Writing, the viva and dissemination: making the proposal examined and the work read

Year 4 / Module 31 MSci project: scoping, ethics and method / Unit 10 / Writing, the viva and dissemination: making the proposal examined and the work read

Writing, the viva and dissemination: making the proposal examined and the work read

HCI4107 · Unit 10 of 10

The proposal and the viva are genres whose conventions a reader and an examiner already hold, so a plan that writes to the argument, rehearses the reverse-result question, and treats review and publication as part of the research is the one that survives examination.

Writing, the viva and dissemination: making the proposal examined and the work read

A proposal that states a question but never argues for it is a form that has been filled in.

This tenth of ten units argues that the proposal and the viva are genres whose conventions a reader and an examiner already hold. The writer's task is therefore competent execution of a structure the reader expects. Three consequences follow. Writing to the argument is a craft with learnable rules, and the viva is a rehearsal against questions the candidate can anticipate. Review, publication and impact are parts of the research the plan chooses, rather than events after it. The counter-argument, taken seriously below, is that these conventions belong to an institution whose judgements are only moderately reliable.

The proposal is a genre before it is a document

Swales (1990) developed genre analysis for academic settings and introduced the discourse community. He analysed the research article introduction as a sequence of rhetorical moves, later revised as the Create a Research Space model. His finding is that the opening of a research article is not free composition but a social form whose readers already know what it must do. The revised model has three moves: establish a territory, establish a niche, and occupy the niche. A proposal belongs to the same family. It is read by people who expect a question, a position in a literature, a method with rejected alternatives and a defensible calendar, and who notice at once when one is missing.

Punch (2006) writes for the other side of that relation. His guide asks what a research proposal is, who reads proposals and why, and what functions proposals perform. It treats the document as a structured argument for a study rather than a form to be completed. Read with Swales, the proposal has two audiences: the disciplinary reader who judges the move and the practical reader who judges whether the study can be run.

Writing to the argument, not to the page

Mensh and Kording (2017) offer ten rules for structuring papers: four principles applying to all parts, four on the components and two on process. Their organising scheme is context, content and conclusion, applied at the scale of the paper, the paragraph and the sentence. Their first rule is to focus the paper on one central contribution, named in the title. They extend the first four to other forms of communication such as grants and posters. The transfer to a proposal is direct and testable. State the takeaway in one sentence, then check that each paragraph has a context that makes its content meaningful and a conclusion the reader keeps.

Sword (2012) supplies the evidence that this is a craft rather than a matter of taste. Her analysis of more than a thousand peer-reviewed articles across a wide range of fields found a gap between how academics describe good writing and the wordy prose they produce. The passive, hedging register is a convention inferred from the genre rather than a requirement of it.

Critical reading is the same skill applied twice

Wallace and Wray (2006) treat critical reading and the construction of an argument as one set of analytical skills. They present frameworks for analysing a text and tools for structuring a piece of writing. A review that cannot say what claim a cited paper establishes, and on what warrant, is a list.

Gilbert and Mulkay (1984) explain why the formal register cannot be trusted to do that work by itself. Analysing interviews with scientists together with their published papers, they found two repertoires. The empiricist repertoire holds that results appear to follow inescapably from an impersonal natural world. The contingent repertoire, used in informal talk, attributes beliefs to speculative insight, prior commitments, personal skills and social ties. Reading the interviews against the same authors' papers is what sharpens the point, since the two registers come from the same people describing the same results. They also found an asymmetry, with scientists accounting for their own results in the empiricist register and those of rivals in the contingent one. Adopting the formal register therefore produces the appearance of warrant, which is a separate thing from having it.

The viva is a rehearsal against questions the examiner already holds

Tinkler and Jackson (2004) make the case that the defence is a genre rather than an inspection. Their handbook rests on a four-year programme of surveys and interviews with candidates and academics from a wide range of disciplines across Britain. It addresses the process from the perspectives of candidate, examiner and supervisor: what the viva is, how a candidate prepares for it, and how examiners assess a thesis. Preparation is possible because the questions are not arbitrary.

