Overview

A guide to getting started with your independent final year project with the Language Evolution, Acquisition and Development research group.

This document is meant as a general guide for doing an independent research project within the Language Evolution, Acquisition and Development (LEAD) Group at Newcastle University. The term "independent research project" is used here to apply to undergraduate short form (extended study) dissertations, year-long dissertations, and postgraduate taught dissertations.

While independent projects across language and linguistics generally can take many forms, projects in LEAD will usually deal with some kind of data. This can range from very quantitative approaches which use computational models or advanced inferential statistics to to more qualitative approaches to a dataset. However, the thread that unites all these approaches is that projects identify a specific research question and answer it using evidence from a primary dataset.

In other words, the focus in LEAD projects is on using a primary dataset to address a question

There are several ways you can do this, for example:

• Generate data using a computational model

• Gather data from an existing corpus or curate one of your own

• Collect novel experimental data

• Look at data from an existing database or resource in a new way

Note that while these approaches are all quite different, they have the common thread of using primary data. Another approach often used in academic research is to take a specific research question and answer it using a novel synthesis of evidence already in the literature (for example, the journal Trends in Cognitive Science publishes these kinds of articles almost exclusively). This approach would make for either a meta-analysis or a more theoretical dissertation. Within LEAD, we generally don't supervise purely theoretical dissertations, because this approach doesn't take advantage of the unique experience/perspective of the staff and students involved in LEAD. However, there may be exceptions if you have a specific question and a novel approach in mind - get in touch with a staff member to discuss.