To what extent do Gallagher Premiership Rugby clubs employ effective financial management strategies to ensure future financial and sport performance growth?

What should my article include? 

 Your journal article should include the following elements:

Abstract
Introduction*
Literature review*
Research questions, and/or aims and objectives*
Hypotheses (where applicable)*
Research design and methods*
Presentation and discussion of your findings*
Conclusions and recommendations*
Limitations and future research*
References (not a bibliography)
Appendices
*Elements included in the word count.

What should each element include? 

 The Introduction should:

Describe the academic and/or practical context of your research. This should set the scene for your research and illustrate the value and relevance of your research.

Briefly state your methods of data collection.

Clearly state what you are going to explore through your research. What is your focus? What is your aim? What question do you seek to answer?

Describe how your research relates, or adds, to existing academic research and/or practice.

Provide a brief summary of your main findings or contributions.

Explain (briefly) how your article is structured.

The Literature Review should establish what has already been covered in relation to your topic. It should: 

 Clearly demonstrate an awareness and understanding of the key issues, concepts and authoritative material relevant to the topic.

Critically evaluate a range of relevant literature.

Include an analyses of an appropriate theory/theories.

Clearly demonstrate how your research questions relate to the existing academic literature.

Include a conceptual or theoretical framework. The framework should bring together key concepts and/or theories discussed in your literature review and demonstrate how these relate to your research question.

Research Questions: This section should include your overall research question and any sub-questions/ aims, and objective. It should be clear from your introduction and the content and structure of the literature review how these relate and respond to existing literature.

Hypotheses should be clearly outlined. Note that this section is only required if you are doing quantitative research and decide to use hypotheses in your research. Note that you should not have hypotheses and research sub-questions.

The Research Methods should:

Outline your methodology

Justify your choice of methods.

Explain how data was collected and analysed.

Provide detail on data collected.

Outline any ethical issues and how these were mitigated.

Your Findings and your analysis of them can be included in a single ‘findings’ section or divided into two separate sections (a ‘findings’ section and a ‘discussion’ section). Generally speaking, students who have collected qualitative data do the former, while students who have collected quantitative data do the latter – your supervisor will be able to advise you on the best approach for your project. In either case, you should: 

 Present and describe any relevant data.

Outline and discuss the findings that emerge from your data

Link your findings to existing literature and theory.

The data and findings that you present MUST answer your research question/s. 

At the end of your project you should provide conclusions and recommendations. In this section you should: 

 Summarise the main findings of your research

State the contribution your findings make to academic literature and/or practice.

Outline any recommendations or implications for practice.

Finally, you need to discuss the limitations of your research and outline areas for future research.

References should include a list of sources you have used and cited in your project. You should follow the Harvard referencing style. Please note that your reference list is not included in the word count but in-text citation (e.g. ‘Smith, 2009’) are included.

Appendices

The appendices will vary depending on the nature of your project. As a minimum your appendices should include: 

 For primary research: a copy of the interview/focus group/questionnaire questions and/or observation guides used during data collection.

For secondary research: your secondary data plan.

A sample of your data. This might be a sample transcript, a complete questionnaire, and/or observation notes. Please note that all identifying information should be removed. If you have carried out secondary research please include a list of secondary sources used (this should be covered in your secondary data plan).

Illustrative examples of your analysis process. This might include (for example) highlighted transcripts (with any identifying information, such as participants’ or organisations’ names, removed), tables showing your themes and related quotes, worked examples of quantitative analysis.

A completed and signed ethics form.

Any participant information sheets and blank consent forms. Please note that you should not include completed consent forms.

A copy of your supervision record.

ection Approximate % of overall wordcount Approximate number of words
Abstract N/A 200-300 (not included in word count), Introduction 10% 700, Literature review 25% 1800, Research questions/hypotheses 2% 100,  Methods 15% 1000,  Findings/discussion 35% 2500,  Conclusion 13% 900.