Bourne (2007) gives ten simple rules for oral presentations. They include addressing the audience rather than talking at it, cutting excess material because too much of it forces the speaker to rush, being logical, and practising and timing the delivery. Two rules matter most here. The take-home message should be persistent enough that a member of the audience can recall three points a week later. An important talk should not be given for the first time to an audience of peers. A candidate who has rehearsed the reverse-result question with a supervisor has already followed the second.

Dissemination is a decision, not an aftermath

Suber (2012) defines open access, distinguishes its green and gold routes, and argues that it is legal, inexpensive and beneficial. The relevant point for a plan is that the mode of publication is a choice the project makes in advance. The choice is wide enough that silence is itself a decision, and the green route reaches a reader without a library subscription.

What the project claims beyond publication is equally a choice. Penfield and colleagues (2013) reviewed definitions and methods of assessing research impact, drawing on international experience and examining the impact component of the United Kingdom's Research Excellence Framework. They found impact variously defined and assessment methods contested. The exercise they examine is the 2014 Research Excellence Framework. Pfeifer and Helming (2024) build a framework for systemic impact assessment from a review of 70 impact-assessment approaches, with integrated, missions, inclusive and strategic components. They argue that impact can be planned for as well as measured after the fact. Naming the change a project intends, and for whom, states a testable intention rather than a paragraph of good intentions.

Contested question: does writing to the genre get the work examined, or only read?

Two positions can be stated from this unit's sources. On the first, the genre works and a writer can learn it. Swales (1990) shows the introduction of a research article to be a stable sequence of moves. Tinkler and Jackson (2004) show the doctoral viva to have identifiable stages, participants and questions. Mensh and Kording (2017) and Bourne (2007) present the structure of a paper or a talk as rules a writer can follow. A proposal written to the conventions is then more likely to survive examination, because the examiner's expectations are met deliberately.

On the second, the conventions belong to an institution whose verdicts do not reliably track quality. Tennant and colleagues (2017) surveyed peer review across disciplines, documenting bias and unreliability, including failure to detect fraudulent research. Ross-Hellauer (2017) assembled a corpus of 122 definitions of open peer review and found neither a standardised definition nor an agreed schema. Writing to the venue's convention therefore presumes a convention that does not exist. The definitions diverge because the term covers several things at once. These run from systems where the author and the reviewer know each other's identity to systems that publish the reports beside the article, with combinations in between. Gilbert and Mulkay (1984) add that the formal register performs warrant rather than demonstrating it. Fluency would then be optimised for a signal that is at best a weak proxy for what is judged.

What would settle it is a study that separates the two. One design is a blind comparison. In it, examiners rate two versions of the same proposal differing only in how far they execute the genre conventions, scoring warrant rather than clarity. A second is a reliability study reporting agreement among examiners on proposals, since a convention that no two examiners apply alike cannot be written to. For dissemination the test is longitudinal, following projects from a stated intention to documented change.

Read by kind, the affirmative side rests on descriptive genre analysis and on handbooks of rules, while the sceptical side rests on a multi-disciplinary review of peer review and on a systematic review that collected 122 definitions of open review. No reliability study of examiners appears on either. While the dispute is open, a student should write to the conventions the venue states, make the warrant of each claim plain in prose, and rehearse the reverse-result question aloud. The strongest objection is Sword's: her analysis of more than a thousand articles found a gap between how academics describe good writing and what they produce, so a proposal that imitates the published register may be imitating the described convention rather than the effective one.

Where the argument is heading

The direction of travel is from a document judged once to a set of activities with declared audiences. Ross-Hellauer (2017) has done for open peer review what Swales did for the article introduction, turning a term everyone used into a typology of traits. Tennant and colleagues (2017) map the models now being tested. On impact the movement is from retrospective measurement towards formative assessment that shapes a project while it runs. Pfeifer and Helming (2024) propose that framework, and Penfield and colleagues (2013) document the contestation.

The sources this unit rests on

Each note states what the work did, what it found and how it bears on the argument. Every identifier was resolved on 31 October 2026.

