Background and Context:
Background
Gives an overview of your topic and the key question is, what do you want readers to
know about your research ?
General information about your topic
o What is happening now about the problem you want to study?
o Give stats or analysis from previous research
Historical
o Changes in legislation and policy
Context of your topic
o What are the current conditions, settings, and situations with respect to your
topic?
o Who is directly or indirectly involved?
Rationale/justification of your research
Background and context
Goal: capture the interest of the reader/audience to your research study by giving
sufficient background information
Focus on importance of the question your research is trying to address (Why should
they continue to read further?)
Provide a review of what is currently known about the research area
Persuasive logical review backed up with factual evidence (give stats)
Explain the scope of your work
Adopt a funnel approach to giving the background and context (start broad and then
narrow into your research question)
Global
o Why this topic is important from the global context
o What is known about in terms of:
o Burden, mortality, costs and preventability
Local
o On the country level what is the situation and what attributes are there
o Findings of previous research and their limitations
Focal
o Significance of your research
o The problem statement
o Rationale
Remember not to use ―”I, our, we” use ―”The study”, not ―My
research!!!
Background
Gives an overview of your topic and the key question is, what do you want readers to
know about your research ?
General information about your topic
o What is happening now about the problem you want to study?
o Give stats or analysis from previous research
Historical
o Changes in legislation and policy
Context of your topic
o What are the current conditions, settings, and situations with respect to your
topic?
o Who is directly or indirectly involved?
Rationale/justification of your research
Background and context
Goal: capture the interest of the reader/audience to your research study by giving
sufficient background information
Focus on importance of the question your research is trying to address (Why should
they continue to read further?)
Provide a review of what is currently known about the research area
Persuasive logical review backed up with factual evidence (give stats)
Explain the scope of your work
Adopt a funnel approach to giving the background and context (start broad and then
narrow into your research question)
Global
o Why this topic is important from the global context
o What is known about in terms of:
o Burden, mortality, costs and preventability
Local
o On the country level what is the situation and what attributes are there
o Findings of previous research and their limitations
Focal
o Significance of your research
o The problem statement
o Rationale
Remember not to use ―”I, our, we” use ―”The study”, not ―My
research!!!
