essay on my limitations

How to Write Limitations of the Study (with examples)

This blog emphasizes the importance of recognizing and effectively writing about limitations in research. It discusses the types of limitations, their significance, and provides guidelines for writing about them, highlighting their role in advancing scholarly research.

Updated on August 24, 2023

No matter how well thought out, every research endeavor encounters challenges. There is simply no way to predict all possible variances throughout the process.

These uncharted boundaries and abrupt constraints are known as limitations in research . Identifying and acknowledging limitations is crucial for conducting rigorous studies. Limitations provide context and shed light on gaps in the prevailing inquiry and literature.

This article explores the importance of recognizing limitations and discusses how to write them effectively. By interpreting limitations in research and considering prevalent examples, we aim to reframe the perception from shameful mistakes to respectable revelations.

What are limitations in research?

In the clearest terms, research limitations are the practical or theoretical shortcomings of a study that are often outside of the researcher’s control . While these weaknesses limit the generalizability of a study’s conclusions, they also present a foundation for future research.

Sometimes limitations arise from tangible circumstances like time and funding constraints, or equipment and participant availability. Other times the rationale is more obscure and buried within the research design. Common types of limitations and their ramifications include:

• Theoretical: limits the scope, depth, or applicability of a study.
• Methodological: limits the quality, quantity, or diversity of the data.
• Empirical: limits the representativeness, validity, or reliability of the data.
• Analytical: limits the accuracy, completeness, or significance of the findings.
• Ethical: limits the access, consent, or confidentiality of the data.

Regardless of how, when, or why they arise, limitations are a natural part of the research process and should never be ignored . Like all other aspects, they are vital in their own purpose.

Why is identifying limitations important?

Whether to seek acceptance or avoid struggle, humans often instinctively hide flaws and mistakes. Merging this thought process into research by attempting to hide limitations, however, is a bad idea. It has the potential to negate the validity of outcomes and damage the reputation of scholars.

By identifying and addressing limitations throughout a project, researchers strengthen their arguments and curtail the chance of peer censure based on overlooked mistakes. Pointing out these flaws shows an understanding of variable limits and a scrupulous research process.

Showing awareness of and taking responsibility for a project’s boundaries and challenges validates the integrity and transparency of a researcher. It further demonstrates the researchers understand the applicable literature and have thoroughly evaluated their chosen research methods.

Presenting limitations also benefits the readers by providing context for research findings. It guides them to interpret the project’s conclusions only within the scope of very specific conditions. By allowing for an appropriate generalization of the findings that is accurately confined by research boundaries and is not too broad, limitations boost a study’s credibility .

Limitations are true assets to the research process. They highlight opportunities for future research. When researchers identify the limitations of their particular approach to a study question, they enable precise transferability and improve chances for reproducibility. 

Simply stating a project’s limitations is not adequate for spurring further research, though. To spark the interest of other researchers, these acknowledgements must come with thorough explanations regarding how the limitations affected the current study and how they can potentially be overcome with amended methods.

How to write limitations

Typically, the information about a study’s limitations is situated either at the beginning of the discussion section to provide context for readers or at the conclusion of the discussion section to acknowledge the need for further research. However, it varies depending upon the target journal or publication guidelines. 

Don’t hide your limitations

It is also important to not bury a limitation in the body of the paper unless it has a unique connection to a topic in that section. If so, it needs to be reiterated with the other limitations or at the conclusion of the discussion section. Wherever it is included in the manuscript, ensure that the limitations section is prominently positioned and clearly introduced.

While maintaining transparency by disclosing limitations means taking a comprehensive approach, it is not necessary to discuss everything that could have potentially gone wrong during the research study. If there is no commitment to investigation in the introduction, it is unnecessary to consider the issue a limitation to the research. Wholly consider the term ‘limitations’ and ask, “Did it significantly change or limit the possible outcomes?” Then, qualify the occurrence as either a limitation to include in the current manuscript or as an idea to note for other projects. 

Writing limitations

Once the limitations are concretely identified and it is decided where they will be included in the paper, researchers are ready for the writing task. Including only what is pertinent, keeping explanations detailed but concise, and employing the following guidelines is key for crafting valuable limitations:

1) Identify and describe the limitations : Clearly introduce the limitation by classifying its form and specifying its origin. For example:

• An unintentional bias encountered during data collection
• An intentional use of unplanned post-hoc data analysis

2) Explain the implications : Describe how the limitation potentially influences the study’s findings and how the validity and generalizability are subsequently impacted. Provide examples and evidence to support claims of the limitations’ effects without making excuses or exaggerating their impact. Overall, be transparent and objective in presenting the limitations, without undermining the significance of the research. 

3) Provide alternative approaches for future studies : Offer specific suggestions for potential improvements or avenues for further investigation. Demonstrate a proactive approach by encouraging future research that addresses the identified gaps and, therefore, expands the knowledge base.

Whether presenting limitations as an individual section within the manuscript or as a subtopic in the discussion area, authors should use clear headings and straightforward language to facilitate readability. There is no need to complicate limitations with jargon, computations, or complex datasets.

Examples of common limitations

Limitations are generally grouped into two categories , methodology and research process .

Methodology limitations

Methodology may include limitations due to:

• Sample size
• Lack of available or reliable data
• Lack of prior research studies on the topic
• Measure used to collect the data
• Self-reported data

The researcher is addressing how the large sample size requires a reassessment of the measures used to collect and analyze the data.

Research process limitations

Limitations during the research process may arise from:

• Access to information
• Longitudinal effects
• Cultural and other biases
• Language fluency
• Time constraints

The author is pointing out that the model’s estimates are based on potentially biased observational studies.

Final thoughts

Successfully proving theories and touting great achievements are only two very narrow goals of scholarly research. The true passion and greatest efforts of researchers comes more in the form of confronting assumptions and exploring the obscure.

In many ways, recognizing and sharing the limitations of a research study both allows for and encourages this type of discovery that continuously pushes research forward. By using limitations to provide a transparent account of the project's boundaries and to contextualize the findings, researchers pave the way for even more robust and impactful research in the future.

Charla Viera, MS

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How to Write about Research Limitations Without Reducing Your Impact

Being open about what you could not do in your research is actually extremely positive, and it’s viewed favorably by editors and peer reviewers. Writing about your limitations without reducing your impact is a valuable skills that will help your reputation as a researcher.

Areas you might have “failed,” in other words, your limitations, include:

• Aims and objectives (they were a bit too ambitious)
• Study design (not quite right)
• Supporting literature (you’re in uncharted territory)
• Sampling method (if only you’d snowballed it)
• Size of your study population (not enough power)
• Data collection method (bias found its way in)
• Confounding factors (didn’t see that coming!)

Your limitations don’t harm your work and reputation. Quite the opposite, they validate your work and increase your contribution to your field.

Limitations are quite easy to write about in a useful way that won’t reducing your impact. In fact, it’ll increase it.

Why are limitations so important?

Study design limitations, impact limitations, statistical or data limitations, other limitations, how to describe your limitations, where to write your limitations, structure for writing about a limitation, writing up a broader limitation, dealing with breakthroughs and niche-type limitations, dealing with critical flaws, curb your enthusiasm: manage expectations.

Regrettably, the publish-or-perish mentality has created pressure to only come up with successful results. It’s also not too much to say that journals prefer positive studies – where the findings support the hypothesis.

But success alone is not science. Science is trial and error.

So it’s important to present a well-balanced, comprehensive description of your research. That includes your limitations. Accurately reporting your limitations will:

• Help prevent research waste on repeated failures
• Lead to creation of new hypotheses
• Provide useful information for systematic reviews
• Further demonstrate the robustness of your study

Adding clear discussion of any negative results and/or outcomes as well as your study limitations makes you much better able to provide your readers (including peer reviewers) with:

• Information about your positive results
• Explanation of why your results are credible
• Ideas for future hypothesis generation
• Understanding of why your study has impact

These are good things. There’s even a journal for failure ! That’s how important it is in science.

Some authors find it hard to write about their study limitations, seeing it as an admission of failure. You can do it, and you don’t have to overdo it, either.

Know your limitations and you can anticipate and record them

These might include the procedures, experiments, or reagents (or funding) you have available. As well as specific constraints on the study population. There may be ethical guidelines, and institutional or national policies, that limit what you can do.

These are very common limitations to medical research, for example. We refer to these kinds as study design limitations. Clinical trials, for instance, may have a restriction on interventions expected to have a positive effect. Or there may be restrictions on data collection based on the study population.

Even if your study has a strong design and statistical foundation there might be a strong regional, national, or species-based focus. Or your work could be very population- or experimental-specific.

Your entire field of study, in fact, may only be conducive to incremental findings (e.g., particle physics or molecular biology).

These are inherent limits on impact in that they’re so specific. This limits the extendibility of the findings. It doesn’t however, limit the impact on a specific area or your field. Note the impact and push forward!

Perhaps the most common kind of limitation is statistical or data-based. This category is extremely common in experimental (e.g., chemistry) or field-based (e.g., ecology, population biology, qualitative clinical research) studies.

In many situations, testing hypotheses, you simply may not be able to collect as much data or as good quality data as you want to. Perhaps enrollment was more difficult than expected, under-powering your results.

Statistical limitations can also stem from study design, producing more serious issues in terms of interpreting findings. Seeking expert review from a statistician, such as by using Edanz scientific solutions , may be a good idea before starting your study design.

The above three are often interconnected. And they’re certainly not comprehensive.

As mentioned up top, you may also be limited by the literature. By external confounders. By things you didn’t even see coming (like how long it took you to find 10 qualified respondents for a qualitative study).

Once you’ve identified possible limitations in your work, you need to get to the real point of this post – describing them in your manuscript.

Use the perspective of limitations = contribution and impact to maximize your chances of acceptance.

Reviewers, editors, and readers expect you to present your work authoritatively. You’re the expert in the field, after all. This may make them critical. Embrace that. Counter their possibly negative interpretation by explaining each limitation, showing why the results are still important and useful.

Limitations are usually listed at the end of your Discussion section, though they can also be added throughout. Especially for a long manuscript or for an essay or dissertation, the latter may be useful for the reader.

Writing on your limitations: Words and structure

• This study did have some limitations.
• Three notable limitations affected this study.
• While this study successfully x, there were some limitations.

Giving a specific number is useful for the reader and can guide your writing. But if it’s a longer list, no need to number them. For a short list, you can write them as:

But this gets tiring for more than three limitations (bad RX: reader experience).

So, for longer lists, add a bit of variety in the language to engage the reader. Like this:

• The first issue was…
• Another limitation was…
• Additionally,…

An expert editor will be happy to help you make the English more natural and readable.

After your lead-in sentence, follow a pattern of writing on your findings and related limitation(s), giving a quick interpretation, back it with support (if needed), and offer the next steps.

This provides a complete package for the reader: what happened, what it means, why this is the case, and what is now needed.

In that way, you’ve admitted what may be lacking, but you’ve further established your authority. You’ve also provided a quick roadmap for your reader. That’s an impactful contribution!

It might not always be logical or readable to give that much detail. As long as you fully describe and justify the limitation, you’ve done your job well.

Your study looked at a weight intervention over 6 months at primary healthcare clinics in Japan. The results were generally. But because you only looked at Japanese patients, these findings may not be extendible to patients of other cultures/nationalities, etc.

That’s not a failure at all. It’s a success. But it is a limitation. And other researchers can learn from it and build on it. Write it up in the limitations.

Finding: We found that, in the intervention group, BMI was reduced over 6 months.

Interpretation (and support): This suggests a regimen of routine testing and measurement followed by personalized health guidance from primary physicians had a positive effect on patients’ conditions.

Support: Yamazaki (2019) and Endo et al. (2020) found similar results in urban Japanese clinics and hospitals, respectively.

Limitation and how to use it: While these are useful findings, they are limited by only including Japanese populations. This does not ensure these interventions would be as effective in other nations or cultures. Similar interventions, adapted to the local healthcare and cultural conditions, would help to further clarify the methods.

Now you’ve stated the value of your finding, the limitation, and what to do with it. Nice impact!

Another hurdle you may hit is when your results are particularly novel or you’re publishing in a little-researched field. Those are limitations that need to be stated. In this case, you can support your findings by reinforcing the novelty of your results.

When breaking new ground, there are probably still many gaps in the knowledge base that need to be filled. A good follow-up statement for this type of limitation is to describe what, based on these results, the next steps would be to build a stronger overall evidence base.

It’s possible that your study will have a fairly “critical” flaw (usually in the study design) that decreases confidence in your findings.

Other experts will likely notice this (in peer review or perhaps on a preprint server, they should notice it), so it’s best to explain why this error or flaw occurred.

You can still explain why the study is worth repeating or how you plan to retest the phenomenon. But you may need to temper your publication goals if you still plan to publish your work.

No one expects science to be perfect the first time and while your peers can be highly critical, no one’s work is beyond limitations. This is important to keep in mind.

Edanz experts can help by giving you an Expert Scientific Review and seeking out your limitations.

Our knowledge base is built on uncovering each piece of the puzzle, one at a time, and limitations show us where new efforts need to be made. Much like peer review, don’t think of limitations as being inherently bad, but more as an opportunity for a new challenge.

Ultimately, your limitations may be someone else’s inspirations. Include them in your submission when you get published in the journal of your choice.

All research faces problems: Being honest impresses people much more than ignoring your limitations.

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21 Research Limitations Examples

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

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Research limitations refer to the potential weaknesses inherent in a study. All studies have limitations of some sort, meaning declaring limitations doesn’t necessarily need to be a bad thing, so long as your declaration of limitations is well thought-out and explained.

Rarely is a study perfect. Researchers have to make trade-offs when developing their studies, which are often based upon practical considerations such as time and monetary constraints, weighing the breadth of participants against the depth of insight, and choosing one methodology or another.

In research, studies can have limitations such as limited scope, researcher subjectivity, and lack of available research tools.

Acknowledging the limitations of your study should be seen as a strength. It demonstrates your willingness for transparency, humility, and submission to the scientific method and can bolster the integrity of the study. It can also inform future research direction.

Typically, scholars will explore the limitations of their study in either their methodology section, their conclusion section, or both.

Research Limitations Examples

Qualitative and quantitative research offer different perspectives and methods in exploring phenomena, each with its own strengths and limitations. So, I’ve split the limitations examples sections into qualitative and quantitative below.

Qualitative Research Limitations

Qualitative research seeks to understand phenomena in-depth and in context. It focuses on the ‘why’ and ‘how’ questions.

It’s often used to explore new or complex issues, and it provides rich, detailed insights into participants’ experiences, behaviors, and attitudes. However, these strengths also create certain limitations, as explained below.

1. Subjectivity

Qualitative research often requires the researcher to interpret subjective data. One researcher may examine a text and identify different themes or concepts as more dominant than others.

Close qualitative readings of texts are necessarily subjective – and while this may be a limitation, qualitative researchers argue this is the best way to deeply understand everything in context.

Suggested Solution and Response: To minimize subjectivity bias, you could consider cross-checking your own readings of themes and data against other scholars’ readings and interpretations. This may involve giving the raw data to a supervisor or colleague and asking them to code the data separately, then coming together to compare and contrast results.

2. Researcher Bias

The concept of researcher bias is related to, but slightly different from, subjectivity.

Researcher bias refers to the perspectives and opinions you bring with you when doing your research.

For example, a researcher who is explicitly of a certain philosophical or political persuasion may bring that persuasion to bear when interpreting data.

In many scholarly traditions, we will attempt to minimize researcher bias through the utilization of clear procedures that are set out in advance or through the use of statistical analysis tools.

However, in other traditions, such as in postmodern feminist research , declaration of bias is expected, and acknowledgment of bias is seen as a positive because, in those traditions, it is believed that bias cannot be eliminated from research, so instead, it is a matter of integrity to present it upfront.

Suggested Solution and Response: Acknowledge the potential for researcher bias and, depending on your theoretical framework , accept this, or identify procedures you have taken to seek a closer approximation to objectivity in your coding and analysis.

3. Generalizability

If you’re struggling to find a limitation to discuss in your own qualitative research study, then this one is for you: all qualitative research, of all persuasions and perspectives, cannot be generalized.

This is a core feature that sets qualitative data and quantitative data apart.

The point of qualitative data is to select case studies and similarly small corpora and dig deep through in-depth analysis and thick description of data.

Often, this will also mean that you have a non-randomized sample size.

While this is a positive – you’re going to get some really deep, contextualized, interesting insights – it also means that the findings may not be generalizable to a larger population that may not be representative of the small group of people in your study.

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that take a quantitative approach to the question.

4. The Hawthorne Effect

The Hawthorne effect refers to the phenomenon where research participants change their ‘observed behavior’ when they’re aware that they are being observed.

This effect was first identified by Elton Mayo who conducted studies of the effects of various factors ton workers’ productivity. He noticed that no matter what he did – turning up the lights, turning down the lights, etc. – there was an increase in worker outputs compared to prior to the study taking place.

Mayo realized that the mere act of observing the workers made them work harder – his observation was what was changing behavior.

So, if you’re looking for a potential limitation to name for your observational research study , highlight the possible impact of the Hawthorne effect (and how you could reduce your footprint or visibility in order to decrease its likelihood).

Suggested Solution and Response: Highlight ways you have attempted to reduce your footprint while in the field, and guarantee anonymity to your research participants.

5. Replicability

Quantitative research has a great benefit in that the studies are replicable – a researcher can get a similar sample size, duplicate the variables, and re-test a study. But you can’t do that in qualitative research.

Qualitative research relies heavily on context – a specific case study or specific variables that make a certain instance worthy of analysis. As a result, it’s often difficult to re-enter the same setting with the same variables and repeat the study.

Furthermore, the individual researcher’s interpretation is more influential in qualitative research, meaning even if a new researcher enters an environment and makes observations, their observations may be different because subjectivity comes into play much more. This doesn’t make the research bad necessarily (great insights can be made in qualitative research), but it certainly does demonstrate a weakness of qualitative research.

6. Limited Scope

“Limited scope” is perhaps one of the most common limitations listed by researchers – and while this is often a catch-all way of saying, “well, I’m not studying that in this study”, it’s also a valid point.

No study can explore everything related to a topic. At some point, we have to make decisions about what’s included in the study and what is excluded from the study.

So, you could say that a limitation of your study is that it doesn’t look at an extra variable or concept that’s certainly worthy of study but will have to be explored in your next project because this project has a clearly and narrowly defined goal.

Suggested Solution and Response: Be clear about what’s in and out of the study when writing your research question.

7. Time Constraints

This is also a catch-all claim you can make about your research project: that you would have included more people in the study, looked at more variables, and so on. But you’ve got to submit this thing by the end of next semester! You’ve got time constraints.

And time constraints are a recognized reality in all research.

But this means you’ll need to explain how time has limited your decisions. As with “limited scope”, this may mean that you had to study a smaller group of subjects, limit the amount of time you spent in the field, and so forth.

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will build on your current work, possibly as a PhD project.

8. Resource Intensiveness

Qualitative research can be expensive due to the cost of transcription, the involvement of trained researchers, and potential travel for interviews or observations.