Bourne, P. E. (2007). Ten simple rules for making good oral presentations. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.0030077 Ten rules for scientific talks, covering the audience, cutting excess material, logical structure and a persistent take-home message. It advises against giving an important talk for the first time to an audience of peers, which is the unit's warrant for treating the viva as rehearsable.
Gilbert, G. N. and Mulkay, M. (1984). Opening Pandora's box: a sociological analysis of scientists' discourse. https://archive.org/details/bwb_W8-BLY-533 Discourse analysis of interviews with scientists and of their published papers. It found an empiricist repertoire, in which results appear to follow from an impersonal world, and a contingent one, in which beliefs depend on commitments and skills. It is the unit's warning that a formal register performs warrant rather than showing it.
Mensh, B. D. and Kording, K. P. (2017). Ten simple rules for structuring papers. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005619 Ten rules arranged as four principles, four on a paper's components and two on process, built on a context, content and conclusion scheme applied at the scale of paper and paragraph. The first rule is to name one central contribution in the title, which is the unit's instrument for making the argument visible.
Penfield, T., Baker, M. J., Scoble, R. and Wykes, M. C. (2013). Assessment, evaluations, and definitions of research impact: a review. doi:10.1093/reseval/rvt021 Review of definitions and assessment methods for research impact, examining the impact component of the United Kingdom's Research Excellence Framework. It found impact variously defined and assessment methods contested, so a project states the change it intends without knowing how it will be measured.
Pfeifer, L. and Helming, K. (2024). Effective mission-oriented research: a new framework for systemic research impact assessment. doi:10.1093/reseval/rvae003 Literature review of 70 impact-assessment approaches in natural resource management research, from which the authors build a framework with integrated, missions, inclusive and strategic components. They argue impact can be planned for, not only measured after the fact.
Punch, K. F. (2006). Developing effective research proposals. https://archive.org/details/developingeffect0000punc_2edi Guide organised around what a research proposal is, who reads proposals and why, and the functions proposals perform. It treats the proposal as a structured argument for a study rather than a form to be completed, which is the structure a student writes into.
Ross-Hellauer, T. (2017). What is open peer review? A systematic review. doi:10.12688/f1000research.11369.2 Systematic review that assembled a corpus of 122 definitions of open peer review and analysed them into a typology of traits. It found neither a standardised definition nor an agreed schema, so a venue's conventions cannot be assumed settled.
Suber, P. (2012). Open access. doi:10.7551/mitpress/9286.001.0001 Short book that defines open access, distinguishes the green and gold routes, and argues that it is legal and inexpensive. It carries the unit's claim that publication mode is a decision a plan can make.
Swales, J. M. (1990). Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. https://archive.org/details/genreanalysiseng0000swal Book that develops genre analysis for academic settings, introducing the discourse community and analysing the research article introduction as a sequence of rhetorical moves, revised here as the Create a Research Space model. It shows the introduction to be a social form its readers already know.
Sword, H. (2012). Stylish academic writing. https://archive.org/details/stylishacademicw0000swor Analysis of the prose of more than a thousand peer-reviewed articles across a wide range of fields, with chapters on titles, headings, openings and structure. It found a gap between how academics describe good writing and the wordy prose they produce, which makes clarity a craft.
Tennant, J. P. and colleagues (2017). A multi-disciplinary perspective on emergent and future innovations in peer review. doi:10.12688/f1000research.12037.1 Survey of peer review across disciplines that documents bias and unreliability, including failure to detect fraudulent research, and reviews emergent models such as open review and preprints. The authors argue the system is under strain.
Tinkler, P. and Jackson, C. (2004). The doctoral examination process: a handbook for students, examiners and supervisors. https://archive.org/details/doctoralexaminat0000tink Handbook resting on a four-year programme of surveys and interviews with candidates and academics across Britain, covering the perspectives of candidate, examiner and supervisor. It presents preparation as possible because the viva has identifiable stages, so the defence is a genre.
Wallace, M. and Wray, A. (2006). Critical reading and writing for postgraduates. https://archive.org/details/criticalreadingw0000wall Guide that treats critical reading and the construction of an argument as one set of analytical skills, with frameworks for analysing a text and a worked example. Reading critically and writing an argument are one skill applied twice.

