reference one paper multiple times without much space, you give the full information of your papers) then disadvantages (mention other authors).

So some remarks on using reference lists/bibliographies would be really interesting.

October 11, 2013 at 2:17 pm

You mention that P4 should include: “A summary of the next research project, providing a topic, methods, a theoretical orientation, and brief statement of contribution to your field or fields.”

How specific do you need to get with that information? I want the review committees to see that I have good, viable ideas for future research, but at the same time I’m worried that by giving too many details my ideas are liable to get stolen…not to mention that more detail means a lot more space on the document and I’m already finding it really hard to keep it to 2 pages even just using pretty general info. All the example research statements from my field that I’m reading make generalized statements like, “This area of my research will focus on developing and characterizing the structure of smart multifunctional materials for infrastructure applications,” but that just doesn’t seem like enough…

Thanks for the advice! Your blog has been so valuable as I am preparing my application package. 🙂

October 24, 2013 at 8:52 am

Hi Karen, I am applying for a few Phd positions & programs around the world, and some programs ask for a research statement, some for a statement of purpose. I fell Ill during my master’s studies and it had impacted my studies to the point of taking a leave of absence(and is known by my referees). As I understand, I can mention that in a SOP, but not in a research statement. Is there anyway I can communicate to the admissions committee about my situation (within the scope of my application) ?

October 30, 2013 at 7:13 am

Hello, Karen, I am an old follower returning. In a research statement, do you give considerably less space to what is already published, books and articles, and much more space and detail to describe projects(s) in progress or about to be launched as research proposal applications?

October 31, 2013 at 7:32 am

I recommend balancing about half and half; in the case of very young/junior candidates, though, the previous/current stuff is going to far outweigh the future stuff.

November 6, 2013 at 12:32 am

I am applying to an R1 and part of the app package asks for a “statement of research interests”. it sounds self-evident, but this is different from a research statement, right? They are, in fact, wanting to know what my future research projects are, to ascertain if i am a good prospect, correct?

Many thanks, Karen and co.!!!

November 8, 2013 at 10:40 am

No. it’s the same thing.

November 8, 2013 at 2:35 pm

Hi, I am applying to graduate school, and some programs ask for a research statement. I have not done any independent research, but have worked in a lab under a postdoc for three years. As a undergrad, is it okay to refer to the postdoc by name and say that I was assisting? Should this be structured any differently than the model you gave above? Thanks!

January 20, 2014 at 5:02 am

I’m applying for a PhD scholarship and I’m required to write a research statement. Is there any different format for a PhD student to be or just follow the same as per above?

Thanks a lot!

February 7, 2014 at 10:58 am

Hi, Could you please let me know if it is proper to mention some of projects in a certain master course that one took? I asked this because I am applying for a position that almost there is not a direct relation between my master thesis and my prospective PhD supervisor’s research interests. Thank you in advance.

February 21, 2014 at 11:23 pm

If some of your research background was for a government agency and your results went to government documents and forms, are you allowed to include it in your research statement. For example, I am applying for a job that calls for a research statement in which I would be designing stream sampling plans and in the past I worked for state government designing and implementing SOPs for stream sampling and EPA reports. This experience is much more applicable to the job than my dissertation research is. In other words, is the RS more to show I can do research and think like a researcher or that I have done similar research in the past?

March 6, 2014 at 10:00 am

Hi, This post has been really helpful to me. I have a question about citations in a research statement. Should I cite relevant or seminal studies? Or is a research statement assumed to be written out of the authors own confidence, experience, and general knowledge of their field of study? If yes to citations, is there an optimal amount? Thank you!

April 26, 2014 at 11:01 am

I dont understand why I cannot name who I collaborated with, or worked with and claim complete ownership. Most of all disseration ideas comes out of a collaborative effort. Seems kinda lame to suddenly act like every idea is all mine without giving due credit.

April 26, 2014 at 12:00 pm

it’s not claiming ownership. It’s focusing on the work that YOU did as part of the project and not dispersing attention to other scholars, in this particular document.

April 28, 2014 at 10:09 am

I disagree. All of your recommendations are valid except for this one. In science and engineering, almost all dissertation work is collaborative; that’s how it works, either through industry applications, a reagent or mathematical technique, opportunity to apply theory to projects etc. Of course, the student has to compe up with the research questions and hypothesis and methodologies but it is very rare for one lab to have everything that the student needs in-house and even rarer for the work to be done in complete isolation (you don’t see that many two author papers in STEM fields these days). Including names of other people would actually be a good thing as it shows a willingness to interact and collaborate with a diverse set of people, picking up new skills and perspectives; this is how science is done these days. Of course the research thrust should be from the individual, but that is like a given.

October 26, 2014 at 8:00 pm

I am also in a STEM field, and all of my research has been collaborative to one degree or another. In my tenure-track applications last year, I mainly phrased my research statement to say that I work with YYY group on YYY, lead studies of ZZZ within the ZZZ Collaboration, and so on. I didn’t get any interviews.

This year I received some feedback from a new letter writer (and current collaborator), who thought that last year’s statement made it hard for outsiders to tell what specific ideas I had and what I specifically did about those ideas. When I rewrote my research statement to focus on those issues this year, I ended up with a stronger document that didn’t need to mention my collaborators at all — not because I tried to claim credit for everything, but because I wrote about my own contributions rather than the corporate identity.

Since jobs go to individuals and not corporations, I am strongly inclined to agree with Karen’s advice, even for STEM fields. In fact, it may be even more important for those of us with highly collaborative research to discuss our own contributions and leave our colleagues out of our research statements. The CV/publication list makes it clear that we interact and collaborate with others. The difficulty is to demonstrate what I actually did as author #13 (in alphabetical order) that makes me actually worth hiring.

April 29, 2014 at 5:03 am

Dear Karen, I am applying for a faculty position and have been asked to provide along with the usual CV and cover letter “Research Program Plan” and “Teaching philosophy”. Could you please or anyone inform me if the “Research Program Plan”is the same as the RS or a detailed research proposal? Additionally, should I include in the teaching philosophy an experience in my undergraduate that has shaped my teaching philosophy? Finally, should my TP include any courses ever taught or course proposals? Your candid response will be appreciated. Thanks

April 29, 2014 at 8:00 am

The RPP is the same as a RS. Please read all my posts on the Teaching Statement for more on that—do NOT include your undergrad experiences. Check out my column in Chronicle Vitae for more on that question–it’s the column on how to apply to a Small Liberal Arts College (SLAC) job.

July 16, 2014 at 3:39 am

Dear Karen, I am applying for a postdoc position in Spain and have been asked to provide along with CV and references, a “cover letter with a description of research accomplishments and statement of overall scientific goals and interests (approximately 1000 words)”. This messes up the usual structure I have in mind. What do you suggest? Two different files or a hybrid between them in one file? thanks

September 17, 2014 at 1:12 pm

Hi Dr. Karen,

I just wanted to say thanks for such an awesome article and the pointers.

Cheers Sajesh

October 13, 2014 at 4:15 pm

I am a bit confused about what a “statement of previous researc” looks like. Any insights?

October 14, 2014 at 12:59 pm

basically this RS doc, without anything about future research.

October 22, 2014 at 5:49 pm

I’m applying for a tenure track position in Strategic Management but my dissertation was on a topic related to my field, pharmaceuticals. How do I craft a RS if I really haven’t thought about future research in topics related to management but my teaching experience and work experience (line management) is directly related to management/leadership?