So, resource intensiveness is similar to the time constraints concept. If you don’t have the funds, you have to make decisions about which tools to use, which statistical software to employ, and how many research assistants you can dedicate to the study.

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will gain more funding on the back of this ‘ exploratory study ‘.

9. Coding Difficulties

Data analysis in qualitative research often involves coding, which can be subjective and complex, especially when dealing with ambiguous or contradicting data.

After naming this as a limitation in your research, it’s important to explain how you’ve attempted to address this. Some ways to ‘limit the limitation’ include:

• Triangulation: Have 2 other researchers code the data as well and cross-check your results with theirs to identify outliers that may need to be re-examined, debated with the other researchers, or removed altogether.
• Procedure: Use a clear coding procedure to demonstrate reliability in your coding process. I personally use the thematic network analysis method outlined in this academic article by Attride-Stirling (2001).

Suggested Solution and Response: Triangulate your coding findings with colleagues, and follow a thematic network analysis procedure.

10. Risk of Non-Responsiveness

There is always a risk in research that research participants will be unwilling or uncomfortable sharing their genuine thoughts and feelings in the study.

This is particularly true when you’re conducting research on sensitive topics, politicized topics, or topics where the participant is expressing vulnerability .

This is similar to the Hawthorne effect (aka participant bias), where participants change their behaviors in your presence; but it goes a step further, where participants actively hide their true thoughts and feelings from you.

Suggested Solution and Response: One way to manage this is to try to include a wider group of people with the expectation that there will be non-responsiveness from some participants.

11. Risk of Attrition

Attrition refers to the process of losing research participants throughout the study.

This occurs most commonly in longitudinal studies , where a researcher must return to conduct their analysis over spaced periods of time, often over a period of years.

Things happen to people over time – they move overseas, their life experiences change, they get sick, change their minds, and even die. The more time that passes, the greater the risk of attrition.

Suggested Solution and Response: One way to manage this is to try to include a wider group of people with the expectation that there will be attrition over time.

12. Difficulty in Maintaining Confidentiality and Anonymity

Given the detailed nature of qualitative data , ensuring participant anonymity can be challenging.

If you have a sensitive topic in a specific case study, even anonymizing research participants sometimes isn’t enough. People might be able to induce who you’re talking about.

Sometimes, this will mean you have to exclude some interesting data that you collected from your final report. Confidentiality and anonymity come before your findings in research ethics – and this is a necessary limiting factor.

Suggested Solution and Response: Highlight the efforts you have taken to anonymize data, and accept that confidentiality and accountability place extremely important constraints on academic research.

13. Difficulty in Finding Research Participants

A study that looks at a very specific phenomenon or even a specific set of cases within a phenomenon means that the pool of potential research participants can be very low.

Compile on top of this the fact that many people you approach may choose not to participate, and you could end up with a very small corpus of subjects to explore. This may limit your ability to make complete findings, even in a quantitative sense.

You may need to therefore limit your research question and objectives to something more realistic.

Suggested Solution and Response: Highlight that this is going to limit the study’s generalizability significantly.

14. Ethical Limitations

Ethical limitations refer to the things you cannot do based on ethical concerns identified either by yourself or your institution’s ethics review board.

This might include threats to the physical or psychological well-being of your research subjects, the potential of releasing data that could harm a person’s reputation, and so on.

Furthermore, even if your study follows all expected standards of ethics, you still, as an ethical researcher, need to allow a research participant to pull out at any point in time, after which you cannot use their data, which demonstrates an overlap between ethical constraints and participant attrition.

Suggested Solution and Response: Highlight that these ethical limitations are inevitable but important to sustain the integrity of the research.

For more on Qualitative Research, Explore my Qualitative Research Guide

Quantitative Research Limitations

Quantitative research focuses on quantifiable data and statistical, mathematical, or computational techniques. It’s often used to test hypotheses, assess relationships and causality, and generalize findings across larger populations.

Quantitative research is widely respected for its ability to provide reliable, measurable, and generalizable data (if done well!). Its structured methodology has strengths over qualitative research, such as the fact it allows for replication of the study, which underpins the validity of the research.

However, this approach is not without it limitations, explained below.

1. Over-Simplification

Quantitative research is powerful because it allows you to measure and analyze data in a systematic and standardized way. However, one of its limitations is that it can sometimes simplify complex phenomena or situations.

In other words, it might miss the subtleties or nuances of the research subject.

For example, if you’re studying why people choose a particular diet, a quantitative study might identify factors like age, income, or health status. But it might miss other aspects, such as cultural influences or personal beliefs, that can also significantly impact dietary choices.

When writing about this limitation, you can say that your quantitative approach, while providing precise measurements and comparisons, may not capture the full complexity of your subjects of study.

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest a follow-up case study using the same research participants in order to gain additional context and depth.

2. Lack of Context

Another potential issue with quantitative research is that it often focuses on numbers and statistics at the expense of context or qualitative information.

Let’s say you’re studying the effect of classroom size on student performance. You might find that students in smaller classes generally perform better. However, this doesn’t take into account other variables, like teaching style , student motivation, or family support.

When describing this limitation, you might say, “Although our research provides important insights into the relationship between class size and student performance, it does not incorporate the impact of other potentially influential variables. Future research could benefit from a mixed-methods approach that combines quantitative analysis with qualitative insights.”

3. Applicability to Real-World Settings

Oftentimes, experimental research takes place in controlled environments to limit the influence of outside factors.

This control is great for isolation and understanding the specific phenomenon but can limit the applicability or “external validity” of the research to real-world settings.

For example, if you conduct a lab experiment to see how sleep deprivation impacts cognitive performance, the sterile, controlled lab environment might not reflect real-world conditions where people are dealing with multiple stressors.

Therefore, when explaining the limitations of your quantitative study in your methodology section, you could state:

“While our findings provide valuable information about [topic], the controlled conditions of the experiment may not accurately represent real-world scenarios where extraneous variables will exist. As such, the direct applicability of our results to broader contexts may be limited.”

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will engage in real-world observational research, such as ethnographic research.

4. Limited Flexibility

Once a quantitative study is underway, it can be challenging to make changes to it. This is because, unlike in grounded research, you’re putting in place your study in advance, and you can’t make changes part-way through.

Your study design, data collection methods, and analysis techniques need to be decided upon before you start collecting data.

For example, if you are conducting a survey on the impact of social media on teenage mental health, and halfway through, you realize that you should have included a question about their screen time, it’s generally too late to add it.

When discussing this limitation, you could write something like, “The structured nature of our quantitative approach allows for consistent data collection and analysis but also limits our flexibility to adapt and modify the research process in response to emerging insights and ideas.”

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will use mixed-methods or qualitative research methods to gain additional depth of insight.

5. Risk of Survey Error

Surveys are a common tool in quantitative research, but they carry risks of error.

There can be measurement errors (if a question is misunderstood), coverage errors (if some groups aren’t adequately represented), non-response errors (if certain people don’t respond), and sampling errors (if your sample isn’t representative of the population).

For instance, if you’re surveying college students about their study habits , but only daytime students respond because you conduct the survey during the day, your results will be skewed.

In discussing this limitation, you might say, “Despite our best efforts to develop a comprehensive survey, there remains a risk of survey error, including measurement, coverage, non-response, and sampling errors. These could potentially impact the reliability and generalizability of our findings.”

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will use other survey tools to compare and contrast results.

6. Limited Ability to Probe Answers

With quantitative research, you typically can’t ask follow-up questions or delve deeper into participants’ responses like you could in a qualitative interview.

For instance, imagine you are surveying 500 students about study habits in a questionnaire. A respondent might indicate that they study for two hours each night. You might want to follow up by asking them to elaborate on what those study sessions involve or how effective they feel their habits are.

However, quantitative research generally disallows this in the way a qualitative semi-structured interview could.

When discussing this limitation, you might write, “Given the structured nature of our survey, our ability to probe deeper into individual responses is limited. This means we may not fully understand the context or reasoning behind the responses, potentially limiting the depth of our findings.”

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that engage in mixed-method or qualitative methodologies to address the issue from another angle.

7. Reliance on Instruments for Data Collection

In quantitative research, the collection of data heavily relies on instruments like questionnaires, surveys, or machines.

The limitation here is that the data you get is only as good as the instrument you’re using. If the instrument isn’t designed or calibrated well, your data can be flawed.

For instance, if you’re using a questionnaire to study customer satisfaction and the questions are vague, confusing, or biased, the responses may not accurately reflect the customers’ true feelings.

When discussing this limitation, you could say, “Our study depends on the use of questionnaires for data collection. Although we have put significant effort into designing and testing the instrument, it’s possible that inaccuracies or misunderstandings could potentially affect the validity of the data collected.”

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will use different instruments but examine the same variables to triangulate results.

8. Time and Resource Constraints (Specific to Quantitative Research)

Quantitative research can be time-consuming and resource-intensive, especially when dealing with large samples.

It often involves systematic sampling, rigorous design, and sometimes complex statistical analysis.

If resources and time are limited, it can restrict the scale of your research, the techniques you can employ, or the extent of your data analysis.

For example, you may want to conduct a nationwide survey on public opinion about a certain policy. However, due to limited resources, you might only be able to survey people in one city.

When writing about this limitation, you could say, “Given the scope of our research and the resources available, we are limited to conducting our survey within one city, which may not fully represent the nationwide public opinion. Hence, the generalizability of the results may be limited.”

Suggested Solution and Response: Suggest future studies that will have more funding or longer timeframes.

How to Discuss Your Research Limitations

1. in your research proposal and methodology section.

In the research proposal, which will become the methodology section of your dissertation, I would recommend taking the four following steps, in order:

• Be Explicit about your Scope – If you limit the scope of your study in your research question, aims, and objectives, then you can set yourself up well later in the methodology to say that certain questions are “outside the scope of the study.” For example, you may identify the fact that the study doesn’t address a certain variable, but you can follow up by stating that the research question is specifically focused on the variable that you are examining, so this limitation would need to be looked at in future studies.
• Acknowledge the Limitation – Acknowledging the limitations of your study demonstrates reflexivity and humility and can make your research more reliable and valid. It also pre-empts questions the people grading your paper may have, so instead of them down-grading you for your limitations; they will congratulate you on explaining the limitations and how you have addressed them!
• Explain your Decisions – You may have chosen your approach (despite its limitations) for a very specific reason. This might be because your approach remains, on balance, the best one to answer your research question. Or, it might be because of time and monetary constraints that are outside of your control.
• Highlight the Strengths of your Approach – Conclude your limitations section by strongly demonstrating that, despite limitations, you’ve worked hard to minimize the effects of the limitations and that you have chosen your specific approach and methodology because it’s also got some terrific strengths. Name the strengths.

Overall, you’ll want to acknowledge your own limitations but also explain that the limitations don’t detract from the value of your study as it stands.

2. In the Conclusion Section or Chapter

In the conclusion of your study, it is generally expected that you return to a discussion of the study’s limitations. Here, I recommend the following steps:

• Acknowledge issues faced – After completing your study, you will be increasingly aware of issues you may have faced that, if you re-did the study, you may have addressed earlier in order to avoid those issues. Acknowledge these issues as limitations, and frame them as recommendations for subsequent studies.
• Suggest further research – Scholarly research aims to fill gaps in the current literature and knowledge. Having established your expertise through your study, suggest lines of inquiry for future researchers. You could state that your study had certain limitations, and “future studies” can address those limitations.
• Suggest a mixed methods approach – Qualitative and quantitative research each have pros and cons. So, note those ‘cons’ of your approach, then say the next study should approach the topic using the opposite methodology or could approach it using a mixed-methods approach that could achieve the benefits of quantitative studies with the nuanced insights of associated qualitative insights as part of an in-study case-study.

Overall, be clear about both your limitations and how those limitations can inform future studies.

In sum, each type of research method has its own strengths and limitations. Qualitative research excels in exploring depth, context, and complexity, while quantitative research excels in examining breadth, generalizability, and quantifiable measures. Despite their individual limitations, each method contributes unique and valuable insights, and researchers often use them together to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon being studied.

Attride-Stirling, J. (2001). Thematic networks: an analytic tool for qualitative research. Qualitative research , 1 (3), 385-405. ( Source )

Atkinson, P., Delamont, S., Cernat, A., Sakshaug, J., & Williams, R. A. (2021).  SAGE research methods foundations . London: Sage Publications.

Clark, T., Foster, L., Bryman, A., & Sloan, L. (2021).  Bryman’s social research methods . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Köhler, T., Smith, A., & Bhakoo, V. (2022). Templates in qualitative research methods: Origins, limitations, and new directions.  Organizational Research Methods ,  25 (2), 183-210. ( Source )

Lenger, A. (2019). The rejection of qualitative research methods in economics.  Journal of Economic Issues ,  53 (4), 946-965. ( Source )

Taherdoost, H. (2022). What are different research approaches? Comprehensive review of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method research, their applications, types, and limitations.  Journal of Management Science & Engineering Research ,  5 (1), 53-63. ( Source )

Walliman, N. (2021).  Research methods: The basics . New York: Routledge.

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Limitations in Research – A Simplified Guide with Examples

Limitations are flaws and shortcomings of your study. It is very important that you discuss the limitations of your study in the discussion section of your research paper. In this blog, we provide tips for presenting study limitations in your paper along with some real-world examples.

1. Should I Report the Limitations of My Work?

Most studies will have some form of limitation. So be honest and don’t hide your limitations. You have to tell your readers how your limitations might influence the outcomes and conclusions of your research.  In reality, your readers and reviewers will be impressed with your paper if you are upfront about your limitations. 

2. Examples

Let’s look at some examples. We have selected a variety of examples from different research topics.

2.1. Limitations Example 1

Following example is from a Medical research paper.

✔ The authors talk about the limitations and emphasis the importance of reconfirming the findings in a much larger study Study design and small sample size are important limitations. This could have led to an overestimation of the effect. Future research should reconfirm these findings by conducting larger-scale studies. _   Limitation s  _   How it might affect the results?   _   How to fix the limitation?

The authors are saying that the main limitations of the study are the small sample size and weak study design. Then they explain how this might have affected their results. They are saying that it is possible that they are overestimating the actual effect they are measuring. Then finally they are telling the readers that more studies with larger sample sizes should be conducted to reconfirm the findings.

As you can see, the authors are clearly explaining three things here: (1) What is the limitation? (2) How it might affect the study outcomes? and (3) What should be done to address the limitation?

2.2. Limitations Example 2

Following example is from an Engineering research paper.

✔ The authors are acknowledging the limitations and warning readers against generalizing the research findings However, some study limitations should be acknowledged. The experiments do not fully consider the problems that can appear in real situations. Hence, caution should be taken with generalizing the findings and applying them to real-life situations. _   Acknowledging limitations   _   Explaining the limitation   _   How it might affect the results?

The authors acknowledge that their study has some limitations. Then they explain what the limitations are. They are saying that their experiments do not consider all problems that might occur in real-life situations. Then they explain how this might affect their research outcomes. They are saying that readers should be careful when generalizing the results to practical real-world situations, because there is a possibility that the methods might fail.

2.3. Limitations Example 3

It is important to remember not to end your paper with limitations. Finish your paper on a positive note by telling your readers about the benefits of your research and possible future directions. In the following example, right after listing the limitations, the authors proceed to talk about the positive aspects of the work.

✔ The authors finish their paper on a positive note by talking about the benefits of their work and possible future work With this limited study, it is not known whether this finding can be applied to all clinical scenarios. Notwithstanding these limitations, this study has proven that Ultrasound can potentially serve as a more efficient alternative to X-rays in diagnosis. Future directions include studying the effects of different ultrasound pulsing schemes on pain relief. Another interesting direction would be to consider applications in nonhuman primates. _   Limitations   _   Benefits of the work   _   Possible future directions

The authors are saying that their experiments were somewhat limited and are not sure if their findings apply to the wider clinical practice. Then the authors highlight the benefits of their research. The authors say that their study has proven that ultrasound can be used instead of X-rays for diagnosis of certain types of diseases. Then they are explaining how future research can extend this work further. The authors are suggesting that it will be interesting to explore if ultrasound can be used for the treatment of chronic pain. And they are also suggesting that future studies can explore treating certain types of animal diseases with ultrasound. This is a very good example of how to finish the discussion section of your paper on a positive note.

Limitations are a vital component of the discussion section of your research paper. Remember, every study has limitations. There is no such thing as a perfect study. One of the major mistakes beginner writers make is hiding the limitations in the paper. Don’t do this, reviewers will reject your paper. Explain clearly how your limitations might have impacted your results, and provide ideas to mitigate them in the future. For further reading, please refer to our blogs on handling negative results and advanced tactics to address study limitations.

If you have any questions, please drop a comment below, and we will answer as soon as possible. We also recommend you to refer to our other blogs on  academic writing tools ,   academic writing resources ,  academic writing phrases  and  research paper examples  which are relevant to the topic discussed in this blog. 

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Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper

• Limitations of the Study
• Purpose of Guide
• Design Flaws to Avoid
• Independent and Dependent Variables
• Glossary of Research Terms
• Reading Research Effectively
• Narrowing a Topic Idea
• Broadening a Topic Idea
• Extending the Timeliness of a Topic Idea
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• The Research Problem/Question
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• Scholarly vs. Popular Publications
• Qualitative Methods
• Quantitative Methods
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• Common Grammar Mistakes
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• Further Readings
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The limitations of the study are those characteristics of design or methodology that impacted or influenced the interpretation of the findings from your research. Study limitations are the constraints placed on the ability to generalize from the results, to further describe applications to practice, and/or related to the utility of findings that are the result of the ways in which you initially chose to design the study or the method used to establish internal and external validity or the result of unanticipated challenges that emerged during the study.

Price, James H. and Judy Murnan. “Research Limitations and the Necessity of Reporting Them.” American Journal of Health Education 35 (2004): 66-67; Theofanidis, Dimitrios and Antigoni Fountouki. "Limitations and Delimitations in the Research Process." Perioperative Nursing 7 (September-December 2018): 155-163. .

Importance of...

Always acknowledge a study's limitations. It is far better that you identify and acknowledge your study’s limitations than to have them pointed out by your professor and have your grade lowered because you appeared to have ignored them or didn't realize they existed.

Keep in mind that acknowledgment of a study's limitations is an opportunity to make suggestions for further research. If you do connect your study's limitations to suggestions for further research, be sure to explain the ways in which these unanswered questions may become more focused because of your study.

Acknowledgment of a study's limitations also provides you with opportunities to demonstrate that you have thought critically about the research problem, understood the relevant literature published about it, and correctly assessed the methods chosen for studying the problem. A key objective of the research process is not only discovering new knowledge but also to confront assumptions and explore what we don't know.

Claiming limitations is a subjective process because you must evaluate the impact of those limitations . Don't just list key weaknesses and the magnitude of a study's limitations. To do so diminishes the validity of your research because it leaves the reader wondering whether, or in what ways, limitation(s) in your study may have impacted the results and conclusions. Limitations require a critical, overall appraisal and interpretation of their impact. You should answer the question: do these problems with errors, methods, validity, etc. eventually matter and, if so, to what extent?

