Introduction

This Guideline describes the current recommended and standard procedures and practices to be adopted by all departments in the Malaysian Students’ Global Alliance (MSGA) in carrying out any research effort for the Alliance. As a representative for Malaysian students and our esteemed Member Councils worldwide, it is our duty to protect and uphold our brand as that will reflect on our stakeholders. Our standard brand and procedures ensure we have a consistent look and feel to our advocacy efforts, where professionalism is imperative and so is our responsibility to our students.

Contents

Fundamentals

This section opens the topic into the heaviest publication types expected in the medium term: a research paper and policy papers. Here, both papers are elaborated on and the recommended steps with their sources are given.

Privacy

In any research relating to human participants including online survey takers, the subject of ethics, privacy, and confidentiality must be outlined to protect the data and personal/privileged information obtained throughout.

Data Collection

A dive into the various possible research methods employed to collect data from human participants, previous research, or other means. Though these methods are curated for research to human psychology, the points outlined are useful to all branches of research.

Data Quality

Before carrying out your research, understand the way to protect the level of quality of your data, including by looking at where you got those data from and how to maintain the data quality/collection through various quality dimensions.

Interviews

Often, in-depth research requires you to have conversations with other human subjects and this section explains the types of interviews you may employ as well as recommending the setting and methodology of conducting the interview.

Branding

Style is key. The branding matters. How you project your research output must adhere to the MSGA Branding Guidelines, our official colour (#800000) and our official font (Lato). Use your imagination to make your output captivating but let it push the same colours as other publications.

Language

Our official language of usage is British English. Some commonly misused grammar points are outlined here including the Oxford Comma and the differences between a '-', '–', and '—' (yes, they are very different). Some recommendations of using a Gender Inclusive Language is also explained here.

Google Docs

Even in Google Docs, some standards must be made and in this section, the steps to use Google Docs's tools to improve your work is elucidated. This Guideline recommends you to use Headings and a dynamic Table of Contents for better document outline, among others.

Referencing

Our official reference style is Harvard, specifically the Harvard-style recommended by citethisforme and Mendeley. This section gives examples of the Harvard citation style (in-line and in the Reference List) in different cases and where to place them.

Examples

Finally, this Guideline includes several examples of previous work that do not conform to the recommendations of this Guideline.

Feedback

If you have any questions or recommendations, please forward them to the current Vice President of Analytics: faris.msga@gmail.com.