October 27, 2014 at 12:38 pm

Hi, Dr. Karen,

I’m applying for tenure-track positions in Computer Science. My current research focus (and for the last year and a half in my postdoc) has been in “data science”, primarily applied to biology; my dissertation work was in computational biology. I don’t want to focus on the biology aspect; I see this research being more broadly applicable. I also have significant industry experience from before my PhD; I spent 6 years doing work that was very relevant to this field of data science (in finance and in global trade), and I’d like to tie that industry work into my research statement. What do you think about this? Some have told me I should just talk about my postdoctoral research, while others have said the industry experience, since it’s very relevant, makes me a stronger candidate and I should tie it and my dissertation work into my postdoc and future research.

What are your thoughts? Thanks!

October 31, 2014 at 7:41 am

I am a young scholar in Communication. My research plan includes a description of past and current research projects (dissertation + 4 subsequent projects) and a description of short and long term projects (work in progress and three major research projects I want to undertake). I have been told this is not enough and I need more projects in my proposal. Only 2 pages for so many projects (including a detailed timeline) does not seem feasible.

November 3, 2014 at 7:50 pm

Dear Dr. Karen, First, let me thank you for your website. I’ve been reading it carefully the past few weeks, and I’ve found it very informative and helpful. I’m in something of a unique situation, so I’m not sure how to best make use of your advice on the RS, which seems aimed at newly minted PhDs. I have been in my current position, teaching at a community college, since 1997. During this time, I completed my doctorate (awarded in 2008). I taught abroad on a Fulbright scholarship in 2010-11, and during that time revised and expanded my dissertation for publication (this included contextual updates and one complete new chapter). I was fortunate enough to get a contract, and the book appeared in 2012; the paperback is coming out this month. Given my experiences, I want to make the move to a 4-year institution, if possible (I realize the odds are slim). A few of the ads I’m looking at are asking for a research statement. So, how do I best handle my circumstance in the RS? The dissertation and book are largely the same. Where should I provide the detailed description of my project and the chapter summaries (as you’ve recommended)? How can I avoid redundancies? Your advice is appreciated.

November 5, 2014 at 3:02 am

Dear Dr Karen,

I have read parts of your blog with great interest .. I need some advice.. if you have a research statement where one is combining two different streams of research, is this generally a good idea or would it be better to have a single stream? At the moment mine RS is nearly 4 pages (I have a short 3 page version of this).

Can you also give advice about an “academic plan” is this simply the 1-2 page “teaching statement”? Do yo have pointers/advice for this?

best regards,

November 9, 2014 at 10:50 am

Greetings Dr. Karen, hope this message finds you well.

I am applying for my first post-doc fresh out of my PhD. But I also did a Master’s prior to my PhD which resulted in publications and a thesis. That being said, do you think I should add my Master’s research to my research statement? I planned on putting it just above my PhD research. Thanks a lot 🙂

November 10, 2014 at 11:46 am

I’m wondering if it’s acceptable to mention personal qualities in an RS, such as being a collaborative worker or being able to acquire new skills rapidly (with concrete examples, that is). Normally I would put that in a cover letter, but it seems that cover letters are a thing of the past.

November 10, 2014 at 10:01 pm

No, that is not the place for that. Really, no part of the academic job application is the place for that.

November 19, 2014 at 6:47 am

Dear Karen, a special question… how do your rules above changing when writing a research statement for someone who has 4+years of AP experience and tons of research after dissertation?

Yours and other suggestions seem to be from the point of view of a grad/post-grad. Need some good insight/advise on how to to tailor a description of your research that spans many different threads and is perhaps quite a bit different from your dissertation.

November 26, 2014 at 9:51 pm

Dear Karen,

Thank you for this useful post. What about career goals? Does one mention those in the research statement or cover letter, if at all? For example, for NIH career development awards one has to write a one-page personal statement that includes career and research goals. The two are often aligned.

More specific, can /should one say things along the lines of: “My primary career goal is to become a successful independent investigator focused on xxx research.” or “I plan to secure a faculty position at a major university or research institute where I can engage in cutting edge research on xxx.”

Thank you for your insights.

Best regards,

November 27, 2014 at 9:19 am

This is more industry/business talk and not typical for academia. If you are articulating a complex research and teaching plan, it is UNDERSTOOD that you’re aiming for an academic career.

November 30, 2014 at 9:58 am

Dear Prof Karen Greeting, hope this greeting finds you well I have read this blog with great interest…In my opinion, writing teaching and research statements are very difficult than writing a PhD research… For your info that I have finished my PhD research with 17 publications in 2 years and 4 months and since that time (2 years)still writing my research statement and not finish yet..

November 30, 2014 at 10:13 pm

Thank you for your reply! Leaving this out will save me a lot of space. Best regards

January 14, 2015 at 11:17 am

I am applying for a grad program in engineering and the university requires me to write a research statement. I have no prior research experience nor have I thought about any topics for research. How do I approach this problem?

January 14, 2015 at 2:29 pm

I’m sorry, I don’t provide advice on applications to grad programs.

January 16, 2015 at 1:07 am

Okay, thank you.

January 23, 2015 at 11:33 pm

Hi, can I cite a reference in statement of research interests for a postdoctoral position? If so, do I include the reference of the citation at the bottom of the page? Also, do I title my statement of research interests page as ” statement of research interests”? Thank you.

February 4, 2015 at 10:18 am

I am applying for a 1 yr postdoc in the social science and humanities. The initial position is offered for one year with a possibility of renewal for up to one more year.

My plan is to use the postdoc opportunity to convert my dissertation into a book manuscript. I have a 2 yr plan which i believe is realistic. Roughly first yr review expand literature, reassess chapters, conduct addition interviews to build on insights. The second year would be analysis of data and writing and revising. How do I reduce this to a yr? Or do I propose it as a two yr endeavor?

February 5, 2015 at 9:39 am

to be blunt, you should skip the expanding of the literature, the reassessing, and the additional interviews. Things like this are what delay books. Transform your diss into a book mss with a one-year writing plan, and submit it for publication by the end of that year. Early in the year (or before you arrive) you send out proposals for advance contracts. This is what makes for a competitive postdoc app.

February 27, 2015 at 9:31 am

Thanks for your post. I am writing my RS with your comments as my reference. However, I have some concerns and wish you could offer some suggestions.

You mentioned that when writing RS, we should 1) Do not waste precious document real estate on what other scholars have NOT done. Never go negative. Stay entirely in the realm of what you did, not what others didn’t; and 2) Do not position yourself as “extending” or “adding to” or “building off of” or “continuing” or “applying” other work, either your own or others.

My doctoral thesis is to theoretically extend a theoretical model and empirically test it, which implies that the developer of the original model missed something to consider and I help do it. But if I take (1) and (2) into account. I may not be able to describe the rationale of my dissertation and further show the contribution.

In addition, (part of) my future directions is to increase the generalizability of the extended model, which means that I may apply it to my future research; and to discuss a potential issue in the extended model. However, if I take (2) into account, it seems that I cannot address it in the RS. Interesting enough, I found a number of model developers applied their developed theoretical models throughout the year with different research focuses and to validate the model. Should not such a way recommended to be addressed in the RS? Just a bit confused.

Would you please kindly help with the above? Thanks a lot.