Price, James H. and Judy Murnan. “Research Limitations and the Necessity of Reporting Them.” American Journal of Health Education 35 (2004): 66-67; Structure: How to Structure the Research Limitations Section of Your Dissertation. Dissertations and Theses: An Online Textbook. Laerd.com.

Descriptions of Possible Limitations

All studies have limitations . However, it is important that you restrict your discussion to limitations related to the research problem under investigation. For example, if a meta-analysis of existing literature is not a stated purpose of your research, it should not be discussed as a limitation. Do not apologize for not addressing issues that you did not promise to investigate in the introduction of your paper.

Here are examples of limitations related to methodology and the research process you may need to describe and discuss how they possibly impacted your results. Note that descriptions of limitations should be stated in the past tense because they were discovered after you completed your research.

Possible Methodological Limitations

• Sample size -- the number of the units of analysis you use in your study is dictated by the type of research problem you are investigating. Note that, if your sample size is too small, it will be difficult to find significant relationships from the data, as statistical tests normally require a larger sample size to ensure a representative distribution of the population and to be considered representative of groups of people to whom results will be generalized or transferred. Note that sample size is generally less relevant in qualitative research if explained in the context of the research problem.
• Lack of available and/or reliable data -- a lack of data or of reliable data will likely require you to limit the scope of your analysis, the size of your sample, or it can be a significant obstacle in finding a trend and a meaningful relationship. You need to not only describe these limitations but provide cogent reasons why you believe data is missing or is unreliable. However, don’t just throw up your hands in frustration; use this as an opportunity to describe a need for future research based on designing a different method for gathering data.
• Lack of prior research studies on the topic -- citing prior research studies forms the basis of your literature review and helps lay a foundation for understanding the research problem you are investigating. Depending on the currency or scope of your research topic, there may be little, if any, prior research on your topic. Before assuming this to be true, though, consult with a librarian! In cases when a librarian has confirmed that there is little or no prior research, you may be required to develop an entirely new research typology [for example, using an exploratory rather than an explanatory research design ]. Note again that discovering a limitation can serve as an important opportunity to identify new gaps in the literature and to describe the need for further research.
• Measure used to collect the data -- sometimes it is the case that, after completing your interpretation of the findings, you discover that the way in which you gathered data inhibited your ability to conduct a thorough analysis of the results. For example, you regret not including a specific question in a survey that, in retrospect, could have helped address a particular issue that emerged later in the study. Acknowledge the deficiency by stating a need for future researchers to revise the specific method for gathering data.
• Self-reported data -- whether you are relying on pre-existing data or you are conducting a qualitative research study and gathering the data yourself, self-reported data is limited by the fact that it rarely can be independently verified. In other words, you have to the accuracy of what people say, whether in interviews, focus groups, or on questionnaires, at face value. However, self-reported data can contain several potential sources of bias that you should be alert to and note as limitations. These biases become apparent if they are incongruent with data from other sources. These are: (1) selective memory [remembering or not remembering experiences or events that occurred at some point in the past]; (2) telescoping [recalling events that occurred at one time as if they occurred at another time]; (3) attribution [the act of attributing positive events and outcomes to one's own agency, but attributing negative events and outcomes to external forces]; and, (4) exaggeration [the act of representing outcomes or embellishing events as more significant than is actually suggested from other data].

Possible Limitations of the Researcher

• Access -- if your study depends on having access to people, organizations, data, or documents and, for whatever reason, access is denied or limited in some way, the reasons for this needs to be described. Also, include an explanation why being denied or limited access did not prevent you from following through on your study.
• Longitudinal effects -- unlike your professor, who can literally devote years [even a lifetime] to studying a single topic, the time available to investigate a research problem and to measure change or stability over time is constrained by the due date of your assignment. Be sure to choose a research problem that does not require an excessive amount of time to complete the literature review, apply the methodology, and gather and interpret the results. If you're unsure whether you can complete your research within the confines of the assignment's due date, talk to your professor.
• Cultural and other type of bias -- we all have biases, whether we are conscience of them or not. Bias is when a person, place, event, or thing is viewed or shown in a consistently inaccurate way. Bias is usually negative, though one can have a positive bias as well, especially if that bias reflects your reliance on research that only support your hypothesis. When proof-reading your paper, be especially critical in reviewing how you have stated a problem, selected the data to be studied, what may have been omitted, the manner in which you have ordered events, people, or places, how you have chosen to represent a person, place, or thing, to name a phenomenon, or to use possible words with a positive or negative connotation. NOTE :   If you detect bias in prior research, it must be acknowledged and you should explain what measures were taken to avoid perpetuating that bias. For example, if a previous study only used boys to examine how music education supports effective math skills, describe how your research expands the study to include girls.
• Fluency in a language -- if your research focuses , for example, on measuring the perceived value of after-school tutoring among Mexican-American ESL [English as a Second Language] students and you are not fluent in Spanish, you are limited in being able to read and interpret Spanish language research studies on the topic or to speak with these students in their primary language. This deficiency should be acknowledged.

Aguinis, Hermam and Jeffrey R. Edwards. “Methodological Wishes for the Next Decade and How to Make Wishes Come True.” Journal of Management Studies 51 (January 2014): 143-174; Brutus, Stéphane et al. "Self-Reported Limitations and Future Directions in Scholarly Reports: Analysis and Recommendations." Journal of Management 39 (January 2013): 48-75; Senunyeme, Emmanuel K. Business Research Methods. Powerpoint Presentation. Regent University of Science and Technology; ter Riet, Gerben et al. “All That Glitters Isn't Gold: A Survey on Acknowledgment of Limitations in Biomedical Studies.” PLOS One 8 (November 2013): 1-6.

Structure and Writing Style

Information about the limitations of your study are generally placed either at the beginning of the discussion section of your paper so the reader knows and understands the limitations before reading the rest of your analysis of the findings, or, the limitations are outlined at the conclusion of the discussion section as an acknowledgement of the need for further study. Statements about a study's limitations should not be buried in the body [middle] of the discussion section unless a limitation is specific to something covered in that part of the paper. If this is the case, though, the limitation should be reiterated at the conclusion of the section.

If you determine that your study is seriously flawed due to important limitations , such as, an inability to acquire critical data, consider reframing it as an exploratory study intended to lay the groundwork for a more complete research study in the future. Be sure, though, to specifically explain the ways that these flaws can be successfully overcome in a new study.

But, do not use this as an excuse for not developing a thorough research paper! Review the tab in this guide for developing a research topic . If serious limitations exist, it generally indicates a likelihood that your research problem is too narrowly defined or that the issue or event under study is too recent and, thus, very little research has been written about it. If serious limitations do emerge, consult with your professor about possible ways to overcome them or how to revise your study.

When discussing the limitations of your research, be sure to:

• Describe each limitation in detailed but concise terms;
• Explain why each limitation exists;
• Provide the reasons why each limitation could not be overcome using the method(s) chosen to acquire or gather the data [cite to other studies that had similar problems when possible];
• Assess the impact of each limitation in relation to the overall findings and conclusions of your study; and,
• If appropriate, describe how these limitations could point to the need for further research.

Remember that the method you chose may be the source of a significant limitation that has emerged during your interpretation of the results [for example, you didn't interview a group of people that you later wish you had]. If this is the case, don't panic. Acknowledge it, and explain how applying a different or more robust methodology might address the research problem more effectively in a future study. A underlying goal of scholarly research is not only to show what works, but to demonstrate what doesn't work or what needs further clarification.

Aguinis, Hermam and Jeffrey R. Edwards. “Methodological Wishes for the Next Decade and How to Make Wishes Come True.” Journal of Management Studies 51 (January 2014): 143-174; Brutus, Stéphane et al. "Self-Reported Limitations and Future Directions in Scholarly Reports: Analysis and Recommendations." Journal of Management 39 (January 2013): 48-75; Ioannidis, John P.A. "Limitations are not Properly Acknowledged in the Scientific Literature." Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 60 (2007): 324-329; Pasek, Josh. Writing the Empirical Social Science Research Paper: A Guide for the Perplexed. January 24, 2012. Academia.edu; Structure: How to Structure the Research Limitations Section of Your Dissertation. Dissertations and Theses: An Online Textbook. Laerd.com; What Is an Academic Paper? Institute for Writing Rhetoric. Dartmouth College; Writing the Experimental Report: Methods, Results, and Discussion. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University.

Writing Tip

Don't Inflate the Importance of Your Findings!

After all the hard work and long hours devoted to writing your research paper, it is easy to get carried away with attributing unwarranted importance to what you’ve done. We all want our academic work to be viewed as excellent and worthy of a good grade, but it is important that you understand and openly acknowledge the limitations of your study. Inflating the importance of your study's findings could be perceived by your readers as an attempt hide its flaws or encourage a biased interpretation of the results. A small measure of humility goes a long way!

Another Writing Tip

Negative Results are Not a Limitation!

Negative evidence refers to findings that unexpectedly challenge rather than support your hypothesis. If you didn't get the results you anticipated, it may mean your hypothesis was incorrect and needs to be reformulated. Or, perhaps you have stumbled onto something unexpected that warrants further study. Moreover, the absence of an effect may be very telling in many situations, particularly in experimental research designs. In any case, your results may very well be of importance to others even though they did not support your hypothesis. Do not fall into the trap of thinking that results contrary to what you expected is a limitation to your study. If you carried out the research well, they are simply your results and only require additional interpretation.

Lewis, George H. and Jonathan F. Lewis. “The Dog in the Night-Time: Negative Evidence in Social Research.” The British Journal of Sociology 31 (December 1980): 544-558.

Yet Another Writing Tip

Sample Size Limitations in Qualitative Research

Sample sizes are typically smaller in qualitative research because, as the study goes on, acquiring more data does not necessarily lead to more information. This is because one occurrence of a piece of data, or a code, is all that is necessary to ensure that it becomes part of the analysis framework. However, it remains true that sample sizes that are too small cannot adequately support claims of having achieved valid conclusions and sample sizes that are too large do not permit the deep, naturalistic, and inductive analysis that defines qualitative inquiry. Determining adequate sample size in qualitative research is ultimately a matter of judgment and experience in evaluating the quality of the information collected against the uses to which it will be applied and the particular research method and purposeful sampling strategy employed. If the sample size is found to be a limitation, it may reflect your judgment about the methodological technique chosen [e.g., single life history study versus focus group interviews] rather than the number of respondents used.

Boddy, Clive Roland. "Sample Size for Qualitative Research." Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal 19 (2016): 426-432; Huberman, A. Michael and Matthew B. Miles. "Data Management and Analysis Methods." In Handbook of Qualitative Research . Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln, eds. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994), pp. 428-444; Blaikie, Norman. "Confounding Issues Related to Determining Sample Size in Qualitative Research." International Journal of Social Research Methodology 21 (2018): 635-641; Oppong, Steward Harrison. "The Problem of Sampling in qualitative Research." Asian Journal of Management Sciences and Education 2 (2013): 202-210.

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How to present limitations in research

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Limitations don’t invalidate or diminish your results, but it’s best to acknowledge them. This will enable you to address any questions your study failed to answer because of them.

In this guide, learn how to recognize, present, and overcome limitations in research.

• What is a research limitation?

Research limitations are weaknesses in your research design or execution that may have impacted outcomes and conclusions. Uncovering limitations doesn’t necessarily indicate poor research design—it just means you encountered challenges you couldn’t have anticipated that limited your research efforts.

Does basic research have limitations?

Basic research aims to provide more information about your research topic . It requires the same standard research methodology and data collection efforts as any other research type, and it can also have limitations.

• Common research limitations

Researchers encounter common limitations when embarking on a study. Limitations can occur in relation to the methods you apply or the research process you design. They could also be connected to you as the researcher.

Methodology limitations

Not having access to data or reliable information can impact the methods used to facilitate your research. A lack of data or reliability may limit the parameters of your study area and the extent of your exploration.

Your sample size may also be affected because you won’t have any direction on how big or small it should be and who or what you should include. Having too few participants won’t adequately represent the population or groups of people needed to draw meaningful conclusions.

Research process limitations

The study’s design can impose constraints on the process. For example, as you’re conducting the research, issues may arise that don’t conform to the data collection methodology you developed. You may not realize until well into the process that you should have incorporated more specific questions or comprehensive experiments to generate the data you need to have confidence in your results.

Constraints on resources can also have an impact. Being limited on participants or participation incentives may limit your sample sizes. Insufficient tools, equipment, and materials to conduct a thorough study may also be a factor.

Common researcher limitations

Here are some of the common researcher limitations you may encounter:

Time: some research areas require multi-year longitudinal approaches, but you might not be able to dedicate that much time. Imagine you want to measure how much memory a person loses as they age. This may involve conducting multiple tests on a sample of participants over 20–30 years, which may be impossible.

Bias: researchers can consciously or unconsciously apply bias to their research. Biases can contribute to relying on research sources and methodologies that will only support your beliefs about the research you’re embarking on. You might also omit relevant issues or participants from the scope of your study because of your biases.

Limited access to data : you may need to pay to access specific databases or journals that would be helpful to your research process. You might also need to gain information from certain people or organizations but have limited access to them. These cases require readjusting your process and explaining why your findings are still reliable.

• Why is it important to identify limitations?

Identifying limitations adds credibility to research and provides a deeper understanding of how you arrived at your conclusions.

Constraints may have prevented you from collecting specific data or information you hoped would prove or disprove your hypothesis or provide a more comprehensive understanding of your research topic.

However, identifying the limitations contributing to your conclusions can inspire further research efforts that help gather more substantial information and data.

• Where to put limitations in a research paper

A research paper is broken up into different sections that appear in the following order:

Introduction

Methodology

The discussion portion of your paper explores your findings and puts them in the context of the overall research. Either place research limitations at the beginning of the discussion section before the analysis of your findings or at the end of the section to indicate that further research needs to be pursued.

What not to include in the limitations section

Evidence that doesn’t support your hypothesis is not a limitation, so you shouldn’t include it in the limitation section. Don’t just list limitations and their degree of severity without further explanation.

• How to present limitations

You’ll want to present the limitations of your study in a way that doesn’t diminish the validity of your research and leave the reader wondering if your results and conclusions have been compromised.

Include only the limitations that directly relate to and impact how you addressed your research questions. Following a specific format enables the reader to develop an understanding of the weaknesses within the context of your findings without doubting the quality and integrity of your research.

Identify the limitations specific to your study

You don’t have to identify every possible limitation that might have occurred during your research process. Only identify those that may have influenced the quality of your findings and your ability to answer your research question.

Explain study limitations in detail

This explanation should be the most significant portion of your limitation section.

Link each limitation with an interpretation and appraisal of their impact on the study. You’ll have to evaluate and explain whether the error, method, or validity issues influenced the study’s outcome and how.

Propose a direction for future studies and present alternatives

In this section, suggest how researchers can avoid the pitfalls you experienced during your research process.

If an issue with methodology was a limitation, propose alternate methods that may help with a smoother and more conclusive research project . Discuss the pros and cons of your alternate recommendation.

Describe steps taken to minimize each limitation

You probably took steps to try to address or mitigate limitations when you noticed them throughout the course of your research project. Describe these steps in the limitation section.

• Limitation example

“Approaches like stem cell transplantation and vaccination in AD [Alzheimer’s disease] work on a cellular or molecular level in the laboratory. However, translation into clinical settings will remain a challenge for the next decade.”

The authors are saying that even though these methods showed promise in helping people with memory loss when conducted in the lab (in other words, using animal studies), more studies are needed. These may be controlled clinical trials, for example. 

However, the short life span of stem cells outside the lab and the vaccination’s severe inflammatory side effects are limitations. Researchers won’t be able to conduct clinical trials until these issues are overcome.

• How to overcome limitations in research

You’ve already started on the road to overcoming limitations in research by acknowledging that they exist. However, you need to ensure readers don’t mistake weaknesses for errors within your research design.

To do this, you’ll need to justify and explain your rationale for the methods, research design, and analysis tools you chose and how you noticed they may have presented limitations.

Your readers need to know that even when limitations presented themselves, you followed best practices and the ethical standards of your field. You didn’t violate any rules and regulations during your research process.

You’ll also want to reinforce the validity of your conclusions and results with multiple sources, methods, and perspectives. This prevents readers from assuming your findings were derived from a single or biased source.

• Learning and improving starts with limitations in research

Dealing with limitations with transparency and integrity helps identify areas for future improvements and developments. It’s a learning process, providing valuable insights into how you can improve methodologies, expand sample sizes, or explore alternate approaches to further support the validity of your findings.

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How to Write About the Limitations of a Scientific Study

Home » Writing the Manuscript » How to Write About the Limitations of a Scientific Study

You’ve analyzed your results and reached some conclusions. Now, you’re ready to tell the world about what you’ve found and convince editors, peer reviewers, and readers that it’s important. So how do you tackle the task of also telling them about the limitations of your work?

How to write about the limitations of a study

No study is perfect, no matter how elegant its design may be, and many journals require authors to write a section at the end of the discussion about the limitations of their study. For some studies, these limitations will be obvious: small sample size, multiple comparisons without corrections, observational design and risk for confounding. For other designs, the limitations may be less obvious, but you’ll still need to list them.

Six tips for writing your limitations section

• Focus on weaknesses in your design and analyses, rather than results.
• Start with a bold statement: “This study has some limitations.” Don’t try to soften it with less obvious language.
• Enumerate the limitations, if you can. If you have three limitations to discuss, say so: “This study has three main limitations.”
• Be direct about what they are. “The first limitation is the small number of participants.”
• Explain if needed, but without being defensive. “Because this condition is so rare, we anticipated that recruitment might not meet targets. However, also because the condition is rare, the findings of this study offer new, potentially useful information for this patient population.”
• Signal that you are wrapping up your limitations: “Finally, we could not control for every possible lifestyle factor, and the observational nature of this design leaves the possibility of residual confounding.”

What not to include in the limitations section

You do not need to include every single thing that you personally view as a limitation of the work. For example, if you were late in making a measurement one day, but that timing did not affect outcomes, you probably don’t need to mention it.

Do not be extremely defensive. Don’t expend a lot of language explaining why your work had the limitation. See above for an example of how to explain a limitation while still emphasizing the importance of your work.

Usually, avoid pointing fingers in an accusatory way at other studies. If your work has a specific limitation because of real-world considerations, you can point that out, rather than saying as justification that some other author group or groups did the same thing.

In a similar vein, the limitations section is not usually the place to compare a limitation of your study favorably to the limitations of other studies. For example, you should not say, “We had only 25 participants, but Smith et al. had only 12 and they still published their results.” That comes across as defensive and uncollegial.

Where do you comment on the strengths?

The usual practice is to place the strengths of a study ahead of the limitations. Most authors will list the strengths, beginning with a phrase such as, “Our study had several strengths,” and then briefly describing what those are. As with limitations, these strengths usually will relate to design: large population, excellent controls, multiple adjustments, or double-blind design. If your design is considered more stringent than what others have used before (e.g., a randomized trial as opposed to an observational study), that’s a particular strength. When you’ve listed your strengths, then you move to your limitations, using phrasing such as, “Our study also had some limitations.”

