如何展示研究空白（Research gap）？

我们所有的工作的最终目的是为了展示我们的论文或者毕业论文是有自己的意义（Significance）可以填补一个研究空白（Research gap）。那我们今天来看看我们如何去展示我们的研究空白。

1. 展示研究空白 Indicating a research gap 

我们一般通过引用和讨论之前的文献来引出需要回答的问题和填补的理论空白。Cooley& Lewkowicz (2003, ch. 2) stated one of the reasons for referring to the work of others is to create a research space by showing what has already been done and what has not been done. 那我们应该如何展示呢，来看几个例子：

Example 1:

Bradfield and Crockett (1995) concluded that there is little evidence to suggest that employees' attitudes bear any simple or appreciable relationship to performance on the job. However, by contrast, Herzberg et al (1957) provided a quite different conclusion: there is frequent evidence to suggest that positive job attitudes are favourable to increased productivity. Facing these contradictory opinions, the relationship between jobsatisfaction and job performance will be examined in detail.

这个研究发现之前的研究对员工工作态度和效率之间的关系有不一样的观点，所以这个研究是基于这个矛盾（contradiction）展开的。

Example 2:

Recently, a debate has begun over whether in-class laptops aid or hinder learning. While some research demonstrates that laptops can be an important learning tool, anecdotal evidence suggests more and more faculty are banning laptops from their classrooms because of perceptions that they distract students and detract from learning.

这个研究是基于之前关于电脑是否有助于学习的研究，最后表示这个研究表明基于轶事证据（anecdotal evidence*）是觉得电脑会干扰学生学习的。

*Anecdotal evidence is usually based on individual experiences or observations, as distinct from probabilistic evidence that gives estimates of how likely something is to occur based on experience with large numbers of people.

2. 用于展示研究空白的语言Languages  

1.表示研究空白最直接的方法就是直接用否定语言进而告诉读者你对于之前的文献的讨论结束了，现在要开始展示你的研究空白了。

However, littleinformation/attention/work/data/research .... 

Nevertheless, fewstudies/investigations/researchers/attempts ....

None of these reports, however,...

2. 另一个方法则是用对比（contrastive）的方式

The research has tended to focus on     ...,rather than on ....

These studies have emphasised ..., as opposed to ....

Although considerable research has been devoted to ... , rather less attention has been paid to ....

The previous research ... has concentrated on     ....

Most studies have been content to ....

So far, investigations have been confined to     ..

 3. 总结 Conclusion 

我们这一期讨论了如何去展示我们的研究空白，这也是写论文的一个重要组成部分。但是，我们在表达自己观点的时候尽量不要用非常绝对的语句或者词汇来表达自己的研究空白，比如never, none, unprecedented，etc. 为什么呢？因为大部分人还不是业界的大佬（a big name）,所以还是谨慎点比较好。