March 4, 2015 at 2:16 pm

I am in public health and am a generalist so I have conduct research on a wide variety of topics. My masters thesis was on cesarean delivery guidelines and my dissertation is on the effect of legislation that bans certain breeds of dogs. I don’t want to pigeon hole myself into a specific topic area, but also don’t want to seem scattered. My research is all related, because it is on health systems or health policy, so I am trying to unify my RS with the theme of research that improves population health. Would you suggest that I list only my dissertation work and a future project that aligns with that, or should I also list my masters work and/or a separate project on a maternal and child theme?

March 11, 2015 at 6:19 pm

With regard to your recommendation to leave names of others out of the research statement, I am struggling with what to do for an edited volume with some *very* prominent contributors. I am the sole editor for the book, and I brought these contributors together. Should their names still be excluded from the research statement, or perhaps included elsewhere (perhaps in the cover letter or CV)?

Thank you for your very helpful postings.

March 12, 2015 at 7:20 pm

I find that many people overestimate the importance/prominence of the names and their value for any job doc. But if they include, like, Judith Butler and her ilk, then sure mention 1-2 such names in the RS.

July 7, 2015 at 12:51 pm

When applying for a faculty position (first job as assistant professor), would you recommend sharing the link of the applicant’s PhD dissertation thesis (if it is available online), if so where exactly?

Thank you very much for all the valuable information!

July 22, 2015 at 12:08 pm

Dear Karen –

I have a question for those out there encountering job openings for technical staff (like myself) with BS degrees requesting research statements. How do I write a RS based on this? Everything I’ve seen online has been geared towards RS for graduate programs or for those with newly minted PhDs.

August 14, 2015 at 6:19 pm

Dear Karen, Is there a difference between a “one page Research Plan” and a “Research Statement” ? Thank you for your generous advice through this blog.

August 29, 2015 at 8:39 pm

Thank you for the helpful posts. I am a postdoc applying for faculty positions, and they all ask something similar but different. It’s either a research statement, a statement of research interests, or a research plan. Do mean my previous research experience, what I plan to do, or both? A research statement sounds like a research summary, but I feel like I’m missing something. I appreciate any clarity you can bring on the subject.

September 2, 2015 at 9:22 am

Dear Dr. Karen, Some of the postdocs require to submit a C.V. and a list of publications. Does it mean that, for these particular applications, the C.V. should not include publications at all? Thanks!

September 2, 2015 at 9:49 pm

Sorry, just realized that had a wrong tab opened while typing the question.

September 24, 2015 at 10:01 pm

Hi Karen, This is a very helpful website indeed. I’ve been teaching university for 5 years (ever since finishing my PhD), and now am at a top 10 university (at least according to the QS rankings, if you put any stock in them). However, I’m applying for what I think is a better job for me at a research museum, one that would have me doing research and supervising grad students as well as doing outreach (something I’ve got piles of experience with). The application asks for a 2-page statement of scientific goals. I’m a little unclear as to how this differs from the research statement. Does it? If so, how? Thanks so much.

October 13, 2015 at 7:09 am

This was really helpful in writing a research statement. Thanks

November 11, 2015 at 1:17 pm

I see that some applications require a vision statement: “no longer than two pages, that outlines one or more major unsolved problems in their field and how they plan to address them.”. Any thoughts about the differences from a research statement?

January 14, 2016 at 7:28 am

How long should the research statement be if it has been requested as part of the cover letter?

May 20, 2016 at 8:24 am

Thank you very much for the very helpful advice, Karen!

I’m a final year PhD in psychology and applying for a postdoc now. The postdoc project seems very prescribed, to the extent that the announcement includes how many studies are planned to be conducted, what the broad hypotheses are and the broad theoretical background. Yet, the application involves an RS. What is the best way to frame a future research project here? Just tailor my diss to fit into the proposed postdoc topic?

July 1, 2016 at 3:10 pm

The place in this blog that should contain the 5-paragraph model doesn’t seem to be present. Instead I get a […]. Possibly a web configuration problem?

July 7, 2016 at 4:58 pm

Please read the para at the top of the post. This and a handful of other posts (about 5 in total) have been shortened so as not to overlap with the content of my book.

August 15, 2016 at 7:43 am

Thank you so much for your wonderful advice.

I have a question regarding the relationship between future research and the title of the position in question and how much overlap there should be between the two. Is it acceptable to propose research that is (this is history-based) from a slightly later/earlier period, or a slightly different geographical region than the position focuses on? Or is it better to align oneself entirely with the constraints of the position?

Many thanks!

August 23, 2016 at 9:46 am

I plan to limit my RS to two pages, but my career trajectory and publication record is a bit unusual. I’m a nationally regarded thirty-three year veteran high school teacher and recent postdoc (2013) from a top tier history department. I’ve been teaching alma mater’s most popular summer session course since 2014. It’s my mentor’s course, but he’ll be replaced with a tenured professor with an endowed chair upon retirement – as well he should. Cornell Press is “interested” in my diss, but…I’m currently revising the original proposal. I’ve also published as often in International Journal of Eating Disorders, Psychology of Women Quarterly and International of Alzheimer’s & Other Dementias as I have in The Journal of Urban History, Long Island Historical Journal and New York Irish History. I teach “the best and the brightest” at a socioeconomically and ethnically diverse public high school. I often publish with my adolescent students, so my scholarship is pretty eclectic. How, exactly, do I sell that to a hiring committee upon retirement from high school/transition to university teaching in June 2017?

September 12, 2016 at 6:29 pm

What is your take on using headings to organize the RS?

October 16, 2016 at 12:28 pm

I am up for tenure this year, and am applying for a tenured position at another school (mainly because I am trying to resolve a two-body problem). Given that I have been out of grad school for quite a while, have a book and many papers published, another book in progress, etc, should my tenure statement be longer than 1-2 pages? What would be a typical length for a mid-career statement?

October 17, 2016 at 1:14 pm

You can go onto a third page, if you’re on a second book.

October 19, 2016 at 4:08 pm

Hi Karen, I’m applying for tenure track jobs in English, and some applications ask for a research statement instead of a dissertation abstract, which is the more common of the two. I’ve been told that even if a dissertation abstract isn’t asked for, I should send one in with my application materials. If I’m asked for a research statement, do I still have to send a dissertation abstract as well? I’m a little worried about some overlap between the two (the obvious repetitions in contribution to the field, etc).

October 29, 2016 at 8:09 pm

I am being asked for a Scholarly Philosophy. Is this the same as a research statement? Are their any nuances of difference that I ought to attend to?

November 2, 2016 at 11:40 am

I’ve actuallynever heard that term. But I’d say it’s about the same as an RS, but perhaps with a bit more focus on wider contribution to the field.

November 8, 2016 at 10:55 am

Hello Karen,

I am a biologist on the market for a TT position (for more years than I would like to admit). I have always wondered whether including 1-2 figures or diagrams that help to illustrate your research plan would be helpful, and maybe even appreciated. I would like to know what you think.

We all know how overburdened search committees are. Pictures might help. Scientists are used to seeing such images in evaluating fellowship applications or grant proposals, why not research statements? I would think it would be a welcome change. So the potential benefit is you stand out and are more memorable, but you may also run the risk of alienating or offending someone, especially because this is uncommon.

Thanks for your posts and your book. I enjoy reading them.

November 10, 2016 at 9:53 am

Yes, in the sciences, diagrams are acceptable. It’s why science RSs are often 3-4 pages long. NOT in your cover letter of course.

January 12, 2017 at 11:56 am

Is it appropriate to put a date at the top or bottom of your statements?