Acknowledging a study’s limitations is an important part of the process of science and of communicating your results. It shows that you are willing to mention and discuss the weaknesses as well as the strengths of your work and suggests an intellectually honest presentation of your findings.

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What are the limitations in research and how to write them?

Learn about the potential limitations in research and how to appropriately address them in order to deliver honest and ethical research.

It is fairly uncommon for researchers to stumble into the term research limitations when working on their research paper. Limitations in research can arise owing to constraints on design, methods, materials, and so on, and these aspects, unfortunately, may have an influence on your subject’s findings.

In this Mind The Graph’s article, we’ll discuss some recommendations for writing limitations in research , provide examples of various common types of limitations, and suggest how to properly present this information.

What are the limitations in research?

The limitations in research are the constraints in design, methods or even researchers’ limitations that affect and influence the interpretation of your research’s ultimate findings. These are limitations on the generalization and usability of findings that emerge from the design of the research and/or the method employed to ensure validity both internally and externally. 

Researchers are usually cautious to acknowledge the limitations of their research in their publications for fear of undermining the research’s scientific validity. No research is faultless or covers every possible angle. As a result, addressing the constraints of your research exhibits honesty and integrity .

Why should include limitations of research in my paper?

Though limitations tackle potential flaws in research, commenting on them at the conclusion of your paper, by demonstrating that you are aware of these limitations and explaining how they impact the conclusions that may be taken from the research, improves your research by disclosing any issues before other researchers or reviewers do . 

Additionally, emphasizing research constraints implies that you have thoroughly investigated the ramifications of research shortcomings and have a thorough understanding of your research problem. 

Limits exist in any research; being honest about them and explaining them would impress researchers and reviewers more than disregarding them. 

Remember that acknowledging a research’s shortcomings offers a chance to provide ideas for future research, but be careful to describe how your study may help to concentrate on these outstanding problems .

Possible limitations examples

Here are some limitations connected to methodology and the research procedure that you may need to explain and discuss in connection to your findings.

Methodological limitations

Sample size.

The number of units of analysis used in your study is determined by the sort of research issue being investigated. It is important to note that if your sample is too small, finding significant connections in the data will be challenging, as statistical tests typically require a larger sample size to ensure a fair representation and this can be limiting. 

Lack of available or reliable data

A lack of data or trustworthy data will almost certainly necessitate limiting the scope of your research or the size of your sample, or it can be a substantial impediment to identifying a pattern and a relevant connection.

Lack of prior research on the subject

Citing previous research papers forms the basis of your literature review and aids in comprehending the research subject you are researching. Yet there may be little if any, past research on your issue.

The measure used to collect data

After finishing your analysis of the findings, you realize that the method you used to collect data limited your capacity to undertake a comprehensive evaluation of the findings. Recognize the flaw by mentioning that future researchers should change the specific approach for data collection.

Issues with research samples and selection

Sampling inaccuracies arise when a probability sampling method is employed to choose a sample, but that sample does not accurately represent the overall population or the relevant group. As a result, your study suffers from “sampling bias” or “selection bias.”

Limitations of the research

When your research requires polling certain persons or a specific group, you may have encountered the issue of limited access to these interviewees. Because of the limited access, you may need to reorganize or rearrange your research. In this scenario, explain why access is restricted and ensure that your findings are still trustworthy and valid despite the constraint.

Time constraints

Practical difficulties may limit the amount of time available to explore a research issue and monitor changes as they occur. If time restrictions have any detrimental influence on your research, recognize this impact by expressing the necessity for a future investigation.

Due to their cultural origins or opinions on observed events, researchers may carry biased opinions, which can influence the credibility of a research. Furthermore, researchers may exhibit biases toward data and conclusions that only support their hypotheses or arguments.

The structure of the limitations section 

The limitations of your research are usually stated at the beginning of the discussion section of your paper so that the reader is aware of and comprehends the limitations prior to actually reading the rest of your findings, or they are stated at the end of the discussion section as an acknowledgment of the need for further research.

The ideal way is to divide your limitations section into three steps: 

1. Identify the research constraints; 

2. Describe in great detail how they affect your research; 

3. Mention the opportunity for future investigations and give possibilities. 

By following this method while addressing the constraints of your research, you will be able to effectively highlight your research’s shortcomings without jeopardizing the quality and integrity of your research.

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Organizing Academic Research Papers: Limitations of the Study

• Purpose of Guide
• Design Flaws to Avoid
• Glossary of Research Terms
• Narrowing a Topic Idea
• Broadening a Topic Idea
• Extending the Timeliness of a Topic Idea
• Academic Writing Style
• Choosing a Title
• Making an Outline
• Paragraph Development
• Executive Summary
• Background Information
• The Research Problem/Question
• Theoretical Framework
• Citation Tracking
• Content Alert Services
• Evaluating Sources
• Primary Sources
• Secondary Sources
• Tertiary Sources
• What Is Scholarly vs. Popular?
• Qualitative Methods
• Quantitative Methods
• Using Non-Textual Elements
• Limitations of the Study
• Common Grammar Mistakes
• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Footnotes or Endnotes?
• Further Readings
• Annotated Bibliography
• Dealing with Nervousness
• Using Visual Aids
• Grading Someone Else's Paper
• How to Manage Group Projects
• Multiple Book Review Essay
• Reviewing Collected Essays
• About Informed Consent
• Writing Field Notes
• Writing a Policy Memo
• Writing a Research Proposal
• Acknowledgements

The limitations of the study are those characteristics of design or methodology that impacted or influenced the application or interpretation of the results of your study. They are the constraints on generalizability and utility of findings that are the result of the ways in which you chose to design the study and/or the method used to establish internal and external validity.

Importance of...

Always acknowledge a study's limitations. It is far better for you to identify and acknowledge your study’s limitations than to have them pointed out by your professor and be graded down because you appear to have ignored them.

Keep in mind that acknowledgement of a study's limitations is an opportunity to make suggestions for further research. If you do connect your study's limitations to suggestions for further research, be sure to explain the ways in which these unanswered questions may become more focused because of your study.

Acknowledgement of a study's limitations also provides you with an opportunity to demonstrate to your professor that you have thought critically about the research problem, understood the relevant literature published about it, and correctly assessed the methods chosen for studying the problem. A key objective of the research process is not only discovering new knowledge but also to confront assumptions and explore what we don't know.

Claiming limitiations is a subjective process because you must evaluate the impact of those limitations . Don't just list key weaknesses and the magnitude of a study's limitations. To do so diminishes the validity of your research because it leaves the reader wondering whether, or in what ways, limitation(s) in your study may have impacted the findings and conclusions. Limitations require a critical, overall appraisal and interpretation of their impact. You should answer the question: do these problems with errors, methods, validity, etc. eventually matter and, if so, to what extent?

Structure: How to Structure the Research Limitations Section of Your Dissertation . Dissertations and Theses: An Online Textbook. Laerd.com.

Descriptions of Possible Limitations

All studies have limitations . However, it is important that you restrict your discussion to limitations related to the research problem under investigation. For example, if a meta-analysis of existing literature is not a stated purpose of your research, it should not be discussed as a limitation. Do not apologize for not addressing issues that you did not promise to investigate in your paper.

Here are examples of limitations you may need to describe and to discuss how they possibly impacted your findings. Descriptions of limitations should be stated in the past tense.

Possible Methodological Limitations

• Sample size -- the number of the units of analysis you use in your study is dictated by the type of research problem you are investigating. Note that, if your sample size is too small, it will be difficult to find significant relationships from the data, as statistical tests normally require a larger sample size to ensure a representative distribution of the population and to be considered representative of groups of people to whom results will be generalized or transferred.
• Lack of available and/or reliable data -- a lack of data or of reliable data will likely require you to limit the scope of your analysis, the size of your sample, or it can be a significant obstacle in finding a trend and a meaningful relationship. You need to not only describe these limitations but to offer reasons why you believe data is missing or is unreliable. However, don’t just throw up your hands in frustration; use this as an opportunity to describe the need for future research.
• Lack of prior research studies on the topic -- citing prior research studies forms the basis of your literature review and helps lay a foundation for understanding the research problem you are investigating. Depending on the currency or scope of your research topic, there may be little, if any, prior research on your topic. Before assuming this to be true, consult with a librarian! In cases when a librarian has confirmed that there is a lack of prior research, you may be required to develop an entirely new research typology [for example, using an exploratory rather than an explanatory research design]. Note that this limitation can serve as an important opportunity to describe the need for further research.
• Measure used to collect the data -- sometimes it is the case that, after completing your interpretation of the findings, you discover that the way in which you gathered data inhibited your ability to conduct a thorough analysis of the results. For example, you regret not including a specific question in a survey that, in retrospect, could have helped address a particular issue that emerged later in the study. Acknowledge the deficiency by stating a need in future research to revise the specific method for gathering data.
• Self-reported data -- whether you are relying on pre-existing self-reported data or you are conducting a qualitative research study and gathering the data yourself, self-reported data is limited by the fact that it rarely can be independently verified. In other words, you have to take what people say, whether in interviews, focus groups, or on questionnaires, at face value. However, self-reported data contain several potential sources of bias that should be noted as limitations: (1) selective memory (remembering or not remembering experiences or events that occurred at some point in the past); (2) telescoping [recalling events that occurred at one time as if they occurred at another time]; (3) attribution [the act of attributing positive events and outcomes to one's own agency but attributing negative events and outcomes to external forces]; and, (4) exaggeration [the act of representing outcomes or embellishing events as more significant than is actually suggested from other data].

Possible Limitations of the Researcher

• Access -- if your study depends on having access to people, organizations, or documents and, for whatever reason, access is denied or otherwise limited, the reasons for this need to be described.
• Longitudinal effects -- unlike your professor, who can literally devote years [even a lifetime] to studying a single research problem, the time available to investigate a research problem and to measure change or stability within a sample is constrained by the due date of your assignment. Be sure to choose a topic that does not require an excessive amount of time to complete the literature review, apply the methodology, and gather and interpret the results. If you're unsure, talk to your professor.
• Cultural and other type of bias -- we all have biases, whether we are conscience of them or not. Bias is when a person, place, or thing is viewed or shown in a consistently inaccurate way. It is usually negative, though one can have a positive bias as well. When proof-reading your paper, be especially critical in reviewing how you have stated a problem, selected the data to be studied, what may have been omitted, the manner in which you have ordered events, people, or places and how you have chosen to represent a person, place, or thing, to name a phenomenon, or to use possible words with a positive or negative connotation. Note that if you detect bias in prior research, it must be acknowledged and you should explain what measures were taken to avoid perpetuating bias.
• Fluency in a language -- if your research focuses on measuring the perceived value of after-school tutoring among Mexican-American ESL [English as a Second Language] students, for example, and you are not fluent in Spanish, you are limited in being able to read and interpret Spanish language research studies on the topic. This deficiency should be acknowledged.

Brutus, Stéphane et al. Self-Reported Limitations and Future Directions in Scholarly Reports: Analysis and Recommendations. Journal of Management 39 (January 2013): 48-75; Senunyeme, Emmanuel K. Business Research Methods . Powerpoint Presentation. Regent University of Science and Technology.

Structure and Writing Style

Information about the limitations of your study are generally placed either at the beginning of the discussion section of your paper so the reader knows and understands the limitations before reading the rest of your analysis of the findings, or, the limitations are outlined at the conclusion of the discussion section as an acknowledgement of the need for further study. Statements about a study's limitations should not be buried in the body [middle] of the discussion section unless a limitation is specific to something covered in that part of the paper. If this is the case, though, the limitation should be reiterated at the conclusion of the section.

If you determine that your study is seriously flawed due to important limitations , such as, an inability to acquire critical data, consider reframing it as a pilot study intended to lay the groundwork for a more complete research study in the future. Be sure, though, to specifically explain the ways that these flaws can be successfully overcome in later studies.

But, do not use this as an excuse for not developing a thorough research paper! Review the tab in this guide for developing a research topic . If serious limitations exist, it generally indicates a likelihood that your research problem is too narrowly defined or that the issue or event under study  is too recent and, thus, very little research has been written about it. If serious limitations do emerge, consult with your professor about possible ways to overcome them or how to reframe your study.

When discussing the limitations of your research, be sure to:

• Describe each limitation in detailed but concise terms;
• Explain why each limitation exists;
• Provide the reasons why each limitation could not be overcome using the method(s) chosen to gather the data [cite to other studies that had similar problems when possible];
• Assess the impact of each limitation in relation to  the overall findings and conclusions of your study; and,
• If appropriate, describe how these limitations could point to the need for further research.

Remember that the method you chose may be the source of a significant limitation that has emerged during your interpretation of the results [for example, you didn't ask a particular question in a survey that you later wish you had]. If this is the case, don't panic. Acknowledge it, and explain how applying a different or more robust methodology might address the research problem more effectively in any future study. A underlying goal of scholarly research is not only to prove what works, but to demonstrate what doesn't work or what needs further clarification.

Brutus, Stéphane et al. Self-Reported Limitations and Future Directions in Scholarly Reports: Analysis and Recommendations. Journal of Management 39 (January 2013): 48-75; Ioannidis, John P.A. Limitations are not Properly Acknowledged in the Scientific Literature. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 60 (2007): 324-329; Pasek, Josh. Writing the Empirical Social Science Research Paper: A Guide for the Perplexed . January 24, 2012. Academia.edu; Structure: How to Structure the Research Limitations Section of Your Dissertation . Dissertations and Theses: An Online Textbook. Laerd.com; What Is an Academic Paper? Institute for Writing Rhetoric. Dartmouth College; Writing the Experimental Report: Methods, Results, and Discussion. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University.

Writing Tip

Don't Inflate the Importance of Your Findings! After all the hard work and long hours devoted to writing your research paper, it is easy to get carried away with attributing unwarranted importance to what you’ve done. We all want our academic work to be viewed as excellent and worthy of a good grade, but it is important that you understand and openly acknowledge the limitiations of your study. Inflating of the importance of your study's findings in an attempt hide its flaws is a big turn off to your readers. A measure of humility goes a long way!

Another Writing Tip

Negative Results are Not a Limitation!

Negative evidence refers to findings that unexpectedly challenge rather than support your hypothesis. If you didn't get the results you anticipated, it may mean your hypothesis was incorrect and needs to be reformulated, or, perhaps you have stumbled onto something unexpected that warrants further study. Moreover, the absence of an effect may be very telling in many situations, particularly in experimental research designs. In any case, your results may be of importance to others even though they did not support your hypothesis. Do not fall into the trap of thinking that results contrary to what you expected is a limitation to your study. If you carried out the research well, they are simply your results and only require additional interpretation.

Yet Another Writing Tip

A Note about Sample Size Limitations in Qualitative Research

Sample sizes are typically smaller in qualitative research because, as the study goes on, acquiring more data does not necessarily lead to more information. This is because one occurrence of a piece of data, or a code, is all that is necessary to ensure that it becomes part of the analysis framework. However, it remains true that sample sizes that are too small cannot adequately support claims of having achieved valid conclusions and sample sizes that are too large do not permit the deep, naturalistic, and inductive analysis that defines qualitative inquiry. Determining adequate sample size in qualitative research is ultimately a matter of judgment and experience in evaluating the quality of the information collected against the uses to which it will be applied and the particular research method and purposeful sampling strategy employed. If the sample size is found to be a limitation, it may reflect your judgement about the methodological technique chosen [e.g., single life history study versus focus group interviews] rather than the number of respondents used.

Huberman, A. Michael and Matthew B. Miles. Data Management and Analysis Methods. In Handbook of Qualitative Research. Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln, eds. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994), pp. 428-444.

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Overcoming Limitations – 8 Ways To Beat Your Limitations

• July 22, 2020

Before you can start overcoming limitations, you have to understand what they are first.

Limitations come in various forms. They will differ for everyone.

Some examples include physical, financial, people, mental or educational.

So understanding what they are is extremely important if you want to break through them.

Can you overcome your limitations?

Yes you can.

Overcoming Limitations Starting Today

For you, overcoming limitations may have to do with limited job opportunities. Or, you’ve reached a point where you can’t seem to go any further.

It may be that you are facing the same problems year in and year out and it’s got to a point where you simply accept this as normal.

Or you have reached a ceiling on your financial capabilities and can’t seem to move the needle any higher in your earning capacity.

Maybe you have limitations in the sporting arena and can’t seem to breakthrough and beat your personal best.

Even relationships will have limitations. You may have convinced yourself that you are only capable of being with a certain type of person.

Does this sound like you?

What Causes Limitations?

Well, it could be that you are in a comfort zone and procrastination has you in its grips.

Or you may have been told at one stage by someone that you can only achieve to a certain point and your mindset is stuck in that zone.

I remember in my third year of high school when I was nearing the age in which I could leave.

A teacher who did not like me pulled me aside and told me education wasn’t for me. He said I couldn’t achieve anything more than a third year high school education.

He wanted me to leave and instead of asking me to, he disguised it pretending to care for my future.

Finally, he actually offered to help me get a job with the local council as a roadside worker. I declined.

Another reason for limitations is that because others within your circle have the same limitations, it could be that you have normalized this as just the way it is.

Time to snap out of it if you are planning to improve your lot.

Overcoming Limitations Starts With Changing Your Mindset

You are stuck in a mindset that has normalized your limitations.

First thing to do is disown them. Affirm they are not your limitations. You don’t own them.

Just ask yourself why are they your limitations?

Remember, despite any outside influence, it’s you who has ultimately determined that your limitations are your own. So change your mindset starting today.

The mind can play tricks on you. Your perception is that it can’t be done because no one else you know has done it. There are many examples in history where perception that something is not achievable has held people back.

One is well known in the sporting area. Roger Bannister became the first person to break the four minute mile. Up until he achieved the feat during the 1950s, it was thought to be an impossible task.

But once he broke it, there were a flood of others who beat the four minute barrier over the next year including several times in one race by multiple runners.

So how do you break through your limitations? These are in no particular order. You have to believe you can break through whatever challenge you want to complete.

• Stop doing what others do.
• Think of it as already done.
• Think of the benefits to you when you achieve it.
• Plan a strategy to get there in stages and avoid distractions.
• Invest time and energy into reaching your goal.
• Surround yourself with successful people.
• Get a mentor to guide you through the initial steps.

Final Thoughts

The first thing though is changing your mindset. Read stories of achievement.

Understand the struggles people overcame to achieve success. See yourself in your mind doing the same thing.

Read and listen to people who overcame impossible odds.

Doing this will condition your mindset to think differently. It’s like a mindset workout.

Getting a mentor is another valuable tip.

Find someone you actually respect out of fear. Someone you want to be seen in a good light by. Someone you would hate to let down because you want their respect.

Whatever limitation your struggling with, know that you can break through it.

In most cases, the only thing stopping you is yourself. Add perseverance to the tips above and you will make overcoming limitations a breeze.

What started out as an intention to fix my own problems, has turned into a mission to share my research with as many people as possible. I’m betting life has thrown you lemons. We've all tasted the same lemons but the key to overcoming the sour tasting result, is to look at failure and give it the middle finger. Maybe my pain can be your gain in whatever area of life you're looking to improve in.

