Analysis of some textual components of the project for doctoral thesis in Education: title, justification of the problem and recourse to other texts

Abstract

The PhD project is a text of importance in ensuring that decisions regarding theoretical stage, the goal formulation, proposed methods, are duly aligned with practices of good research. However, it is not a genre explicitly under examination, non-existent scrutiny in the case of proposals of pedagogical formality. In this paper we analyze, from theoretical frames and analytical procedures proven, 31 projects from two doctorates in Education of the National University of Cuyo and of the Catholic University of Cuyo, Argentina, in order to explore what kinds of titles show up, how problem is warranted and which modalities adopts the incorporation of other texts (citation and referencing). These textual components are selected because they are directly associated with the initial logic of an inquiry, whose relevance resides in that it is the requirement sine qua non that must satisfy a project to be approved. The results show that types of titles form a restricted set wherein prevails the nominal construction that announces the subject; the justification of problem appears as a weak area with preeminence of the ones based on its importance and on the contribution of the findings; predominates the attributive function of the citation, i.e., citation associated to an encyclopedic use of the referred publications