August 4, 2017 at 5:32 am

I have been working as a fellow at a SLAC in the sciences and am directing undergraduate research that does not completely fit the mold of my usual work. Is it acceptable to mention these projects in the RS? Should I only mention ones that we will be trying to publish? Thanks

September 16, 2017 at 3:16 pm

Found some adjuncting this year after basically taking a year off last year. During that time, I was still working on getting material published from graduate school. This includes an article based on my dissertation. That articles is currently going through a revise and resubmit. The revise involves reframing and changing the names of important hypotheses. Do I discuss the work in my RS as it was discussed in my dissertation or talk about it as presented in this article yet to be expected for publication?

September 16, 2017 at 3:17 pm

accepted not expected

September 29, 2017 at 3:43 am

The part about not presenting your work as being better than other peoples’ is hard because constantly in your thesis you are setting up arguments like that! This is why my findings are interesting – because they are better than what other people did/found previously. The old paradigm was limited/wrong, hence my contribution is new/better. That is part of the academic writing genre! But I can see it will come across as much more mature if you downplay that in an application letter.

October 7, 2017 at 12:00 pm

Thanks for this great blog and the book!

I’m applying for a two-year postdoc. They say they want a “research statement,” but I really think they mean a proposal. This is short term, non-TT. I feel like the advice you give about “timeline, timeline, timeline!” is what will make this work better for this application.

Said otherwise, there is no time for a second project in this postdoc (or maybe you beg to differ?) Therefore it seems odd to talk about it.

October 7, 2017 at 2:11 pm

correct, they want a research proposal. Please read the chapters about that in my book. There is time in a two year postdoc to begin to launch a second project.

January 12, 2018 at 1:08 pm

I am just starting my higher education career. I only have my dissertation as published work. How do you suggest I handle to writing of my research statement given those circumstances?

August 27, 2019 at 6:26 am

Hi, I am a fresh PhD about to apply for my first job. I’ve been asked to write a scholarly agenda and am struggling to find what should be included in this. Any help would be great. The position is at a liberal arts college for a tenure track position in the biology department. Thanks

August 27, 2019 at 9:56 am

That would be the RS, and this blog post is about that. Also, check my book out, it has a chapter on this as well, updated from this post. If you need personal help, contact us at [email protected] to get on the calendar for editing help.

September 17, 2019 at 9:22 pm

Thank you for your excellent blog and book. I’m applying for a TT job where they don’t ask for a cover letter, but for a combined statement on research & teaching max 3p. In this case, do I still skip the letterhead and formal address? And what structure/format would you suggest?

Thank you in advance!

September 18, 2019 at 5:00 pm

if it’s truly not meant to be a letter, then don’t make it a letter! Just send a two page Rs and a one page TS nicely integrated into a single doc, with your name at the top.

December 23, 2019 at 6:23 am

Dear Karen, thank you for your wonderful advice here and in the book.I wonder regarding the the 1st para of the research statement. I have seen that many start by stating “I am a historian of X. My work focuses on Y in order to Z …

Is this what you mean by “A brief paragraph sketching the overarching theme and topic of your research,situating it disciplinarily”? would love to see an example of a good 1st para…

December 23, 2019 at 11:12 am

Lili, I provide examples to clients, so if you’d like to work with me, do email at [email protected] !

January 13, 2020 at 4:39 pm

I am just graduating as an undergrad and looking for entry-level research. Should I put something short on my interests if I do not have research experience, or is this section better to be left blank?

October 12, 2020 at 10:49 pm

Any differences with corona? I have two small ongoing projects related to covid. Other than that, I only have my thesis. Would mentioning these two projects be ‘too much’? They are not similar to each other: one has a clear logical link to my thesis, while the other is a new avenue that I want to pursue. They are not big enough to be my second project, but they are my current research. Should I mention them both? One? None?

January 6, 2022 at 11:51 am

Thank you for such detailed information! I searched on your site today in attempt to answer the question “what is a scholarly agenda,” and was pointed to this posting, which doesn’t seem correct, but I at least wanted to ask the question. Is the scholarly agenda a typical piece of writing for tenure processes? I’m about to go up for my three year review in a humanities-based tenure track position, where I am asked for one, and although I’ve written a draft, the university has no template, and in truth, I really don’t understand the aim of the scholarly agenda beyond the general idea of ‘where I want to be as a scholar and professor in three years.’ I’m looking for a blow-by-blow / paragraph-by-paragraph idea of how to structure the piece. I can’t find examples beyond law schools, which isn’t so helpful. Do you have any recommendations?

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WTO / Education / 11 Perfect Academic Research Statement Examples (with Guide)

11 Perfect Academic Research Statement Examples (with Guide)

Academic documents are often needed as we progress through our lives and careers. Among the most commonly used academic documents is the research statement . A research statement is usually a document not exceeding three pages that convince the board or school on a research topic. This document aims at explaining what the research you are about to conduct is about and what you hope to find out by the end of it. The document is, for the most part, short, well defined and robust.

Samples & Examples

Academic Research Statement Examples guide researchers in organizing their thoughts, presenting their ideas effectively, and highlighting the significance of their work. To further enhance convenience, here are free downloadable templates that will enable you to easily access and adapt them to suit their specific needs.

Purpose of Research Statement

The research statement is as mentioned above aimed at convincing the reader on the essence of the research you are about to start. It usually covers the main points on your plans and expected results in brief. When done properly, it should explain why you think the research is relevant, what you expect to find, what factors you plan to consider during your research, methodologies, and data collection methods , what your motivation is, and how it can benefit other academic subjects or researchers.

How a Research Statement Works for You

A research statement allows your readers to understand your potential, expertise, and skill in the field you may want to conduct your research in. By doing this; you can explain how your research can help them as well as the common good. It is used for various purposes. One common use is in helping in the hiring process.

Once a panel can determine your level of experience and expertise, they can then know whether you are a good fit to work as part of a research project. It is also a good way of gaining funding. The statement is usually an overview of a research proposal . When done right, it has the potential to encourage an investor to fund your research.

How to Write a Research Statement

For a research statement to get its message across, a good format is required, poor formatting may have you lose structure and deliver your points in a disorderly fashion. A great statement should follow the following format:

Introduction

As any other academic document, a research statement needs a good introduction. The introduction aims at defining your research agenda . This section allows you to convince your reader that you are strong and ready to embark on the research challenge. You can state your previous achievements, foundation, as well as express your passion in the subject matter. This section can detail your expertise on the research topic and any other ongoing research topics that may aid your research.

State your focus

This section works to identify the problem your research aims at solving. You can state what the problem is, why the research has not been undertaken before by other people, how you plan to work on the challenge as well as the approach you plan to use.

Importance of your research and academics

As part of convincing your reader, this section aims at making them understand how your previous experience and interests can help in the research. This section convinces your reader that you are the right person for the job.

 Summarize

As part of your conclusion, this section works to summarize your earlier mentioned points. This includes your research goals and project.

Proper delivery of the statement will convince your reader of your ability to undertake the challenge as well as your long-term goals. Following the above-described flow assures a flow of information that best explains all points needed in a systematic manner.

Format of Academic Research Statements

The objective of the research statement is to introduce yourself to a search committee. Which will most likely contain scientists both in and outside your field of study, and get them excited about your research.

To encourage people to read the statement:

• Use bullets
• Make the margins a reasonable size
• Make it one or two pages long, three at most
• Use informative section headings and subheadings
• Use an easy to read font type and size

Writing a great and effective research statement is not as easy as it may sound; even the most seasoned practitioners encounter problems and challenges daily. The statement needed might seem obvious to them but difficult to describe to non-specialists. One may not have thought about how to quantify it or how to justify the required statement concerning other agencies or national priorities. A serious challenge to them might not even be on a decision maker’s radar screen.