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• GETTING STARTED
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How to structure the Research Limitations section of your dissertation

There is no "one best way" to structure the Research Limitations section of your dissertation. However, we recommend a structure based on three moves : the announcing , reflecting and forward looking move. The announcing move immediately allows you to identify the limitations of your dissertation and explain how important each of these limitations is. The reflecting move provides greater depth, helping to explain the nature of the limitations and justify the choices that you made during the research process. Finally, the forward looking move enables you to suggest how such limitations could be overcome in future. The collective aim of these three moves is to help you walk the reader through your Research Limitations section in a succinct and structured way. This will make it clear to the reader that you recognise the limitations of your own research, that you understand why such factors are limitations, and can point to ways of combating these limitations if future research was carried out. This article explains what should be included in each of these three moves :

• THE ANNOUNCING MOVE: Identifying limitations and explaining how important they are
• THE REFLECTING MOVE: Explaining the nature of the limitations and justifying the choices you made
• THE FORWARD LOOKING MOVE: Suggesting how such limitations could be overcome in future

THE ANNOUNCING MOVE Identifying limitations, and explaining how important they are

There are many possible limitations that your research may have faced. However, is not necessary for you to discuss all of these limitations in your Research Limitations section. After all, you are not writing a 2000 word critical review of the limitations of your dissertation, just a 200-500 word critique that is only one section long (i.e., the Research Limitations section within your Conclusions chapter). Therefore, in this first announcing move , we would recommend that you identify only those limitations that had the greatest potential impact on: (a) the quality of your findings; and (b) your ability to effectively answer your research questions and/or hypotheses.

We use the word potential impact because we often do not know the degree to which different factors limited our findings or our ability to effectively answer our research questions and/or hypotheses. For example, we know that when adopting a quantitative research design, a failure to use a probability sampling technique significantly limits our ability to make broader generalisations from our results (i.e., our ability to make statistical inferences from our sample to the population being studied). However, the degree to which this reduces the quality of our findings is a matter of debate. Also, whilst the lack of a probability sampling technique when using a quantitative research design is a very obvious example of a research limitation, other limitations are far less clear. Therefore, the key point is to focus on those limitations that you feel had the greatest impact on your findings, as well as your ability to effectively answer your research questions and/or hypotheses.

Overall, the announcing move should be around 10-20% of the total word count of the Research Limitations section.

THE REFLECTING MOVE Explaining the nature of the limitations and justifying the choices you made

Having identified the most important limitations to your dissertation in the announcing move , the reflecting move focuses on explaining the nature of these limitations and justifying the choices that you made during the research process. This part should be around 60-70% of the total word count of the Research Limitations section.

It is important to remember at this stage that all research suffers from limitations, whether it is performed by undergraduate and master's level dissertation students, or seasoned academics. Acknowledging such limitations should not be viewed as a weakness, highlighting to the person marking your work the reasons why you should receive a lower grade. Instead, the reader is more likely to accept that you recognise the limitations of your own research if you write a high quality reflecting move . This is because explaining the limitations of your research and justifying the choices you made during the dissertation process demonstrates the command that you had over your research.

We talk about explaining the nature of the limitations in your dissertation because such limitations are highly research specific. Let's take the example of potential limitations to your sampling strategy. Whilst you may have a number of potential limitations in sampling strategy, let's focus on the lack of probability sampling ; that is, of all the different types of sampling technique that you could have used [see Types of probability sampling and Types of non-probability sampling ], you choose not to use a probability sampling technique (e.g., simple random sampling , systematic random sampling , stratified random sampling ). As mentioned, if you used a quantitative research design in your dissertation, the lack of probability sampling is an important, obvious limitation to your research. This is because it prevents you from making generalisations about the population you are studying (e.g. Facebook usage at a single university of 20,000 students) from the data you have collected (e.g., a survey of 400 students at the same university). Since an important component of quantitative research is such generalisation, this is a clear limitation. However, the lack of a probability sampling technique is not viewed as a limitation if you used a qualitative research design. In qualitative research designs, a non-probability sampling technique is typically selected over a probability sampling technique.

And this is just part of the puzzle?

Even if you used a quantitative research design, but failed to employ a probability sampling technique, there are still many perfectly justifiable reasons why you could have made such a choice. For example, it may have been impossible (or near on impossible) to get a list of the population you were studying (e.g., a list of all the 20,000 students at the single university you were interested in). Since probability sampling is only possible when we have such a list, the lack of such a list or inability to attain such a list is a perfectly justifiable reason for not using a probability sampling technique; even if such a technique is the ideal.

As such, the purpose of all the guides we have written on research limitations is to help you: (a) explain the nature of the limitations in your dissertation; and (b) justify the choices you made.

In helping you to justifying the choices that you made, these articles explain not only when something is, in theory , an obvious limitation, but how, in practice , such a limitation was not necessarily so damaging to the quality of your dissertation. This should significantly strengthen the quality of your Research Limitations section.

THE FORWARD LOOKING MOVE Suggesting how such limitations could be overcome in future

Finally, the forward looking move builds on the reflecting move by suggesting how the limitations you have discuss could be overcome through future research. Whilst a lot could be written in this part of the Research Limitations section, we would recommend that it is only around 10-20% of the total word count for this section.

Writing Limitations of Research Study — 4 Reasons Why It Is Important!

It is not unusual for researchers to come across the term limitations of research during their academic paper writing. More often this is interpreted as something terrible. However, when it comes to research study, limitations can help structure the research study better. Therefore, do not underestimate significance of limitations of research study.

Allow us to take you through the context of how to evaluate the limits of your research and conclude an impactful relevance to your results.

Table of Contents

What Are the Limitations of a Research Study?

Every research has its limit and these limitations arise due to restrictions in methodology or research design.  This could impact your entire research or the research paper you wish to publish. Unfortunately, most researchers choose not to discuss their limitations of research fearing it will affect the value of their article in the eyes of readers.

However, it is very important to discuss your study limitations and show it to your target audience (other researchers, journal editors, peer reviewers etc.). It is very important that you provide an explanation of how your research limitations may affect the conclusions and opinions drawn from your research. Moreover, when as an author you state the limitations of research, it shows that you have investigated all the weaknesses of your study and have a deep understanding of the subject. Being honest could impress your readers and mark your study as a sincere effort in research.

Why and Where Should You Include the Research Limitations?

The main goal of your research is to address your research objectives. Conduct experiments, get results and explain those results, and finally justify your research question . It is best to mention the limitations of research in the discussion paragraph of your research article.

At the very beginning of this paragraph, immediately after highlighting the strengths of the research methodology, you should write down your limitations. You can discuss specific points from your research limitations as suggestions for further research in the conclusion of your thesis.

1. Common Limitations of the Researchers

Limitations that are related to the researcher must be mentioned. This will help you gain transparency with your readers. Furthermore, you could provide suggestions on decreasing these limitations in you and your future studies.

2. Limited Access to Information

Your work may involve some institutions and individuals in research, and sometimes you may have problems accessing these institutions. Therefore, you need to redesign and rewrite your work. You must explain your readers the reason for limited access.

3. Limited Time

All researchers are bound by their deadlines when it comes to completing their studies. Sometimes, time constraints can affect your research negatively. However, the best practice is to acknowledge it and mention a requirement for future study to solve the research problem in a better way.

4. Conflict over Biased Views and Personal Issues

Biased views can affect the research. In fact, researchers end up choosing only those results and data that support their main argument, keeping aside the other loose ends of the research.

Types of Limitations of Research

Before beginning your research study, know that there are certain limitations to what you are testing or possible research results. There are different types that researchers may encounter, and they all have unique characteristics, such as:

1. Research Design Limitations

Certain restrictions on your research or available procedures may affect your final results or research outputs. You may have formulated research goals and objectives too broadly. However, this can help you understand how you can narrow down the formulation of research goals and objectives, thereby increasing the focus of your study.

2. Impact Limitations

Even if your research has excellent statistics and a strong design, it can suffer from the influence of the following factors:

• Presence of increasing findings as researched
• Being population specific
• A strong regional focus.

3. Data or statistical limitations

In some cases, it is impossible to collect sufficient data for research or very difficult to get access to the data. This could lead to incomplete conclusion to your study. Moreover, this insufficiency in data could be the outcome of your study design. The unclear, shabby research outline could produce more problems in interpreting your findings.

How to Correctly Structure Your Research Limitations?

There are strict guidelines for narrowing down research questions, wherein you could justify and explain potential weaknesses of your academic paper. You could go through these basic steps to get a well-structured clarity of research limitations:

• Declare that you wish to identify your limitations of research and explain their importance,
• Provide the necessary depth, explain their nature, and justify your study choices.
• Write how you are suggesting that it is possible to overcome them in the future.

In this section, your readers will see that you are aware of the potential weaknesses in your business, understand them and offer effective solutions, and it will positively strengthen your article as you clarify all limitations of research to your target audience.

Know that you cannot be perfect and there is no individual without flaws. You could use the limitations of research as a great opportunity to take on a new challenge and improve the future of research. In a typical academic paper, research limitations may relate to:

1. Formulating your goals and objectives

If you formulate goals and objectives too broadly, your work will have some shortcomings. In this case, specify effective methods or ways to narrow down the formula of goals and aim to increase your level of study focus.

2. Application of your data collection methods in research

If you do not have experience in primary data collection, there is a risk that there will be flaws in the implementation of your methods. It is necessary to accept this, and learn and educate yourself to understand data collection methods.

3. Sample sizes

This depends on the nature of problem you choose. Sample size is of a greater importance in quantitative studies as opposed to qualitative ones. If your sample size is too small, statistical tests cannot identify significant relationships or connections within a given data set.

You could point out that other researchers should base the same study on a larger sample size to get more accurate results.

4. The absence of previous studies in the field you have chosen

Writing a literature review is an important step in any scientific study because it helps researchers determine the scope of current work in the chosen field. It is a major foundation for any researcher who must use them to achieve a set of specific goals or objectives.

However, if you are focused on the most current and evolving research problem or a very narrow research problem, there may be very little prior research on your topic. For example, if you chose to explore the role of Bitcoin as the currency of the future, you may not find tons of scientific papers addressing the research problem as Bitcoins are only a new phenomenon.

It is important that you learn to identify research limitations examples at each step. Whatever field you choose, feel free to add the shortcoming of your work. This is mainly because you do not have many years of experience writing scientific papers or completing complex work. Therefore, the depth and scope of your discussions may be compromised at different levels compared to academics with a lot of expertise. Include specific points from limitations of research. Use them as suggestions for the future.

Have you ever faced a challenge of writing the limitations of research study in your paper? How did you overcome it? What ways did you follow? Were they beneficial? Let us know in the comments below!

Frequently Asked Questions

Setting limitations in our study helps to clarify the outcomes drawn from our research and enhance understanding of the subject. Moreover, it shows that the author has investigated all the weaknesses in the study.

Scope is the range and limitations of a research project which are set to define the boundaries of a project. Limitations are the impacts on the overall study due to the constraints on the research design.

Limitation in research is an impact of a constraint on the research design in the overall study. They are the flaws or weaknesses in the study, which may influence the outcome of the research.

1. Limitations in research can be written as follows: Formulate your goals and objectives 2. Analyze the chosen data collection method and the sample sizes 3. Identify your limitations of research and explain their importance 4. Provide the necessary depth, explain their nature, and justify your study choices 5. Write how you are suggesting that it is possible to overcome them in the future

Excellent article ,,,it has helped me big

This is very helpful information. It has given me an insight on how to go about my study limitations.

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the topic is well covered

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Home » Limitations in Research – Types, Examples and Writing Guide

Limitations in Research – Types, Examples and Writing Guide

Table of Contents

Limitations in Research

Limitations in research refer to the factors that may affect the results, conclusions , and generalizability of a study. These limitations can arise from various sources, such as the design of the study, the sampling methods used, the measurement tools employed, and the limitations of the data analysis techniques.

Types of Limitations in Research

Types of Limitations in Research are as follows:

Sample Size Limitations

This refers to the size of the group of people or subjects that are being studied. If the sample size is too small, then the results may not be representative of the population being studied. This can lead to a lack of generalizability of the results.

Time Limitations

Time limitations can be a constraint on the research process . This could mean that the study is unable to be conducted for a long enough period of time to observe the long-term effects of an intervention, or to collect enough data to draw accurate conclusions.

Selection Bias

This refers to a type of bias that can occur when the selection of participants in a study is not random. This can lead to a biased sample that is not representative of the population being studied.

Confounding Variables

Confounding variables are factors that can influence the outcome of a study, but are not being measured or controlled for. These can lead to inaccurate conclusions or a lack of clarity in the results.

Measurement Error

This refers to inaccuracies in the measurement of variables, such as using a faulty instrument or scale. This can lead to inaccurate results or a lack of validity in the study.

Ethical Limitations

Ethical limitations refer to the ethical constraints placed on research studies. For example, certain studies may not be allowed to be conducted due to ethical concerns, such as studies that involve harm to participants.

Examples of Limitations in Research

Some Examples of Limitations in Research are as follows:

Research Title: “The Effectiveness of Machine Learning Algorithms in Predicting Customer Behavior”

Limitations:

• The study only considered a limited number of machine learning algorithms and did not explore the effectiveness of other algorithms.
• The study used a specific dataset, which may not be representative of all customer behaviors or demographics.
• The study did not consider the potential ethical implications of using machine learning algorithms in predicting customer behavior.

Research Title: “The Impact of Online Learning on Student Performance in Computer Science Courses”

• The study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, which may have affected the results due to the unique circumstances of remote learning.
• The study only included students from a single university, which may limit the generalizability of the findings to other institutions.
• The study did not consider the impact of individual differences, such as prior knowledge or motivation, on student performance in online learning environments.

Research Title: “The Effect of Gamification on User Engagement in Mobile Health Applications”

• The study only tested a specific gamification strategy and did not explore the effectiveness of other gamification techniques.
• The study relied on self-reported measures of user engagement, which may be subject to social desirability bias or measurement errors.
• The study only included a specific demographic group (e.g., young adults) and may not be generalizable to other populations with different preferences or needs.

How to Write Limitations in Research

When writing about the limitations of a research study, it is important to be honest and clear about the potential weaknesses of your work. Here are some tips for writing about limitations in research:

• Identify the limitations: Start by identifying the potential limitations of your research. These may include sample size, selection bias, measurement error, or other issues that could affect the validity and reliability of your findings.
• Be honest and objective: When describing the limitations of your research, be honest and objective. Do not try to minimize or downplay the limitations, but also do not exaggerate them. Be clear and concise in your description of the limitations.
• Provide context: It is important to provide context for the limitations of your research. For example, if your sample size was small, explain why this was the case and how it may have affected your results. Providing context can help readers understand the limitations in a broader context.
• Discuss implications : Discuss the implications of the limitations for your research findings. For example, if there was a selection bias in your sample, explain how this may have affected the generalizability of your findings. This can help readers understand the limitations in terms of their impact on the overall validity of your research.
• Provide suggestions for future research : Finally, provide suggestions for future research that can address the limitations of your study. This can help readers understand how your research fits into the broader field and can provide a roadmap for future studies.

Purpose of Limitations in Research

There are several purposes of limitations in research. Here are some of the most important ones:

• To acknowledge the boundaries of the study : Limitations help to define the scope of the research project and set realistic expectations for the findings. They can help to clarify what the study is not intended to address.
• To identify potential sources of bias: Limitations can help researchers identify potential sources of bias in their research design, data collection, or analysis. This can help to improve the validity and reliability of the findings.
• To provide opportunities for future research: Limitations can highlight areas for future research and suggest avenues for further exploration. This can help to advance knowledge in a particular field.
• To demonstrate transparency and accountability: By acknowledging the limitations of their research, researchers can demonstrate transparency and accountability to their readers, peers, and funders. This can help to build trust and credibility in the research community.
• To encourage critical thinking: Limitations can encourage readers to critically evaluate the study’s findings and consider alternative explanations or interpretations. This can help to promote a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of the topic under investigation.

When to Write Limitations in Research

Limitations should be included in research when they help to provide a more complete understanding of the study’s results and implications. A limitation is any factor that could potentially impact the accuracy, reliability, or generalizability of the study’s findings.

It is important to identify and discuss limitations in research because doing so helps to ensure that the results are interpreted appropriately and that any conclusions drawn are supported by the available evidence. Limitations can also suggest areas for future research, highlight potential biases or confounding factors that may have affected the results, and provide context for the study’s findings.

Generally, limitations should be discussed in the conclusion section of a research paper or thesis, although they may also be mentioned in other sections, such as the introduction or methods. The specific limitations that are discussed will depend on the nature of the study, the research question being investigated, and the data that was collected.

Examples of limitations that might be discussed in research include sample size limitations, data collection methods, the validity and reliability of measures used, and potential biases or confounding factors that could have affected the results. It is important to note that limitations should not be used as a justification for poor research design or methodology, but rather as a way to enhance the understanding and interpretation of the study’s findings.

Importance of Limitations in Research

Here are some reasons why limitations are important in research:

• Enhances the credibility of research: Limitations highlight the potential weaknesses and threats to validity, which helps readers to understand the scope and boundaries of the study. This improves the credibility of research by acknowledging its limitations and providing a clear picture of what can and cannot be concluded from the study.
• Facilitates replication: By highlighting the limitations, researchers can provide detailed information about the study’s methodology, data collection, and analysis. This information helps other researchers to replicate the study and test the validity of the findings, which enhances the reliability of research.
• Guides future research : Limitations provide insights into areas for future research by identifying gaps or areas that require further investigation. This can help researchers to design more comprehensive and effective studies that build on existing knowledge.
• Provides a balanced view: Limitations help to provide a balanced view of the research by highlighting both strengths and weaknesses. This ensures that readers have a clear understanding of the study’s limitations and can make informed decisions about the generalizability and applicability of the findings.

Advantages of Limitations in Research

Here are some potential advantages of limitations in research:

• Focus : Limitations can help researchers focus their study on a specific area or population, which can make the research more relevant and useful.
• Realism : Limitations can make a study more realistic by reflecting the practical constraints and challenges of conducting research in the real world.
• Innovation : Limitations can spur researchers to be more innovative and creative in their research design and methodology, as they search for ways to work around the limitations.
• Rigor : Limitations can actually increase the rigor and credibility of a study, as researchers are forced to carefully consider the potential sources of bias and error, and address them to the best of their abilities.
• Generalizability : Limitations can actually improve the generalizability of a study by ensuring that it is not overly focused on a specific sample or situation, and that the results can be applied more broadly.

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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• Writing Tips

Academic Writing Tips: What Are Study Limitations?

4-minute read

• 7th December 2020

An important part of writing up research is to consider whether your study has any limitations. But what are study limitations? And why are they important? In this post, we explain what you need to know.

What Are Study Limitations?

The term “study limitations” refers to anything that may affect the reliability or generalizability of the results in a study or experiment.

This could relate to the design of the research (e.g., your methods or research approach). Or it could be an issue with how the study was carried out (e.g., running out of time and resources before the study is over).