Check your understanding & apply it · 4 questions, 1 essay

1A draft writing section reads: this study will explore handover; handover is important in healthcare and much has been written about it; I will observe handovers and interview staff afterwards. Which diagnosis does this unit's argument support?

2A student plans to read the proposal the night before the viva and answer whatever the panel asks, on the grounds that the viva is unpredictable. What does this unit predict?

3Two readers disagree about a proposal written closely to the conventions of its genre. The first says the conventions carry it through examination. The second says the verdicts of the institution holding those conventions do not reliably track quality. Which verdict does this unit's evidence support?

4A student claims that writing to the genre conventions makes a proposal more likely to pass examination, and proposes to settle it by asking two examiners to rate the same proposal for clarity. Which judgement does this unit's argument support?

5Essay A student submits the following plan for an MSci project on how hospital handover teams negotiate a shared picture of a patient. The writing section reads: 'This study will explore handover. Handover is important in healthcare and much has been written about it. I will observe handovers and interview staff afterwards. Chapter structure: introduction, literature review, method, findings, discussion.' The viva preparation section reads: 'I will read my proposal carefully the night before and answer whatever the panel asks, because the viva is unpredictable.' The dissemination section reads: 'I will write up the dissertation and, if there is time, submit something to a conference.' Using this unit's sources, write the assessment you would give. Address the genre and its moves, the way the argument should be structured, the preparation the viva requires, the dissemination and impact decisions the plan defers, and what would settle the contested question about whether writing to the genre helps. Name the strongest objection to your own advice.

Begin with the genre. Swales (1990) shows that the introduction of a research article is a sequence of moves whose readers already know what it must do, and Punch (2006) writes for the practical reader who must judge whether the study can be run. This plan does neither job: 'much has been written' states that reading has happened rather than what claim the literature establishes, and the proposed chapter list is a container with no argument in it. Rewrite the opening to state the gap and the position, and rewrite the method sentence to name the alternatives rejected, including what observation on a ward buys over a survey of staff recollections. Second, structure the argument. Mensh and Kording (2017) instruct writers to state the central contribution in one sentence and to apply a context, content and conclusion scheme at the scale of paper and paragraph, and they extend the first four rules to other forms of communication such as grants. The test here is blunt: the student should be able to say the takeaway in one sentence, and every paragraph should carry a context that makes its content meaningful. Sword (2012), analysing more than a thousand peer-reviewed articles, found a gap between how academics describe good writing and the prose they produce, so a hedging register is a habit rather than a requirement. Third, the viva. Tinkler and Jackson (2004) rest their handbook on a four-year programme of surveys and interviews with candidates and academics and present the viva as having identifiable stages and questions, so unpredictability is the wrong premise. Bourne (2007) advises that an important talk should not be given for the first time to an audience of peers and that the take-home message should be persistent enough for a listener to recall three points a week later; the student should rehearse the reverse-result question and the recruitment-failure question with the supervisor. Fourth, dissemination. Suber (2012) treats the publication route as a choice, Penfield and colleagues (2013) find impact variously defined and assessment methods contested, and Pfeifer and Helming (2024) argue from a review of seventy impact-assessment approaches that impact can be planned for as well as measured. A plan that leaves the venue and the intended audience to 'if there is time' has postponed a decision it can make now. Finally, the contested question. The strongest objection to this advice is that genre conformity may buy readability rather than warrant: Tennant and colleagues (2017) document peer review as biased and unreliable, and Gilbert and Mulkay (1984) show that a formal register performs warrant rather than demonstrating it. What would settle it is a blind comparison in which examiners rate two versions of one proposal differing only in genre conformity, scoring warrant rather than clarity, plus a reliability study of examiner agreement; no source here reports either, so the advice remains a judgement rather than a settled finding.