If, at first, you fail to succeed, don’t lose hope. If your statement is not selected, try to find out why. If possible, get the reviewer’s comments. Were they able to understand your research statement? If not, what could you have done differently to make it easily understandable to them? Did they consider it as a good statement but not a top priority or high potential payoff? Do not be embarrassed or discouraged by constructive reviews; they are the best guidance you can get to write better statements .

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Methodology

• How to Write a Strong Hypothesis | Steps & Examples

How to Write a Strong Hypothesis | Steps & Examples

Published on May 6, 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on November 20, 2023.

A hypothesis is a statement that can be tested by scientific research. If you want to test a relationship between two or more variables, you need to write hypotheses before you start your experiment or data collection .

Example: Hypothesis

Daily apple consumption leads to fewer doctor’s visits.

Table of contents

What is a hypothesis, developing a hypothesis (with example), hypothesis examples, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about writing hypotheses.

A hypothesis states your predictions about what your research will find. It is a tentative answer to your research question that has not yet been tested. For some research projects, you might have to write several hypotheses that address different aspects of your research question.

A hypothesis is not just a guess – it should be based on existing theories and knowledge. It also has to be testable, which means you can support or refute it through scientific research methods (such as experiments, observations and statistical analysis of data).

Variables in hypotheses

Hypotheses propose a relationship between two or more types of variables .

• An independent variable is something the researcher changes or controls.
• A dependent variable is something the researcher observes and measures.

If there are any control variables , extraneous variables , or confounding variables , be sure to jot those down as you go to minimize the chances that research bias  will affect your results.

In this example, the independent variable is exposure to the sun – the assumed cause . The dependent variable is the level of happiness – the assumed effect .

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Step 1. ask a question.

Writing a hypothesis begins with a research question that you want to answer. The question should be focused, specific, and researchable within the constraints of your project.

Step 2. Do some preliminary research

Your initial answer to the question should be based on what is already known about the topic. Look for theories and previous studies to help you form educated assumptions about what your research will find.

At this stage, you might construct a conceptual framework to ensure that you’re embarking on a relevant topic . This can also help you identify which variables you will study and what you think the relationships are between them. Sometimes, you’ll have to operationalize more complex constructs.

Step 3. Formulate your hypothesis

Now you should have some idea of what you expect to find. Write your initial answer to the question in a clear, concise sentence.

4. Refine your hypothesis

You need to make sure your hypothesis is specific and testable. There are various ways of phrasing a hypothesis, but all the terms you use should have clear definitions, and the hypothesis should contain:

• The relevant variables
• The specific group being studied
• The predicted outcome of the experiment or analysis

5. Phrase your hypothesis in three ways

To identify the variables, you can write a simple prediction in  if…then form. The first part of the sentence states the independent variable and the second part states the dependent variable.

In academic research, hypotheses are more commonly phrased in terms of correlations or effects, where you directly state the predicted relationship between variables.

If you are comparing two groups, the hypothesis can state what difference you expect to find between them.

6. Write a null hypothesis

If your research involves statistical hypothesis testing , you will also have to write a null hypothesis . The null hypothesis is the default position that there is no association between the variables. The null hypothesis is written as H 0 , while the alternative hypothesis is H 1 or H a .

• H 0 : The number of lectures attended by first-year students has no effect on their final exam scores.
• H 1 : The number of lectures attended by first-year students has a positive effect on their final exam scores.

If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

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A hypothesis is not just a guess — it should be based on existing theories and knowledge. It also has to be testable, which means you can support or refute it through scientific research methods (such as experiments, observations and statistical analysis of data).

Null and alternative hypotheses are used in statistical hypothesis testing . The null hypothesis of a test always predicts no effect or no relationship between variables, while the alternative hypothesis states your research prediction of an effect or relationship.

Hypothesis testing is a formal procedure for investigating our ideas about the world using statistics. It is used by scientists to test specific predictions, called hypotheses , by calculating how likely it is that a pattern or relationship between variables could have arisen by chance.

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Research Statements

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When you're on the job market, you might have to prepare several kinds of research statements: the dissertation paragraph, dissertation abstract, research paragraph for your cover letter, a research agenda or statement, or any and all of the above. While all of these documents, or partial documents, need to address what you are researching, they are different genres that require you to situate your research within different contexts, portray your research in different scopes, and provide descriptions of your research in different lengths. This column will  address what each of these documents need to do and why. Each of these documents might have different names in your field — here, I am using the terms that I've heard them called in English studies and in academic literacy circles.

As a graduate student, your focus is probably on your dissertation, which is good. All of these documents assume that you've already proposed and defended your dissertation proposal, if your discipline requires those steps. If you're going on the market before you've defended your dissertation proposal, these documents are often difficult to prepare, and it's not unusual in job-market workshops for students who've attended regularly up until this point in the process to disappear once we start working on research statements, for fear that they'll be exposed as "not ready" or some other kind of rampant academic imposter syndrome. I would encourage students who feel this way to hold tight, however, because working through the process of describing one's current research in the shortest manner possible (as some of these paragraph-length or shorter genres require) will actually help them structure a dissertation proposal or outline in the weeks and months ahead.

Dissertation paragraph:

As I mentioned in my last column, you will likely be asked to talk about your dissertation in some fashion (e.g., "tell us about your research") during job interviews, and the basis for many search committees' understanding of your dissertation research will come from the dissertation paragraph you provide in your cover letter. This paragraph is a very brief abstract of your entire dissertation, and includes your:

• Brief description of the thing you're studying (e.g., what are you studying?). This may be a data set, corpus, people, cultures, animals, plants, minerals, etc.
• Theoretical framework (e.g., what disciplinary lenses are you using to study X idea/concept/texts).
• Methodological framework (e.g., how are you studying that thing).
• Main research questions (why you are studying that thing).
• Discovered or potential results of your study (e.g., what's the outcome of studying that thing).
• Significance of your study (e.g., why are those outcomes important to your discipline, to humanity, etc.).

Although the above list might signify one way to structure your diss paragraph — a structure that may follow the chapter outline for your actual dissertation — it is generally not acceptable to write this paragraph by starting with "In Chapter 1, I discuss..." followed by "In Chapter 2, I argue that...." etc. Plus, you don’t have the room for that level of detail: All of the above should be addressed in a single paragraph in your cover letter. Generally, that paragraph contains roughly 150-200 words. These paragraphs shouldn't be a page long, single-spaced, since your whole cover letter needs to have, on average, five paragraphs that fit in two single-spaced pages.

With the exception of the results, the content of your dissertation paragraph often mirrors the content — in micro — from your dissertation proposal. Consider the dissertation paragraph to be a topical outline of your prospectus in prose form. But, unlike your diss proposal, your diss paragraph may need to reach a more generalized audience of academics across several areas of study.

Avoid jargon or, when you must include jargon, assume there will be at least one person on each committee who has no idea what you're talking about — so you must define your terms, always. You might also include an "origination story" for your dissertation — that is, the moment that made you realize this topic was important and interesting to you. Obviously, your mileage will vary on this personal narrative component — I suspect it's rarely seen in the sciences, but it does lend a narrative structure to your research that may make it easier for nonspecialists to envision (as well as make it easier for you to tell your own story about your research).