In either case, it’s important to note limitations when writing up your study. Typically, this will be as part of the discussion and analysis . However, different schools may have different guidelines on this, so make sure to check your style guide for advice on where to discuss study limitations.

Why Write About Study Limitations?

It may seem counterintuitive to include limitations when writing up your research, especially if something went wrong. But there are several good reasons to mention study limitations, including:

• It shows you understand that every study will have at least some limitations and that you’re able to critically analyze your own work.
• You can discuss how the limitations affect your analysis, or how you would address the problems you encountered if you did the study again.
• It may offer opportunities for further research .
• It ensures transparency, making your results more useful for others.

In addition, most of the time your professor will spot any problems with your study regardless of whether you mention them. Thus, it’s much better to embrace limitations and make them part of your analysis.

But what exactly counts as a limitation? Typically, they come in two broad types: methodological limitations and researcher limitations.

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Methodological Limitations

Methodological limitations are to do with the way a study was designed and carried out. Some examples include:

• A small or unrepresentative sample may mean one unusual result skews your conclusions. It also limits the degree to which you can generalize your results to a wider or more varied population.
• Flaws in data collection may mean data is incorrect or incomplete. For example, if you rely on self-reporting in a study, you may later find out that one participant was misleading you, making the results unreliable.
• A lack of prior research in the area you are studying, which might make it difficult for you to predict outcomes and draw meaningful conclusions.
• Your chosen research approach may be limited. For instance, if you only work with quantitative data , you may overlook something a qualitative approach would have worked better for.

There are other methodological limitations you may encounter depending on what you’re studying. But, in all cases, it is important to think about your methods and how they may affect your results.

Researcher Limitations

These are factors to do with the attitudes, capabilities, and situation of the researcher. Examples of this type of limitation include:

• Time or budget constraints may limit the extent of the research that can be carried out, or force you to abandon a study before it is complete.
• Limited access to the necessary equipment, documents, or people may mean you had to limit the scope of your study accordingly.
• A lack of linguistic fluency could limit your access to data. For instance, if previous studies in your subject area are mostly in Chinese and you only know English, you may not be able to read key research.
• Cultural and other biases may shape your methodological choices and your interpretation of the data, which may mean you miss other factors .

As above, the key here is thinking about how these limitations may affect your results. If you do this, you can then factor any limitations into your analysis and discussion when writing up your study.

Expert Academic Proofreading

In conclusion, remember that study limitations occur in all research. This isn’t something to worry about or try and hide. However, you should:

• Think about potential limitations when designing your study. This will help you to make informed decisions about your research approach, objectives, and methodology.
• Acknowledge limitations when you write up your research. You can then take them into consideration when you’re analyzing your results.

To ensure your academic writing is clear and consistent, moreover, why not make use of our expert proofreaders ? Sign up for a free trial today.

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How to Write the “Overcoming Challenges” Essay + Examples

What’s covered:.

• What is the Overcoming Challenges Essay?
• Real Overcoming Challenges Essay Prompts
• How to Choose a Topic
• Writing Tips

Overcoming Challenges Essay Examples

• Where to Get Your Essay Edited

While any college essay can be intimidating, the Overcoming Challenges prompt often worries students the most. Those students who’ve been lucky enough not to experience trauma tend to assume they have nothing worth saying. On the other hand, students who’ve overcome larger obstacles may be hesitant to talk about them.

Regardless of your particular circumstances, there are steps you can take to make the essay writing process simpler. Here are our top tips for writing the overcoming challenges essay successfully.

What is the “Overcoming Challenges” Essay?

The overcoming challenges prompt shows up frequently in both main application essays (like the Common App) and supplemental essays. Because supplemental essays allow students to provide schools with additional information, applicants should be sure that the subject matter they choose to write about differs from what’s in their main essay.

Students often assume the overcoming challenges essay requires them to detail past traumas. While you can certainly write about an experience that’s had a profound effect on your life, it’s important to remember that colleges aren’t evaluating students based on the seriousness of the obstacle they overcame.

On the contrary, the goal of this essay is to show admissions officers that you have the intelligence and fortitude to handle any challenges that come your way. After all, college serves as an introduction to adult life, and schools want to know that the students they admit are up to the task. 

Real “Overcoming Challenges” Essay Prompts

To help you understand what the “Overcoming Challenges” essay looks like, here are a couple sample prompts.

Currently, the Common Application asks students to answer the following prompt in 650 words or less:

“The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?”

For the past several years, MIT has prompted students to write 200 to 250 words on the following:

“Tell us about the most significant challenge you’ve faced or something important that didn’t go according to plan. How did you manage the situation?”

In both cases, the prompts explicitly ask for your response to the challenge. The event itself isn’t as important as how it pushed you to grow.

How to Choose a Topic for an Essay on Overcoming Challenges

When it comes to finding the best topic for your overcoming challenges essays, there’s no right answer. The word “challenge” is ambiguous and could be used to reference a wide range of situations from prevailing over a bully to getting over your lifelong stage fright to appear in a school musical. Here are some suggestions to keep in mind when selecting an essay subject.

1. Avoid trivial or common topics

While there aren’t many hard-and-fast rules for choosing an essay topic, students should avoid overdone topics.

These include:

• Working hard in a challenging class
• Overcoming a sports injury
• Moving schools or immigrating to the US
• Tragedy (divorce, death, abuse)

Admissions officers have read numerous essays on the subject, so it’s harder for you to stand out (see our full list of cliché college essay topics to avoid ). If events like these were truly formative to you, you can still choose to write about them, but you’ll need to be as personal as possible. 

It’s also ideal if you have a less traditional storyline for a cliché topic; for example, if your sports injury led you to discover a new passion, that would be a more unique story than detailing how you overcame your injury and got back in the game.

Similarly, students may not want to write about an obstacle that admissions committees could perceive as low stakes, such as getting a B on a test, or getting into a small fight with a friend. The goal of this essay is to illustrate how you respond to adversity, so the topic you pick should’ve been at least impactful on your personal growth.

2. Pick challenges that demonstrate qualities you want to highlight

Students often mistakenly assume they need to have experienced exceptional circumstances like poverty, an abusive parent, or cancer to write a good essay. The truth is that the best topics will allow you to highlight specific personal qualities and share more about who you are. The essay should be less about the challenge itself, and more about how you responded to it.

Ask yourself what personality traits you want to emphasize, and see what’s missing in your application. Maybe you want to highlight your adaptability, for example, but that isn’t clearly expressed in your application. In this case, you might write about a challenge that put your adaptability to the test, or shaped you to become more adaptable.

Here are some examples of good topics we’ve seen over the years:

• Not having a coach for a sports team and becoming one yourself
• Helping a parent through a serious health issue
• Trying to get the school track dedicated to a coach
• Having to switch your Model UN position last-minute

Tips for Writing an Essay About Overcoming Challenges

Once you’ve selected a topic for your essays, it’s time to sit down and write. For best results, make sure your essay focuses on your efforts to tackle an obstacle rather than the problem itself. Additionally, you could avoid essay writing pitfalls by doing the following:

1. Choose an original essay structure

If you want your overcoming challenges essay to attract attention, aim to break away from more traditional structures. Most of these essays start by describing an unsuccessful attempt at a goal and then explain the steps the writer took to master the challenge. 

You can stand out by choosing a challenge you’re still working on overcoming, or focus on a mental or emotional challenge that spans multiple activities or events. For example, you might discuss your fear of public speaking and how that impacted your ability to coach your brother’s Little League team and run for Student Council. 

You can also choose a challenge that can be narrated in the moment, such as being put on the spot to teach a yoga class. These challenges can make particularly engaging essays, as you get to experience the writer’s thoughts and emotions as they unfold.

Keep in mind that you don’t necessarily need to have succeeded in your goal for this essay. Maybe you ran for an election and lost, or maybe you proposed a measure to the school board that wasn’t passed. It’s still possible to write a strong essay about topics like these as long as you focus on your personal growth. In fact, these may make for even stronger essays since they are more unconventional topics.

2. Focus on the internal

When writing about past experiences, you may be tempted to spend too much time describing specific people and events. With an Overcoming Challenges essay though, the goal is to focus on your thoughts and feelings.

For example, rather than detail all the steps you took to become a better public speaker, use the majority of your essay to describe your mental state as you embarked on the journey to achieving your goals. Were you excited, scared, anxious, or hopeful? Don’t be afraid to let the reader in on your innermost emotions and thoughts during this process.

3. Share what you learned 

An Overcoming Challenges essay should leave the reader with a clear understanding of what you learned on your journey, be it physical, mental, or emotional. There’s no need to explicitly say “this experience taught me X,” but your essay should at least implicitly share any lessons you learned. This can be done through your actions and in-the-moment reflections. Remember that the goal is to show admissions committees why your experiences make you a great candidate for admission. 

Was I no longer the beloved daughter of nature, whisperer of trees? Knee-high rubber boots, camouflage, bug spray—I wore the g arb and perfume of a proud wild woman, yet there I was, hunched over the pathetic pile of stubborn sticks, utterly stumped, on the verge of tears. As a child, I had considered myself a kind of rustic princess, a cradler of spiders and centipedes, who was serenaded by mourning doves and chickadees, who could glide through tick-infested meadows and emerge Lyme-free. I knew the cracks of the earth like the scars on my own rough palms. Yet here I was, ten years later, incapable of performing the most fundamental outdoor task: I could not, for the life of me, start a fire. 

Furiously I rubbed the twigs together—rubbed and rubbed until shreds of skin flaked from my fingers. No smoke. The twigs were too young, too sticky-green; I tossed them away with a shower of curses, and began tearing through the underbrush in search of a more flammable collection. My efforts were fruitless. Livid, I bit a rejected twig, determined to prove that the forest had spurned me, offering only young, wet bones that would never burn. But the wood cracked like carrots between my teeth—old, brittle, and bitter. Roaring and nursing my aching palms, I retreated to the tent, where I sulked and awaited the jeers of my family. 

Rattling their empty worm cans and reeking of fat fish, my brother and cousins swaggered into the campsite. Immediately, they noticed the minor stick massacre by the fire pit and called to me, their deep voices already sharp with contempt. 

“Where’s the fire, Princess Clara?” they taunted. “Having some trouble?” They prodded me with the ends of the chewed branches and, with a few effortless scrapes of wood on rock, sparked a red and roaring flame. My face burned long after I left the fire pit. The camp stank of salmon and shame. 

In the tent, I pondered my failure. Was I so dainty? Was I that incapable? I thought of my hands, how calloused and capable they had been, how tender and smooth they had become. It had been years since I’d kneaded mud between my fingers; instead of scaling a white pine, I’d practiced scales on my piano, my hands softening into those of a musician—fleshy and sensitive. And I’d gotten glasses, having grown horrifically nearsighted; long nights of dim lighting and thick books had done this. I couldn’t remember the last time I had lain down on a hill, barefaced, and seen the stars without having to squint. Crawling along the edge of the tent, a spider confirmed my transformation—he disgusted me, and I felt an overwhelming urge to squash him. 

Yet, I realized I hadn’t really changed—I had only shifted perspective. I still eagerly explored new worlds, but through poems and prose rather than pastures and puddles. I’d grown to prefer the boom of a bass over that of a bullfrog, learned to coax a different kind of fire from wood, having developed a burn for writing rhymes and scrawling hypotheses. 

That night, I stayed up late with my journal and wrote about the spider I had decided not to kill. I had tolerated him just barely, only shrieking when he jumped—it helped to watch him decorate the corners of the tent with his delicate webs, knowing that he couldn’t start fires, either. When the night grew cold and the embers died, my words still smoked—my hands burned from all that scrawling—and even when I fell asleep, the ideas kept sparking—I was on fire, always on fire.

This essay is an excellent example because the writer turns an everyday challenge—starting a fire—into an exploration of her identity. The writer was once “a kind of rustic princess, a cradler of spiders and centipedes,” but has since traded her love of the outdoors for a love of music, writing, and reading. 

The story begins in media res , or in the middle of the action, allowing readers to feel as if we’re there with the writer. One of the essay’s biggest strengths is its use of imagery. We can easily visualize the writer’s childhood and the present day. For instance, she states that she “rubbed and rubbed [the twigs] until shreds of skin flaked from my fingers.”

The writing has an extremely literary quality, particularly with its wordplay. The writer reappropriates words and meanings, and even appeals to the senses: “My face burned long after I left the fire pit. The camp stank of salmon and shame.” She later uses a parallelism to cleverly juxtapose her changed interests: “instead of scaling a white pine, I’d practiced scales on my piano.”

One of the essay’s main areas of improvement is its overemphasis on the “story” and lack of emphasis on the reflection. The second to last paragraph about changing perspective is crucial to the essay, as it ties the anecdote to larger lessons in the writer’s life. She states that she hasn’t changed, but has only shifted perspective. Yet, we don’t get a good sense of where this realization comes from and how it impacts her life going forward. 

The end of the essay offers a satisfying return to the fire imagery, and highlights the writer’s passion—the one thing that has remained constant in her life.

“Getting beat is one thing – it’s part of competing – but I want no part in losing.” Coach Rob Stark’s motto never fails to remind me of his encouragement on early-morning bus rides to track meets around the state. I’ve always appreciated the phrase, but an experience last June helped me understand its more profound, universal meaning.

Stark, as we affectionately call him, has coached track at my high school for 25 years. His care, dedication, and emphasis on developing good character has left an enduring impact on me and hundreds of other students. Not only did he help me discover my talent and love for running, but he also taught me the importance of commitment and discipline and to approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running. When I learned a neighboring high school had dedicated their track to a longtime coach, I felt that Stark deserved similar honors.

Our school district’s board of education indicated they would only dedicate our track to Stark if I could demonstrate that he was extraordinary. I took charge and mobilized my teammates to distribute petitions, reach out to alumni, and compile statistics on the many team and individual champions Stark had coached over the years. We received astounding support, collecting almost 3,000 signatures and pages of endorsements from across the community. With help from my teammates, I presented this evidence to the board.

They didn’t bite. 

Most members argued that dedicating the track was a low priority. Knowing that we had to act quickly to convince them of its importance, I called a team meeting where we drafted a rebuttal for the next board meeting. To my surprise, they chose me to deliver it. I was far from the best public speaker in the group, and I felt nervous about going before the unsympathetic board again. However, at that second meeting, I discovered that I enjoy articulating and arguing for something that I’m passionate about.

Public speaking resembles a cross country race. Walking to the starting line, you have to trust your training and quell your last minute doubts. When the gun fires, you can’t think too hard about anything; your performance has to be instinctual, natural, even relaxed. At the next board meeting, the podium was my starting line. As I walked up to it, familiar butterflies fluttered in my stomach. Instead of the track stretching out in front of me, I faced the vast audience of teachers, board members, and my teammates. I felt my adrenaline build, and reassured myself: I’ve put in the work, my argument is powerful and sound. As the board president told me to introduce myself, I heard, “runners set” in the back of my mind. She finished speaking, and Bang! The brief silence was the gunshot for me to begin. 

The next few minutes blurred together, but when the dust settled, I knew from the board members’ expressions and the audience’s thunderous approval that I had run quite a race. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough; the board voted down our proposal. I was disappointed, but proud of myself, my team, and our collaboration off the track. We stood up for a cause we believed in, and I overcame my worries about being a leader. Although I discovered that changing the status quo through an elected body can be a painstakingly difficult process and requires perseverance, I learned that I enjoy the challenges this effort offers. Last month, one of the school board members joked that I had become a “regular” – I now often show up to meetings to advocate for a variety of causes, including better environmental practices in cafeterias and safer equipment for athletes.

Just as Stark taught me, I worked passionately to achieve my goal. I may have been beaten when I appealed to the board, but I certainly didn’t lose, and that would have made Stark proud.

While the writer didn’t succeed in getting the track dedicated to Coach Stark, their essay is certainly successful in showing their willingness to push themselves and take initiative.

The essay opens with a quote from Coach Stark that later comes full circle at the end of the essay. We learn about Stark’s impact and the motivation for trying to get the track dedicated to him.

One of the biggest areas of improvement in the intro, however, is how the essay tells us Stark’s impact rather than showing us: His care, dedication, and emphasis on developing good character has left an enduring impact on me and hundreds of other students. Not only did he help me discover my talent and love for running, but he also taught me the importance of commitment and discipline and to approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running.

The writer could’ve helped us feel a stronger emotional connection to Stark if they had included examples of Stark’s qualities, rather than explicitly stating them. For example, they could’ve written something like: Stark was the kind of person who would give you gas money if you told him your parents couldn’t afford to pick you up from practice. And he actually did that—several times. At track meets, alumni regularly would come talk to him and tell him how he’d changed their lives. Before Stark, I was ambivalent about running and was on the JV team, but his encouragement motivated me to run longer and harder and eventually make varsity. Because of him, I approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running.

The essay goes on to explain how the writer overcame their apprehension of public speaking, and likens the process of submitting an appeal to the school board to running a race. This metaphor makes the writing more engaging and allows us to feel the student’s emotions.

While the student didn’t ultimately succeed in getting the track dedicated, we learn about their resilience and initiative: I now often show up to meetings to advocate for a variety of causes, including better environmental practices in cafeterias and safer equipment for athletes.

Overall, this essay is well-done. It demonstrates growth despite failing to meet a goal, which is a unique essay structure. The running metaphor and full-circle intro/ending also elevate the writing in this essay.

Where to Get Your Overcoming Challenges Essay Edited

The Overcoming Challenges essay is one of the trickier supplemental prompts, so it’s important to get feedback on your drafts. That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review tool , where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays. 

If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools. Find the right advisor for you to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!

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Yes, You Can’t!—Why You Should Affirm Your Limitations

Don’t give up on your dreams, advantageously “amend” them..

Posted July 11, 2017

The title above may seem rather pessimistic—or downright perverse. Virtually every article written on achieving goals encourages you to transcend your (perceived) limitations—to break down, or leap over, barriers of your own making. But on a cautionary note, there are many times when your lofty ideals must bow to inescapable reality. Times when you have to make peace with constraints you’re enduringly “afflicted” with. Aspirations that, genetically or temperamentally, will remain off limits for you.

However much your attitude may shift, or how empowered you may feel, your inborn limitations will still define—or at least, circumscribe —what you can expect to do, or be, in life. So, if you’re 5' 3” and with an especially slender frame, no matter how fast you can run, or artfully you can dribble, or consistently throw a basketball through a hoop (as in, “nothing but net!”), you’ll never make it to the NBA. (And surreptitiously slipping on a pair of athletic elevator shoes just won’t help here.)

Unquestionably, if you’re extremely determined, persistent and tenacious, the culmination of all your efforts might well exceed others’ expectations—and quite possibly your own. And I’d never discourage anyone not to put forth their “personal best” in pursuing their goals.

As the great mythologist Joseph Campbell famously opined: “Follow your bliss.” It’s fine, even admirable, to strive to get reality to conform to your “bliss,” to attempt to go beyond what you yourself question may be beyond the confines of your capability. In fact, one reason such endeavors are generally worthwhile is that many times you’re able to recognize your immutable limits only after you’ve struggled mightily to surmount them (and sometimes with external help, too).

