Improving quality of reasoning with clear "chain of evidence" in housing dissertation report writing: a note

Improving quality of reasoning with clear "chain of evidence" in housing dissertation report writing: a note

One common assignment and dissertation report writing weakness is unclear "chain of evidence" in the report content. The "chain of evidence" is a concept as espoused in the agile literature review approach (ALRA). In the context of housing studies, the following expressions are illustrative on the "chain of evidence" concept. Essentially, using these expressions is the main way to more clearly establish "chain of evidence" in report discussion. Doing so improves the quality of discussion of assignment and dissertation reports:

Expression 1: related to housing concerns and research objectives:

In response to the housing concern of (....: re: the housing-concerns diagram), the following research objective is put forward: "to evaluate....." [re: the theoretical framework level-0]

Expression 2: related to research objectives and academic ideas:

Regarding research objective 1:...., the following three academic ideas have been chosen, via literature review, to investigate research objective 1..... [re: the theoretical framework level-1a].

Expression 3: related to research objectives and research methods:

Two research methods (RMs), i.e., RM1 (interview research) and RM2 (desk research) are employed to address research objective 2 (RM2)....

Expression 4: related to research methods (RMs) and research findings (RFs):

Regarding research method 3 (questionnaire survey), the following research findings (RFs) are presented:

Research finding 1 (RF1):....

Research finding 2 (RF2): ...

Expression 5: related to research findings (RFs) and discussion findings (DFs):

Based on research finding 2 and the analysis using academic idea 3.4, the following discussion findings are presented:

Discussion finding 2.4: ....

Discussion finding 2.5: .... 

{note: discussion findings [DFs] are theory-driven/ analysis findings based on the empirical and raw research findings [RFs] direct from research methods [RMs] employed in the report}

Using clear ALRA pointers (and labels) in the discussion is the way to establish clear "chain of evidence" in report discussion, which improve quality of analysis of the report.