Dissertation abstract:

You might begin to draft your diss paragraph for your cover letter based on your dissertation abstract, but often enough, your dissertation abstract doesn't exist yet and may be an item that you will only use on the job market during materials requests. The diss abstract itself can take one of two forms, and often these formats are field-specific, so check with your advisers.

The first kind of abstract is a longer one — two single-spaced pages, usually — that is a stand-alone document you send either with your initial job materials or when it is requested as supplemental materials. This abstract may also be used in your actual dissertation, as most diss formats require an abstract that is longer than most article-length abstracts for upload to ProQuest. The structure for this longer abstract often mirrors the actual structure of your dissertation, with a chapter-by-chapter breakdown in succeeding paragraphs. These details may be pulled from your dissertation proposal, which likely has a similar chapter outline. Ideally, you will spend much more time (a full paragraph, perhaps two) setting up the theoretical and methodological frameworks for your dissertation in this long abstract, and your analysis/results, outcomes, or other conclusions should be fully fleshed out in this version.

This two-page abstract is sometimes requested as part of job materials (although it's more and more rare, and usually is done as part of an additional materials request). Some advisers recommend sending it along with your writing sample, but search committees vary widely on whether they will read non-requested materials or not. I doubt it would hurt your case, but it's also not expected unless it is asked for. Instead of sending it when it's not requested, you may be better off sending the second kind of diss abstract:

The second kind of dissertation abstract is a one-paragraph version that is usually inserted into your C.V., under the educational entries that list your Ph.D. work. This version is most similar to the dissertation paragraph used in your cover letter, but contextualized so it can stand on its own (e.g., it needs no transitionary sentences into or out of the diss paragraph). This abstract should, like the cover letter version, avoid theoretical jargon, although key terms may be employed, if defined. Also, if your cover letter uses an origin narrative for its dissertation paragraphs, delete that in this version.  Whether your field uses diss abstracts on C.V.s or not varies wildly, but generally speaking, it can't hurt to include, unless your diss is not far enough along to show results or significance.

Research paragraph:

If you have a research paragraph in your cover letter, it will follow your diss paragraph (or it will be a few sentences used to conclude your diss paragraph). You would use this paragraph in your cover letter to expand on ideas that may be related to your dissertation but you weren't able to cover in the diss, particularly threads of your research that you have spun off or plan to spin off into further articles, books, grants, etc. If you already have publications or grants that are relevant to your current research (e.g., the diss), discuss them here. The key is not to just list them, however, as that's what your C.V. is for. You should contextualize them in relation to your overall research agenda (see next), pointing out how you've already begun to establish a research trajectory in your field.

Research agenda:

The research agenda seems the most distant for most graduate students, and yet it might be the easiest document to write because it is speculative in many ways. This document — sometimes called a research statement or plan — is basically a one- to two-page, single-spaced text that outlines how you plan to get tenure. In other words, this document should list all of the publications, grants, or other research artifacts you have planned over the next six-ish years. Search committees use this document to see how you are positioned to follow a particular research trajectory, which they will use to determine whether you are potentially tenurable or not. Typically this document is only requested by very research-intensive universities — those that require a significant number of grants (x million dollars) or publications (1.5 or 2 books by tenure).

You can begin this document with a few sentences or a paragraph at most articulating your overall research area: What discipline do you work in, what are your primary research questions, how have you answered this so far in your current or previous research, how will your future research projects help you continue to answer these questions, etc. This is a summation of your research statement (a genre you will likely revisit when you apply for tenure and promotion, but which we will leave aside for now). The rest of the document should articulate the specific projects you plan to undertake over the next four, six, 10 years (different departments have different time periods they might ask you to cover). You won't always know the exact projects you will complete to get tenure, so this is where the speculation comes into play.

If you plan on turning your dissertation into a book, talk about how you will revise for a book and include which press you plan to go with and why. If you plan on writing articles, list them and provide brief descriptions of what their major questions are, and which journals you plan to submit them to. If grants are your thing, do the same: what's the project, how will you complete it, and where will you submit it? This document can take the form of a bulleted list, a prose-based list, or whatever seems the easiest to read for colleagues in your field. You don't need to be uber-specific, but you should be able to show how all of these projects connect to each other over time — that's trajectory, and you'll hear that word a lot more if you get a tenure-track job and head toward tenure.

One final genre:

The above four documents will each serve you well on the job market, and although you may not need all of them, some are more difficult to write than others, so I would recommend starting on them early, if you're at all applying to tenure-track or research-based jobs anywhere besides two-year colleges (and even then, they might want to discuss your dissertation in a job talk). You will have plenty of times to talk about your research on the market, and I've given advice elsewhere on how that might play out in the preliminary interviews. But one final genre you might want to prepare for is the elevator pitch.

This genre comes from sales pitches in business, where you have five floors, literally, to pitch your idea to a senior muckitymuck. It's a great genre for the job market and you will use it often. Any time anyone asks you, "So, what do you do?" or "How's that dissertation coming along?" or "What's your research on?" Use the dissertation paragraph framework from above to start these conversations, but make sure to keep it conversational. In many ways, this might be the best place to start: If you can describe your work coherently, in 30 seconds, to your mother/non-academic friend/guy-who-works-at-Kroger, then you'll be just just fine when it comes to writing all these other research-based documents.

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How to Write the Rationale of the Study in Research (Examples)

What is the Rationale of the Study?

The rationale of the study is the justification for taking on a given study. It explains the reason the study was conducted or should be conducted. This means the study rationale should explain to the reader or examiner why the study is/was necessary. It is also sometimes called the “purpose” or “justification” of a study. While this is not difficult to grasp in itself, you might wonder how the rationale of the study is different from your research question or from the statement of the problem of your study, and how it fits into the rest of your thesis or research paper. 

The rationale of the study links the background of the study to your specific research question and justifies the need for the latter on the basis of the former. In brief, you first provide and discuss existing data on the topic, and then you tell the reader, based on the background evidence you just presented, where you identified gaps or issues and why you think it is important to address those. The problem statement, lastly, is the formulation of the specific research question you choose to investigate, following logically from your rationale, and the approach you are planning to use to do that.

Table of Contents:

How to write a rationale for a research paper , how do you justify the need for a research study.

• Study Rationale Example: Where Does It Go In Your Paper?

The basis for writing a research rationale is preliminary data or a clear description of an observation. If you are doing basic/theoretical research, then a literature review will help you identify gaps in current knowledge. In applied/practical research, you base your rationale on an existing issue with a certain process (e.g., vaccine proof registration) or practice (e.g., patient treatment) that is well documented and needs to be addressed. By presenting the reader with earlier evidence or observations, you can (and have to) convince them that you are not just repeating what other people have already done or said and that your ideas are not coming out of thin air. 

Once you have explained where you are coming from, you should justify the need for doing additional research–this is essentially the rationale of your study. Finally, when you have convinced the reader of the purpose of your work, you can end your introduction section with the statement of the problem of your research that contains clear aims and objectives and also briefly describes (and justifies) your methodological approach. 

When is the Rationale for Research Written?

The author can present the study rationale both before and after the research is conducted. 

• Before conducting research : The study rationale is a central component of the research proposal . It represents the plan of your work, constructed before the study is actually executed.
• Once research has been conducted : After the study is completed, the rationale is presented in a research article or  PhD dissertation  to explain why you focused on this specific research question. When writing the study rationale for this purpose, the author should link the rationale of the research to the aims and outcomes of the study.