But it’s still essential to become aware—as many a card-playing expert would advise—of when to hold ’em and when it’s best to fold ‘em.

If you’re overly invested in having, doing, or becoming something, you may ill-advisedly hold ‘em indefinitely. And while such "grit" or "spine" may be gutsy, it’s also imprudent; ultimately headstrong and reckless. For it leads to continuing stress , disappointment, rejection, or failure. (And here, readers might wish to take a look at my 3-part post: "Mastering Failure and Rejection" (1, 2 , & 3 .)

Depending on the situation, you might be much better off simply saying to yourself something like:

• No, at this point, with all the refusals I've already gotten, and as long and hard as I've tried, I just have to admit to myself that I'm not going to get into medical school;
• I think I finally know the score about how cutthroat this business is. And I’m simply not cut out to rise anywhere to the top here. I’m not aggressive enough, not motivated enough to make the connections I’d need to, and just don’t have the will or stamina for it;
• I need to face it. She [or he] just isn’t that interested in me. I’ve already done everything I could to attract her. But no matter how much I simply adore her (or him), I have to face the fact that they’re never going to reciprocate my so-passionate feelings;
• I may love the guitar, but I’ve practiced and practiced and practiced—and it’s time to face the fact that I’ll never be good enough to make a living playing in a band. I can make the guitar a major part of my [recreational] life, but I just can’t make it my profession;
• I love reading and being educated about things. It’d be so great to teach college. But I have to admit I’ve never been able to write that well, that I just may not have the IQ to teach at that level. I mean, look at the college grades I’ve gotten so far, nothing higher than B's even though I’ve really been applying myself from the start. I’m simply going to have to set my sites lower and start thinking about teaching high school;
• I know I’m a “political animal” ’cause I get so absorbed in the world of politics , and I’d like to be able to influence the direction this country is going in. But I’ll never be able to get myself to kiss babies on the campaign trail, or do all the things politicians have to do to get elected. I’ll just have to look for something at least related to politics that might satisfy me. Maybe become an attorney—and at some point represent politicians whose ideas I‘m sympathetic toward;
• . . . and so on (you can probably think of quite a few yourself).

So, is this about giving up your dreams ? Sacrificing your ideals? Resigning yourself to a life of frustration, boredom , or mediocrity?

Hardly. Life may be full of compromises but, for most of us, it’s full of choices as well. It’s rare that only one thing in life can compel your attention or interest. Consequently, while it’s difficult to relinquish a dream you’ve had—perhaps as far back as childhood —it’s worse to fiercely hold onto a fantasy that life has already demonstrated simply exceeds your mental, physical, or emotional grasp.

So, in such cases, what do you do? Obviously, you’ll first need to grieve that your first choice (Plan A) isn’t going to become your reality. But you don’t want to obsess, or ruminate, over this loss either. Give it its due . . . then move on. Ask yourself: What else , whether it’s closely related to your first choice or not, might you enjoy pursuing? And, of course, that choice should be within your “verified” level of competency.

Life is full of exciting challenges. And a major part of attaining happiness is finding a challenge well- suited to you : one that may require you to get beyond certain self-limiting beliefs but, with sufficient effort, definitely lies within your ability to achieve.

And with enough motivation , drive, and self-discipline, realistically “going for it” will enable you to feel good about yourself—and the whole trajectory of your life. Which is to say, you have time for both visions and revisions.

So, revise your goals as needed. For you want to make certain that they “blend” with who you are, and that they accurately reflect your full potential.

© 2017 Leon F. Seltzer, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved.

Leon F. Seltzer, Ph.D. , is the author of Paradoxical Strategies in Psychotherapy and The Vision of Melville and Conrad . He holds doctorates in English and Psychology. As of mid-July 2024, Dr. Seltzer has published some 590 posts, which have received over 54 million views.

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Know Your Limitations; You'll Lead Better

The best leaders recognize their weaknesses--and struggle through them..

I am known as a pretty quick study on most issues I face in my professional career. But that ability to master the situation has hit a roadblock. It's called physical therapy.

In my work I operate pretty much in the cognitive realm; I size up issues and help my clients work through them. As an executive coach I of course touch on the emotional domain because it is important to know how clients are feeling especially in their relations to others.

Physical therapy is another matter. While I have been through physical therapy a few times, I recently had a foot operation, and my current sessions have been not so much painful as disconcerting. I have been assigned some tasks that involve coordination in which I am woefully lacking. I know the motion that my kind therapist Jessica wants me to do, but I cannot reproduce the effort to satisfaction.

It reminds me of a drawing course I took in college. One day after class the professor pulled me aside and asked me point blank if I understood what was going in the class. I did not take his comment personally; in fact, I explained that sure I knew what I was supposed to do, but my hand could not reproduce the lines he asked us to draw.  In my mind I could draw perfectly; in my hand I was pretty much a stick figure guy.

Knowing your limits is essential to self-growth. Leadership author and researcher Jim Collins wrote about this in an essay he contributed to Upward Bound: Nine Original Accounts of How Business Leaders Reached Their Summits . When he was in his early 40s he decided that he wanted to become a better climber. So he hired a personal climbing coach, a young woman in her early 20s. She put Jim through a rigorous unlearning process that forced him to undo all of the habits he had put into his climbing technique since his teen years. It was an awkward and humbling process but Collins persisted and gained the proficiency he needed to become better. He has since scaled the face of Yosemite's El Capitan in a single day to celebrate turning 50.

Recognition of limitations is the first step. As Collins illustrates, it is what you do next that matters. This is an important lesson in personal development. An executive coach may be able to point out things to do differently but unless you try them out, and commit to the change process, no amount of coaching in the world will work.

This is what I have learned with some of my failings at coordination. I am not a total klutz. I used to play tennis regularly and I still play plenty of golf, but when it comes to certain aspects of coordination I am deficient. That said, I am not giving up.

I know this perseverance is essential to the growth process. Very bright people in management sometimes run into obstacles with a major challenge; it is not something they can knock off as easily as they once might have aced a statistics exam or physics final. Very often they are facing human issues, ones not solvable on paper.

And at first they may struggle at their lack of coordination that is ability to connect with peers or direct reports. Good ones, those who end up leading their organizations, pretty soon learn to acknowledge their limitations. And when they do, they open up themselves to others. People want to work with a manager who knows what he can and cannot do.

Mastery of a task may be a straightforward path. Mastery in leadership is a lifetime pursuit, one that is both humbling and challenging as well as rewarding to the individual, and the team, when it works.

Now back to physical therapy. Argh.

A refreshed look at leadership from the desk of CEO and chief content officer Stephanie Mehta

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Life Experiences — Overcoming Obstacles

Essays on Overcoming Obstacles

Dynamic prompts for your overcoming obstacles essay.

Prompt 1: Describe a significant hurdle in your life and the strategies you employed to overcome it. What lessons did the experience teach you?

Prompt 2: Reflect on a moment when facing a challenge led to unexpected personal growth. How did this growth manifest in your life thereafter?

Prompt 3: Analyze the impact of a community or societal obstacle you witnessed being overcome. What role did you play, and what broader lessons were learned?

Strategies for Selecting a Compelling Topic

Choosing a topic for your overcoming obstacles essay involves deep reflection. Focus on instances that not only presented significant challenges but also resulted in meaningful growth or change. Consider moments where the path to overcoming the obstacle was not straightforward, requiring innovative solutions or changes in perspective.

When choosing a topic, consider:

• Personal Significance: Select an obstacle that had a profound impact on your personal development or worldview.
• Originality: Look for stories or angles that are unique to you, avoiding common narratives that might not stand out.
• Universality: While the story should be personal, its themes should resonate with a wider audience, highlighting universal truths about resilience, growth, or transformation.
• Detail Potential: Choose an obstacle that allows for rich storytelling, enabling you to delve into the specifics of the challenge, your response, and the outcome.

Unique Topics for an Overcoming Obstacles Essay

• The Journey of Self-Discovery Through Overcoming Language Barriers
• Breaking Free: My Battle Against Social Norms
• Resilience in the Face of Career Setbacks: A Professional’s Tale
• From Adversity to Advocacy: Fighting for Accessibility in Education
• Embracing Change: Overcoming the Fear of the Unknown

Writing Inspiration for Your Essay

"Every step forward was a battle, a negotiation between my fears and my ambitions. The day I decided to [describe the obstacle], I didn’t just face a challenge; I was stepping into a crucible of transformation. This journey taught me that the essence of overcoming obstacles isn’t just about resilience; it’s about the metamorphosis that occurs within, turning every setback into a stepping stone towards achieving my dreams."

Inspirational Phrases:

• "In the face of adversity, I discovered my true strength..."
• "The challenge didn’t change me; it revealed me..."
• "Overcoming this obstacle taught me to embrace the journey, not just the destination..."
• "Each hurdle was a lesson in disguise, teaching me the value of perseverance, patience, and perspective..."
• "Finding light in the darkest moments, I learned the true meaning of resilience..."

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Life is "Essay"

Compilation Of My Personal Articles

Thursday, October 13, 2016

My weaknesses/limitations and strength/possibilities.

11 comments:

Ikaw palang ang nakikilala kong malapit sa salitang perpekto. :) you are not just an average person, you are much better than all of us combined ♡

Very much amazing essay

Too much good essay

really helpful

THIS ESSSAY SUCH A MOTIVATION FOR US TO SET AN STANDARD LIMIT IN OUR LIVES

Hope you find a reason by now not to feel all the weaknesses you mentioned above. You are not alone.

Ye lili ye lila

ang galing niyo po makakakuhaan po na aral lalo na sa mga bata.salamat poh

same tayo ng limitations/weaknesses

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The Best College Essay Length: How Long Should It Be?

College Essays

Figuring out your college essay can be one of the most difficult parts of applying to college. Even once you've read the prompt and picked a topic, you might wonder: if you write too much or too little, will you blow your chance of admission? How long should a college essay be?

Whether you're a terse writer or a loquacious one, we can advise you on college essay length. In this guide, we'll cover what the standard college essay length is, how much word limits matter, and what to do if you aren't sure how long a specific essay should be.

How Long Is a College Essay? First, Check the Word Limit

You might be used to turning in your writing assignments on a page-limit basis (for example, a 10-page paper). While some colleges provide page limits for their college essays, most use a word limit instead. This makes sure there's a standard length for all the essays that a college receives, regardless of formatting or font.

In the simplest terms, your college essay should be pretty close to, but not exceeding, the word limit in length. Think within 50 words as the lower bound, with the word limit as the upper bound. So for a 500-word limit essay, try to get somewhere between 450-500 words. If they give you a range, stay within that range.

College essay prompts usually provide the word limit right in the prompt or in the instructions.

For example, the University of Illinois says :

"You'll answer two to three prompts as part of your application. The questions you'll answer will depend on whether you're applying to a major or to our undeclared program , and if you've selected a second choice . Each response should be approximately 150 words."

As exemplified by the University of Illinois, the shortest word limits for college essays are usually around 150 words (less than half a single-spaced page). Rarely will you see a word limit higher than around 650 words (over one single-spaced page). College essays are usually pretty short: between 150 and 650 words. Admissions officers have to read a lot of them, after all!

Weigh your words carefully, because they are limited!

How Flexible Is the Word Limit?

But how flexible is the word limit? What if your poignant anecdote is just 10 words too long—or 100 too short?

Can I Go Over the Word Limit?

If you are attaching a document and you need one or two extra words, you can probably get away with exceeding the word limit by such a small amount. Some colleges will actually tell you that exceeding the word limit by 1-2 words is fine. However, I advise against exceeding the word limit unless it's explicitly allowed for a few reasons:

First, you might not be able to. If you have to copy-paste it into a text box, your essay might get cut off and you'll have to trim it down anyway.

If you exceed the word limit in a noticeable way, the admissions counselor may just stop reading your essay past that point. This is not good for you.

Following directions is actually a very important part of the college application process. You need to follow directions to get your letters of recommendation, upload your essays, send supplemental materials, get your test scores sent, and so on and so forth. So it's just a good general rule to follow whatever instructions you've been given by the institution. Better safe than sorry!

Can I Go Under the Word Limit?

If you can truly get your point across well beneath the word limit, it's probably fine. Brevity is not necessarily a bad thing in writing just so long as you are clear, cogent, and communicate what you want to.

However, most college essays have pretty tight word limits anyways. So if you're writing 300 words for an essay with a 500-word limit, ask yourself: is there anything more you could say to elaborate on or support your points? Consult with a parent, friend, or teacher on where you could elaborate with more detail or expand your points.

Also, if the college gives you a word range, you absolutely need to at least hit the bottom end of the range. So if you get a range from the institution, like 400-500 words, you need to write at least 400 words. If you write less, it will come across like you have nothing to say, which is not an impression you want to give.

What If There Is No Word Limit?

Some colleges don't give you a word limit for one or more of your essay prompts. This can be a little stressful, but the prompts generally fall into a few categories:

Writing Sample

Some colleges don't provide a hard-and-fast word limit because they want a writing sample from one of your classes. In this case, a word limit would be very limiting to you in terms of which assignments you could select from.

For an example of this kind of prompt, check out essay Option B at Amherst :

"Submit a graded paper from your junior or senior year that best represents your writing skills and analytical abilities. We are particularly interested in your ability to construct a tightly reasoned, persuasive argument that calls upon literary, sociological or historical evidence. You should NOT submit a laboratory report, journal entry, creative writing sample or in-class essay."

While there is usually no word limit per se, colleges sometimes provide a general page guideline for writing samples. In the FAQ for Option B , Amherst clarifies, "There is no hard-and-fast rule for official page limit. Typically, we anticipate a paper of 4-5 pages will provide adequate length to demonstrate your analytical abilities. Somewhat longer papers can also be submitted, but in most cases should not exceed 8-10 pages."

So even though there's no word limit, they'd like somewhere in the 4-10 pages range. High school students are not usually writing papers that are longer than 10 pages anyways, so that isn't very limiting.

Implicit Length Guideline

Sometimes, while there's no word (or even page) limit, there's still an implicit length guideline. What do I mean by this?

See, for example, this Western Washington University prompt :

“Describe one or more activities you have been involved in that have been particularly meaningful. What does your involvement say about the communities, identities or causes that are important to you?”

While there’s no page or word limit listed here, further down on page the ‘essay tips’ section explains that “ most essay responses are about 500 words, ” though “this is only a recommendation, not a firm limit.” This gives you an idea of what’s reasonable. A little longer or shorter than 500 words would be appropriate here. That’s what I mean by an “implicit” word limit—there is a reasonable length you could go to within the boundaries of the prompt.

But what's the proper coffee-to-paragraph ratio?

Treasure Hunt

There is also the classic "treasure hunt" prompt. No, it's not a prompt about a treasure hunt. It's a prompt where there are no length guidelines given, but if you hunt around on the rest of the website you can find length guidelines.

For example, the University of Chicago provides seven "Extended Essay" prompts . You must write an essay in response to one prompt of your choosing, but nowhere on the page is there any guidance about word count or page limit.

However, many colleges provide additional details about their expectations for application materials, including essays, on FAQ pages, which is true of the University of Chicago. On the school’s admissions Frequently Asked Questions page , they provide the following length guidelines for the supplemental essays: 

“We suggest that you note any word limits for Coalition or Common Application essays; however, there are no strict word limits on the UChicago Supplement essays. For the extended essay (where you choose one of several prompts), we suggest that you aim for around 650 words. While we won't, as a rule, stop reading after 650 words, we're only human and cannot promise that an overly wordy essay will hold our attention indefinitely. For the “Why UChicago?” essay, we suggest about 250-500 words. The ideas in your writing matter more than the exact number of words you use!”

So there you go! You want to be (loosely) in the realm of 650 for the extended essay, and 250-500 words for the “Why UChicago?” essay.

Help! There Really Is No Guidance on Length

If you really can't find any length guidelines anywhere on the admissions website and you're at a loss, I advise calling the admissions office. They may not be able to give you an exact number (in fact, they probably won't), but they will probably at least be able to tell you how long most of the essays they see are. (And keep you from writing a panicked, 20-page dissertation about your relationship with your dog).

In general, 500 words or so is pretty safe for a college essay. It's a fairly standard word limit length, in fact. (And if you're wondering, that's about a page and a half double-spaced.) 500 words is long enough to develop a basic idea while still getting a point across quickly—important when admissions counselors have thousands of essays to read!

"See? It says 500 words right there in tiny font!"

The Final Word: How Long Should a College Essay Be?

The best college essay length is usually pretty straightforward: you want to be right under or at the provided word limit. If you go substantially past the word limit, you risk having your essay cut off by an online application form or having the admissions officer just not finish it. And if you're too far under the word limit, you may not be elaborating enough.

What if there is no word limit? Then how long should a college essay be? In general, around 500 words is a pretty safe approximate word amount for a college essay—it's one of the most common word limits, after all!

Here's guidance for special cases and hunting down word limits:

If it's a writing sample of your graded academic work, the length either doesn't matter or there should be some loose page guidelines.

There also may be implicit length guidelines. For example, if a prompt says to write three paragraphs, you'll know that writing six sentences is definitely too short, and two single-spaced pages is definitely too long.

You might not be able to find length guidelines in the prompt, but you could still hunt them up elsewhere on the website. Try checking FAQs or googling your chosen school name with "admissions essay word limit."

If there really is no word limit, you can call the school to try to get some guidance.

With this advice, you can be sure you've got the right college essay length on lockdown!

Hey, writing about yourself can even be fun!

What's Next?

Need to ask a teacher or friend for help with your essay? See our do's and dont's to getting college essay advice .

If you're lacking in essay inspiration, see our guide to brainstorming college essay ideas . And here's our guide to starting out your essay perfectly!

Looking for college essay examples? See 11 places to find college essay examples and 145 essay examples with analysis !

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Ellen has extensive education mentorship experience and is deeply committed to helping students succeed in all areas of life. She received a BA from Harvard in Folklore and Mythology and is currently pursuing graduate studies at Columbia University.

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Tackling the Personal Essay: Tips from a Notre Dame Admissions Counselor

Published: August 30, 2024

Author: Zach Klonsinski

If you ask almost any admissions professional which part of reading applications is their favorite, it’s likely their answer will be a resounding, “The essays!” Essays are where we get to engage with students’ hopes, fears, dreams, life experiences (and more) in their authentic voice. We are humbled every year getting to “meet” all the incredible young people who are applying to Notre Dame through their essays!

Yet, writing an essay introducing yourself can be really hard. Maybe you’ve never done so before, or you haven’t for a really long time, and often it will seem really awkward. That’s OK!

It feels hard because it is–or at least it can be.

Don’t worry, though! I love sharing tips with applicants about the personal essay that will hopefully help you see it as an opportunity to learn more about yourself and then share that discernment with the colleges who will be fortunate enough to receive your application!

Getting started

The easiest way to get started is by simply brainstorming! I love using pen and paper (I’m anti-pencil, though I realize that may be a divisive opinion). The physical materials help me feel less constrained by technology, though you may find the technology comforting.