What to Include in the Study Rationale

Although every study rationale is different and discusses different specific elements of a study’s method or approach, there are some elements that should be included to write a good rationale. Make sure to touch on the following:

• A summary of conclusions from your review of the relevant literature
• What is currently unknown (gaps in knowledge)
• Inconclusive or contested results  from previous studies on the same or similar topic
• The necessity to improve or build on previous research, such as to improve methodology or utilize newer techniques and/or technologies

There are different types of limitations that you can use to justify the need for your study. In applied/practical research, the justification for investigating something is always that an existing process/practice has a problem or is not satisfactory. Let’s say, for example, that people in a certain country/city/community commonly complain about hospital care on weekends (not enough staff, not enough attention, no decisions being made), but you looked into it and realized that nobody ever investigated whether these perceived problems are actually based on objective shortages/non-availabilities of care or whether the lower numbers of patients who are treated during weekends are commensurate with the provided services.

In this case, “lack of data” is your justification for digging deeper into the problem. Or, if it is obvious that there is a shortage of staff and provided services on weekends, you could decide to investigate which of the usual procedures are skipped during weekends as a result and what the negative consequences are. 

In basic/theoretical research, lack of knowledge is of course a common and accepted justification for additional research—but make sure that it is not your only motivation. “Nobody has ever done this” is only a convincing reason for a study if you explain to the reader why you think we should know more about this specific phenomenon. If there is earlier research but you think it has limitations, then those can usually be classified into “methodological”, “contextual”, and “conceptual” limitations. To identify such limitations, you can ask specific questions and let those questions guide you when you explain to the reader why your study was necessary:

Methodological limitations

• Did earlier studies try but failed to measure/identify a specific phenomenon?
• Was earlier research based on incorrect conceptualizations of variables?
• Were earlier studies based on questionable operationalizations of key concepts?
• Did earlier studies use questionable or inappropriate research designs?

Contextual limitations

• Have recent changes in the studied problem made previous studies irrelevant?
• Are you studying a new/particular context that previous findings do not apply to?

Conceptual limitations

• Do previous findings only make sense within a specific framework or ideology?

Study Rationale Examples

Let’s look at an example from one of our earlier articles on the statement of the problem to clarify how your rationale fits into your introduction section. This is a very short introduction for a practical research study on the challenges of online learning. Your introduction might be much longer (especially the context/background section), and this example does not contain any sources (which you will have to provide for all claims you make and all earlier studies you cite)—but please pay attention to how the background presentation , rationale, and problem statement blend into each other in a logical way so that the reader can follow and has no reason to question your motivation or the foundation of your research.

Background presentation

Since the beginning of the Covid pandemic, most educational institutions around the world have transitioned to a fully online study model, at least during peak times of infections and social distancing measures. This transition has not been easy and even two years into the pandemic, problems with online teaching and studying persist (reference needed) . 

While the increasing gap between those with access to technology and equipment and those without access has been determined to be one of the main challenges (reference needed) , others claim that online learning offers more opportunities for many students by breaking down barriers of location and distance (reference needed) .  

Rationale of the study

Since teachers and students cannot wait for circumstances to go back to normal, the measures that schools and universities have implemented during the last two years, their advantages and disadvantages, and the impact of those measures on students’ progress, satisfaction, and well-being need to be understood so that improvements can be made and demographics that have been left behind can receive the support they need as soon as possible.

Statement of the problem

To identify what changes in the learning environment were considered the most challenging and how those changes relate to a variety of student outcome measures, we conducted surveys and interviews among teachers and students at ten institutions of higher education in four different major cities, two in the US (New York and Chicago), one in South Korea (Seoul), and one in the UK (London). Responses were analyzed with a focus on different student demographics and how they might have been affected differently by the current situation.

How long is a study rationale?

In a research article bound for journal publication, your rationale should not be longer than a few sentences (no longer than one brief paragraph). A  dissertation or thesis  usually allows for a longer description; depending on the length and nature of your document, this could be up to a couple of paragraphs in length. A completely novel or unconventional approach might warrant a longer and more detailed justification than an approach that slightly deviates from well-established methods and approaches.

Consider Using Professional Academic Editing Services

Now that you know how to write the rationale of the study for a research proposal or paper, you should make use of Wordvice AI’s free AI Grammar Checker , or receive professional academic proofreading services from Wordvice, including research paper editing services and manuscript editing services to polish your submitted research documents.

You can also find many more articles, for example on writing the other parts of your research paper , on choosing a title , or on making sure you understand and adhere to the author instructions before you submit to a journal, on the Wordvice academic resources pages.

English 76-108 First-Year Writing Research Guide

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Welcome to the research guide for 76-108 Writing about Public Problems (WaPP). This guide will introduce you to research tools and strategies you can use to craft persuasive, public facing arguments.

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If you're writing a psychology personal statement, describing your personal insights into the subject or how you've pursued your interest outside the classroom will impress over quoting Freud or Milgram (which might sound a little pretentious). That's what psychology admissions tutors told us when we asked them what they're looking for in your personal statement.

Five things to include in your psychology personal statement

The University of Bristol highlights five elements of a strong, academically focused psychology statement:

• Ensure it is well structured and well written .  
• Give details of any specific interests or ambitions you have that relate to the content of the course.
• Demonstrate your enthusiasm for psychological research as a focus for academic study.
• Provide evidence of when you have pursued your interest in psychology outside the classroom (see above!)
• Give examples of non-curricular activities you are involved in which indicate the contribution you are likely to make to university life. Any relevant work experience you have under your belt is also worth talking about. But if you haven't gained experience in the field directly, think creatively - there might be ways to link observations from your part-time job, voluntary work or extra-curricular activities to psychology. One successful applicant finished her statement with a short paragraph about her Saturday job on a supermarket fish counter, describing the satisfaction she got from knowing how to gut and fillet a mackerel. Linking her experience to psychology in an innovative but relevant way was a lot more interesting than just saying it had improved her teamwork or communication skills, which are a bit broad.

Psychology tutors tell it like it is

Here are some more points to avoid:

• A lack of understanding: ‘Some applicants display a misconception of what psychology is. We want to know that you understand the importance of scientific elements of the course and the importance of statistics and experimentation’.
• Not enough engagement with the subject: ‘Some applicants are rejected because of a lack of commitment to the subject, especially in cases where it appears that they’ve applied for a mixture of courses rather than five psychology ones’.
• Making it too personal: ‘Some applicants expand too much on personal circumstances, such as mental health issues or life events. Studying psychology may not necessarily help, so don't overplay personal stories’.
• Getting the tone wrong: don’t just say you ‘want to help people’ and don’t use inappropriate language like ‘less fortunate people’. Also, avoid inserting sophisticated language or phrases if you don’t fully understand them – ‘straightforward language is never a bad thing’.

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Glue in the face: how frogs’ sticky secretions defend them from attack

PhD Researcher in Biology, Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Disclosure statement

Shabnam Zaman's research was supported by a doctoral fellowship from the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO-Vlaanderen, grant no. 11C6521N) and the Biology Department at Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

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Many of us are familiar with the story of The Frog Prince, where a princess kisses a frog and, to her surprise, it transforms into a human prince.

In reality, many frog species produce poison in their skin, the effects of which can range from mild nausea to death, so this display of affection is generally ill-advised. But what if the frog had found a more unusual way to defend itself, one that left our heroine’s lips sealed by the kiss instead?

Biological adhesives: a tale as old as slime

While humans mainly use synthetic materials to make things sticky, our princely frog – like other glue-producing organisms – produces what is known as a “biological adhesive”. These naturally secreted materials are widespread among animals, and are often essential for their survival.

For example, mussels and barnacles produce a type of glue that permanently cements them to the underwater surfaces they call home, while other ocean-dwelling animals, such as starfish, use a different, much more temporary kind of glue to help them move around.

Back on land, the most famous example is spider glue , commonly used to create silk for prey capture. However, our focus here is on terrestrial vertebrates, the stickiest specimens being the feet of geckos and certain tree frogs. These are examples of “dry” and “wet” adhesion, meaning that geckos stick to surfaces without actually producing anything that resembles glue , while the toe pads of tree frogs are covered with a thin layer of slime, or mucus .

Read more: Glues inspired by nature will give us faster ships, surgical adhesives and sticky car tyres

Despite their obvious dissimilarities, both of these types of adhesion have been described as “self-cleaning”, and may help us to develop synthetic materials that share this trait. Indeed, the ways that different biological adhesives are formulated and then secreted often involve wondrous feats of natural engineering .

In other cases, however, glue secretion has less to do with complex geometrical operations, and more to do with discharging copious amounts of slime all at once.

Sticky secretions: an unlikely defence mechanism

From traditional medicine and shamanistic rituals to folk tales and myths, frogs and toads are culturally significant across the world. The frog’s poison glands are especially prominent, as they can be used to make weapons , treatments , or even hallucinogens .

Read more: Illegal, occasionally deadly, and not much fun. What is the frog toxin Kambô and why do people use it?

To date, studies on amphibian skin-secreted defences have focused on molecules that function as toxins. However, aside from being purveyors of poison, a small number of species ( including the world’s largest amphibian, the Chinese giant salamander ) have come up with a more obscure (and much stickier) survival strategy: glue.

Meet the tomato frog.

When stressed, the animal’s skin releases a thick fluid that becomes extremely sticky within seconds. From a frog’s perspective, this stress usually takes the form of an attack by a predator (or princess). The speed with which the viscous secretion – a sticky slime, basically – turns into a glue makes it nearly impossible for a predator to ingest the frog, likely due to the annoyance caused by having its mouth and face coated with glue.

While this tactic may sound crude and inelegant, it is an effective defense mechanism, as it gives the frog time to escape.

Retracing an evolutionary slime trail

Although glue is a rare feature in frogs, it has evolved several times in species that are spread across different continents. My recently published research explores the origins of this remarkable survival strategy, and why it is present in some frogs but not in others.

To answer these questions, we first needed to identify the ingredients responsible for creating frog glue’s stickiness. We did this using technologies ranging from low-tech Lego bricks to high-tech microscopes that can magnify on a nanoscale (a billionth of a meter).

Surprisingly, what we found is that the base ingredients needed to make this glue exist in almost all animals, including humans, but only amphibians have evolved the necessary toolkit for turning them into glue. And, even within amphibians, only a select few species – ones that live as far apart as Madagascar, Brazil and Australia – have actually gone on to develop this ability.

In fact, we found that the Mozambique rain frog, which is separated from the tomato frog by about 100 million years of evolution, uses the same base ingredients and toolkit to create its own adhesive secretion. Perhaps the most infamous use of this glue actually involves sticking male frogs to females, as Sir David Attenborough himself has attested .

From biology to biomimicry: a seriously sticky surgical solution

While frog glue is fascinating, it is also extremely fast-acting and flexible, meaning it has huge potential for practical applications. This is where biomimetics comes in: a field that strives to mimic biological processes that nature has evolved over millions of years.

Thanks to our research we now know, for the first time, exactly how glue is produced by a four-legged animal. Imagine how medical adhesives inspired by frog glue can be used as surgical sealants: not only is it strong and nontoxic, but it’s capable of adapting and sticking to practically any surface.

So the next time you stumble across an unsuspecting frog, be gentle – remember, it might just hold the key to one day healing your heart.

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• Reflective Writing, Action Research and Peer Observation

by jzephyrine | Sep 17, 2024 | Tuesday Teaching Tips

Welcome back to our Tuesday Teaching Tips (TTT) Blog.

The CETL is here to provide you with the support and training you require in teaching excellence and research. In our previous installments of TTT, we provided you with guidelines in accessing your myeLearning course, uploading content to your myeLearning course (see previous posts). This week, we want to take things a step further, and explore reflective practice, peer observation and action reserch.

A – Reflective Practice & Action Research

Reflective practice may be defined as “a systematic reviewing process for all teachers which allows you to make links from one experience to the next, making sure your students make maximum progress” (The Cambridge International Teaching and Learning Team). Reflective practice may be guided by different models, including Rolfe’s model (“What? So What?, Now What?”), Kolb’s (1984) model (“Concrete Experience, Reflective Observation, Abstract Conceptualization and Active Experimentation”), and Brookfield’s (2017) model (“Self, Students, Peers, Scholarship”).

Evaluation through reflective practice allows you “to understand teaching in order to improve student learning” (Ramsden, 2003). Reflective practice may help you to evaluate your performance/effectiveness as an educator, the overall quality of student learning, the design of the curriculum, and student engagement. Reflective practice and evaluation may occur through different means including:

• A Teaching Philosophy : A self-reflective statement of your beliefs about teaching and learning
• Teaching Logs : Journals that detail and analyse teaching experiences and courses
• Teaching Portfolio : a documented statement of your teaching responsibilities, philosophy, goals and accomplishments as an educational practitioner
• Peer Evaluation/Observation : A formative process where two or more educators provide critical feedback.

B – Reflective Practice & Peer Observation

Peer observation is one means through which reflective practice may be implemented. It may be seen as the observance of learning as it is happening. It is a process where an educational practitioner invites a colleague(s) to his/her class to observe the teaching and students’ engagement, and then provides feedback through discussion on ways to enhance the teaching and learning. As such, peer observation provides benefits to both the observer and the observed as both may learn from each other toward the improvement of teaching and learning.

Peer observation is a continuous process which comprises three main phases as seen in the illustration below:

In peer observation “staff need to feel safe if they are able to be honest about their teaching: and there needs to be a collegial spirit of mutual support among equals if lecturers/tutors are to accept collective responsibility for teaching within a department” (Coffield, 2012).

C – Reflective Practice & Action Research

Reflective practice is closely tied to, and also informs action research. Action research was conceptualized as a methodology that has been concerned with change and improvement in practice. This may take different types such as:

• Individual: an educator investigating an issue in his/her class (small scale)
• Collaborative: a group of teachers working on a common problem (medium scale)
• System-wide: A team of professionals focusing on a school or district-wide issue (large scale)

Reflective practice and action research are closely tied to the scholarship of teaching and learning

D – Action Research: An Inquiry-Based Approach to Teaching

The CETL is hosting an interactive, face-to-face workshop that is designed to equip you with the tools and knowlegde in conducting action research in your teaching context. Located at the CETL Technology Space, this session will help you develop an action reseach plan that also identifies the reseach goals, methodology and data collection startegies. Should you like to attend, please see the following details of the session including the registration link:

Dates:                Sep 18 th 2024

Time:                 10:00am to 12:00noon

Presenter:        Mr. Marc Garcia

Venue:              CETL Technology Lab -Teaching and Learning Complex (TLC)

To register   CLICK HERE

We hope the aforementioned resources are helpful. Should you need any further assistance, please feel free to contact us. Regards, The Centre for Excellence in Teaching & Learning (CETL), The University of the West Indies (UWI), St. Augustine.

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