Use bulleted lists or short phrases to capture ideas, life experiences, values, and more. Every day, set aside five minutes to write about yourself or your college discernment process without stopping to think. Where does your mind lead you when you get out of your own way?

Ask your friends and family to help you identify values that are important to you or things that make you.. well… you! Often it’s easier to highlight and say nice things about someone else than it is ourselves, so lean on those who know you well!

Group these collective nuggets to see if any patterns or stories emerge. Do you see any prompts on your application that align with your brainstorming? The Common Application, for example, has seven to choose from, including a make your own prompt! Start writing on one that makes you pause, as that means you might have something to say! Don’t be afraid to go longer than your word count or to use an atypical form of writing.

While that specific level of chaos may not work for you, I always recommend staying away from sentences and avoiding constraining yourself while writing because…

Editing is more than spelling and grammar!

When we want to “edit” something, it can be tempting to start–and just as quickly end–with spell check. (Yes, your essay should have proper spelling and grammar, but please know we are not reading your essay with a red pen “grading” every single comma.)

What is far more important–though also far more intimidating–is your essay’s content.

What really improved my writing actually had nothing to do with me–rather, it was finding trusted editors to give me honest and constructive feedback. While it’s tempting to have your best friend or family member read your essay, I’ve found my best editors possess a strong rhetorical mind, ask thoughtful questions, and are not afraid to tell me when something isn’t working the way I think it is.

This may describe someone close to you, but maybe not. Maybe there’s a classmate or teacher who you have always admired, even if you don’t know them that well. Editing is an incredibly vulnerable process; don’t be afraid to lean into that vulnerability! I promise that a strong editor who works with your voice and style–rather than rewriting your essay how they would have–will help bring forth an authentic essay you didn’t even realize you could write!

Speaking of, authenticity will lead to your best essay

The best application essay is the one that helps us get to know you. Period. Full stop. Any topic can be a good topic, any topic can be a bad topic. At the end of the day, the topic you choose to write about is only a gateway to help us get to know you!

Let’s think of it another way. Say you printed out your essay at your school, without your name or other identifying information on it, and someone who knows you picked it up and read it. If they said, “I bet this is (your name)’s essay,” I can already tell you’re on the right track. There’s something truly you about it!

Where can I find more about writing application essays?

I’m so glad you asked! On our On-Demand Sessions webpage , you can find a number of helpful recorded sessions from our College Application Workshop series. One of them, co-presented by yours truly, is called “Crafting the Perfect College Essay”. My colleague Maria Finan and I present our own tips and tricks for about 20 minutes and then take questions from a virtual audience for the remainder of the 45 minute session. I invite you to check it out, as well as the other sessions we have recorded!

Ready to Write Your App Essays? Advice from an Admissions Counselor on the Notre Dame Supplement

Zach Klonsinski is a senior assistant director with the Office of Undergraduate Admissions.

He is the regional counselor for Minnesota, Missouri (Kansas City), Wisconsin, Rwanda, Kenya, France, Portugal, Spain, Andorra, Monaco, and China - Beijing

• Read Zach's profile.

New developments in renewable energy are making headlines and inspiring hope in communities worldwide, from a remote Arctic village working to harness solar and wind power under challenging conditions to a U.S. Air Force base planning an advanced, utility-scale geothermal power system.

As much of the world grapples with mitigating the effects of climate change and global warming, innovation and advancements in renewable energy have emerged as a bright spot. Solar energy, wind energy, hydropower, geothermal energy and biomass energy generation is better for the planet than the burning of fossil fuels including oil, natural gas and coal.

But for all of the advantages of renewable energy, its development and use has disadvantages, too. Let’s take a look at both.

The advantages of renewable energy power sources are wide-ranging, and some are more obvious than others.

Inexhaustible supply

One of the main benefits of renewable energy sources like the sun, wind and water is that they will never run out. In contrast, non-renewable resources are not only finite, but cost more as their availability declines and require more extreme extraction methods with greater environmental impacts.

Carbon-free energy generation

The goal of the clean energy transition is decarbonization . Carbon dioxide emissions reached 11.2 gigatonnes (Gt) in 2022 from oil alone, whereas renewable energy generation emits little to no carbon emissions to power homes, cars and businesses.

A cleaner, healthier environment

The burning of fossil fuels, like coal, releases airborne pollutants such as nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide, while the mining of these resources can result in water pollution and damage animal habitats. Using renewable energy in place of fossil fuels can reduce these pollutants and help mitigate risks to human health and natural environments.

Energy independence

Renewable energy provides for stronger energy security by opening up new opportunities for domestic energy production, thereby reducing reliance on foreign-sourced energy supply. For example, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European countries have sought to reduce their imports of Russian oil and gas. In 2023, domestic renewable energy production in Europe rose to account for a record 44% of the EU’s electricity mix while imports from Russia declined, helping build a more stable, resilient power grid.

Less maintenance

For certain types of renewable energy sources, the maintenance and maintenance costs of their infrastructure are minimal. Solar photovoltaic systems, for example, generally don’t have moving parts and can last 25 years or more with little maintenance. Hydroelectric power plants typically have low operating costs and require little maintenance as well, with long-lasting equipment that can remain in operation for decades.

Affordable energy

When it comes to costs, renewable energy sources once compared unfavorably to fossil fuels. But as fossil fuel prices rise renewable energy has emerged as an affordable alternative energy option. An estimated 96% of new utility-scale solar and wind power projects had lower generation costs than new coal and natural gas plants. As more renewable energy resources are integrated into power grids, businesses are also implementing energy management programs to optimize energy usage and reduce overall energy costs.

Job creation

While both clean energy and fossil fuel industries have seen job growth in recent years, growth has been markedly faster in the former. As a result, clean energy roles now account for more than half of the 67 million jobs in the global energy sector. Such growth is fueling demand for additional workers and retraining for existing fossil fuel workers to transition to the renewable energy industry.

For all the celebrated benefits of renewable energy, the sector has some downsides as well. Understanding the disadvantages of renewable energy can help organizations better plan its deployment. Here are some of the cons of renewable energy projects today:

High upfront costs

Shifting to renewable energy technologies saves money in the long run but component costs and initial costs for set-up can be expensive. For example, small businesses can expect to pay USD 100,000 or more for commercial solar installations, depending on their energy needs. However, legislation for incentives, tax credits and various rebates can help offset these costs.

Location and landmass requirements

Most renewable energy power generation is location dependent—solar farms require unobstructed sunlight, hydropower requires water movement, wind farms require open spaces and traditional geothermal power requires proximity to sources of hot water. In many cases, renewable energy systems require a lot of space—more than traditional power stations. Research conducted by the ICF Climate Center found that large-scale renewable energy installations require 10 times more land than coal- and natural gas-fired power plants.

Production volatility

Renewable electricity generation is vulnerable to weather conditions: solar power is susceptible to cloudy days, hydropower to droughts and wind power to calm days. As such, guaranteeing the amount of energy produced at any given time is a challenge. To help companies adapt to this volatility, solutions like the IBM Environmental Intelligence Suite use sensors, geospatial data , advanced analytics, machine learning , artificial intelligence (AI) and weather data to generate day-ahead wind and solar forecasts .

Storage requirements

Due to the intermittent nature of renewable power, batteries are required to collect energy during peak production periods for distribution in a controlled, consistent manner during periods of low- to non-production. Energy storage systems to support utility-scale applications are costly but technology is being developed to support more affordable long-term storage.

Supply chain limitations

Supply chain hurdles are hindering the installation of renewable energy projects. According to a report by McKinsey, project developers face three main challenges : access to raw materials and rare earth metals amid a projected shortage; access to the talent and machinery necessary; and little supplier diversification for critical components. For example, in the case of polysilicon, a material used in solar panels, 79% of global capacity is concentrated in China, making the solar PV industry vulnerable to disruptions in that country.

Carbon footprint and waste

Although solar and wind power emit no harmful emissions during power generation, the manufacturing, installation and transportation of renewable energy equipment does often produce greenhouse gas emissions . Additionally, waste products are created during asset production process and disposal, with wind turbine blades and solar panels taking up space in landfills.

Businesses in the renewable energy industry or interested in sourcing renewable power can proactively monitor renewable energy trends with the right tools. The IBM Environmental Intelligence Suite uses historical energy generation data, weather data and more to generate high-accuracy energy forecasts for wind and solar assets to inform key decision-making at the enterprise level.

Try the IBM Environmental Intelligence Suite for free

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My Demoralizing but Not Surprising Cancellation

About an hour before my first book event, I heard from my publicist that the bookstore had “concerns” about my conversation partner, Rabbi Andy Bachman, because he was a “Zionist.”

Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.

Last Tuesday, I was supposed to have launched my first book, Tablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life , with an event at a bookstore in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Dumbo—a conversation between me and the well-known Reform rabbi Andy Bachman.

The event didn’t happen. About an hour before the intended start, I heard from my publicist that the bookstore had “concerns” about Rabbi Bachman because he was a “Zionist.” I received another call while in a car on the way to the store: The manager was now refusing to host the conversation with the rabbi. When I arrived, I asked her why she would not permit the event to go forward as planned. Her response: “We don’t want a Zionist onstage.”

I was taken aback. Rabbi Bachman is an outspoken social-justice advocate and a supporter of the establishment of a Palestinian state (and my former teacher). My book is a history of American Jewish life in the second half of the 20th century, and deals critically with Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Because of my analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as my reporting about and public opposition to Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and siege of Gaza, I had feared that synagogues would be reluctant (and surely some still are) to host events. I did not anticipate that the trouble would come from a bookstore in Brooklyn.

Adam Kirsch: The false narrative of settler colonialism

Then again, perhaps I should not have been surprised at all. Since October 7, the public discourse on Israel and Palestine has curdled. Some right-wing supporters of Israel have become cheerleaders for violence. In certain spaces that call themselves progressive, intolerance has become endemic and conspiratorial thinking is on the rise. The result across the board: Nuance has evaporated, and humanity is in short supply.

My would-be book launch also exemplified the bind that many progressive American Jews face. We are caught between parts of an activist left demanding that we disavow our communities, even our families, as an entrance ticket, and a mainstream Jewish institutional world that has long marginalized critics of Israeli policy. Indeed, Jews who are committed to the flourishing of Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora, and who are also outraged by Israel’s brutal war in Gaza, feel like we have little room to maneuver.

On the one hand, we can no more renounce our families, friends, and communities than we can ourselves, and the demand that we do so is wrong. It is straightforwardly anti-Semitic to ask, as the bookstore manager did with her blanket ban on Zionists, that Jews support Israel’s dismantling as a criterion for participation in intellectual life. This is a condition that most Jews, who when surveyed describe strong attachment to Israel, could not meet. And it is a kind of litmus test that should not be asked (and generally is not) of any other group of people.

On the other hand, we cannot ignore Israel’s devastation of the Gaza Strip, and should be fearful of shifting attention away from the human catastrophe unfolding in the territory. Friends on the left have warned me that making too much of last week’s deplatforming has already had this effect. I worry about bolstering tribalist thinking, which is precisely the mentality that for decades has blinded so many in mainstream Jewish institutions to the grinding, daily injustices of the occupation of the West Bank and siege of Gaza—and, more recently, inured them to the horrific fact that this war has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, most of them civilians .

But silence about the pitfalls of the left carries its own risks—including risks to the left itself. My experience last week was so demoralizing in part because such episodes make moving the mainstream Jewish community much harder. Every time a left-wing activist insists that the only way to truly participate in the fight for peace and justice is to support the dissolution of Israel, it reinforces the zero-sum (and morally repulsive) idea that opposing the status quo requires Israel’s destruction. Rhetorical extremism and dogmatism make it easier for right-wing Israel supporters to dismiss what should be legitimate demands—for instance, conditions on U.S. military aid—as beyond the pale.

The new left-wing norm that insists on one-state maximalism is not only a moral mistake. It is also a strategic one. If there is one thing that the past year of cease-fire activism has illustrated, it is that changing U.S. policy on Israel requires a broad coalition. That big tent must have room for those who believe in Jewish self-determination and are committed to Israel’s existence, even as they work to end its domination over Palestinians.

Many on the right, not just the far left, scoff at the possibility of such a coalition. For the past several days, my inbox has been filled with hateful crowing that the cancellation of my book launch is the bitter fruit that I and other left-wing Jews deserve. What did I expect? Hadn’t I written more than 100 articles documenting Israeli human-rights abuses and the occupation’s quotidian cruelty? Didn’t I advocate for policies, including boycotts, that would pressure Israel to change its policies? So how could I now complain that similar tactics were being used against me? The ejection of Zionists and Israelis from polite society was on my hands.

To these critics I must insist on a difference between boycotts of entire groups of people based on their identity or the ideas they are assumed to hold, and boycotts of goods produced in unlawfully occupied territories. The former are antithetical to democratic public life—as the owner of the bookstore argued in his statement apologizing for the cancellation. The latter, by contrast, are a staple of nonviolent resistance, crucial tools for achieving genuine democracy.

Arash Azizi: Is a new Palestinian movement being born?

No doubt, I regret certain sentences and even articles I’ve written about Israel in the past, which today I would phrase differently. The October 7 attacks painfully resensitized me to the reality of Israeli Jewish vulnerability, which exists despite the massive power imbalance between Israel and the Palestinians. I was too often willing to overlook this fact. Opening one’s eyes to the dehumanization of Palestinians does not require closing one’s eyes to the dehumanization of Israelis, and vice versa. If Rabbi Bachman and I had been able to have our conversation last week, we could have discussed what might be the one immutable truth about Israel and Palestine these days: Neither Israelis nor Palestinians are going anywhere, and both peoples have the right to equality, dignity, and self-determination. No movement that ignores this reality has any hope of success.

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Guest Essay

I’m a College President, and I Hope My Campus Is Even More Political This Year

By Michael S. Roth

Mr. Roth is the president of Wesleyan University.

Last year was a tough one on college campuses, so over the summer a lot of people asked me if I was hoping things would be less political this fall. Actually, I’m hoping they will be more political.

That’s not to say that I yearn for entrenched conflict or to once again hear chants telling me that I “can’t hide from genocide,” much less anything that might devolve into antisemitic or Islamophobic harassment or violence. But since at least the 1800s, colleges and universities in the United States have sought to help students develop character traits that would make them better citizens. That civic mission is only more relevant today. The last thing any university president should want is an apolitical campus.

College students have long played an important, even heroic role in American politics. Having defended the voting franchise during the civil rights movement and helped to end the Vietnam War, they have continued to work for change across a range of social issues. If you went to college in the past 50 years, there’s a good chance the mission statement of your school included language that emphasized the institution’s contribution to society. Like many others, my university’s founding documents speak of contributing to the good of the individual and the good of the world. Higher-education institutions have never been neutral .

The issue that matters most to many activists right now is the war in Gaza, and protesters will undoubtedly continue to make their voices heard. Last spring at Wesleyan, students built an encampment of up to about 100 tents to protest the war and to call for the university to divest from companies thought to be supporting it. Since the protest was nonviolent and the students in the encampment were careful not to disrupt normal university operations, we allowed it to continue because their right to nonviolent protest was more important than their modest violations of the rules.

I walked through the protest area daily, as did many faculty members, students and staff members. I also met with pro-Israel students, mostly Jewish, some of whom felt beleaguered by what their classmates were saying. I made clear that if any of them felt harassed, I would intervene. I also said that I could ensure their ability to pursue their education but that I could not protect them from being offended.

I disagreed with the protesters ’ tactics and some of their aims — and I was often the target of their anger — but I respected their strong desire to bear witness to the tragedy unfolding in Gaza. Before commencement, we reached an agreement with the students that they would clear the encampment and in turn be able to make their case to the board of trustees. They will do so this fall, as will pro-Israel students. I trust the experience will be a valuable lesson in how to communicate with people who may not share your views.

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Social Security

Cost-of-living adjustment (cola) information ( en español ), cost-of-living adjustment (cola) information for 2024.

Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits for more than 71 million Americans will increase 3.2 percent in 2024.

The 3.2 percent cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) will begin with benefits payable to more than 66 million Social Security beneficiaries in January 2024. Increased payments to approximately 7.5 million SSI recipients will begin on December 29, 2023. (Note: some people receive both Social Security and SSI benefits)

Read more about the Social Security Cost-of-Living adjustment for 2024 .

The maximum amount of earnings subject to the Social Security tax (taxable maximum) will increase to $168,600.

The earnings limit for workers who are younger than "full" retirement age (see Full Retirement Age Chart ) will increase to $22,320. (We deduct $1 from benefits for each $2 earned over $22,320.)

The earnings limit for people reaching their “full” retirement age in 2024 will increase to $59,520. (We deduct $1 from benefits for each $3 earned over $59,520 until the month the worker turns “full” retirement age.)

There is no limit on earnings for workers who are "full" retirement age or older for the entire year.

Read more about the COLA, tax, benefit and earning amounts for 2024.

Medicare Information

Information about Medicare changes for 2024 will be available at www.medicare.gov . For Social Security beneficiaries receiving Medicare, their new 2024 benefit amount will be available in December through the mailed COLA notice and my Social Security’s Message Center.

Your COLA Notice

In December 2023, Social Security COLA notices will be available online to most beneficiaries in the Message Center of their my Social Security account.

This is a secure, convenient way to receive COLA notices online and save the message for later. You can also opt out of receiving notices by mail that are available online. Be sure to choose your preferred way to receive courtesy notifications so you won’t miss your secure, convenient online COLA notice.

Remember, our services are free of charge. No government agency or reputable company will solicit your personal information or request advanced fees for services in the form of wire transfers or gift cards. Avoid falling victim to fraudulent calls and internet “phishing” schemes by not revealing personal information, selecting malicious links, or opening malicious attachments. You can learn more about the ways we protect your personal information and my Social Security account here .

History of Automatic Cost-Of-Living Adjustments

The purpose of the COLA is to ensure that the purchasing power of Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits is not eroded by inflation. It is based on the percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) from the third quarter of the last year a COLA was determined to the third quarter of the current year. If there is no increase, there can be no COLA.

The CPI-W is determined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Department of Labor. By law, it is the official measure used by the Social Security Administration to calculate COLAs.

Congress enacted the COLA provision as part of the 1972 Social Security Amendments, and automatic annual COLAs began in 1975. Before that, benefits were increased only when Congress enacted special legislation.

Beginning in 1975, Social Security started automatic annual cost-of-living allowances. The change was enacted by legislation that ties COLAs to the annual increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI-W).

The change means that inflation no longer drains value from Social Security benefits.

• The 2024 COLA
• The 2023 COLA
• The 2022 COLA
• The 2021 COLA
• The 2020 COLA
• The 2019 COLA

The 1975-82 COLAs were effective with Social Security benefits payable for June (received by beneficiaries in July) in each of those years. After 1982, COLAs have been effective with benefits payable for December (received by beneficiaries in January).

Automatic Cost-Of-Living Adjustments received since 1975

• July 1975 -- 8.0%
• July 1976 -- 6.4%
• July 1977 -- 5.9%
• July 1978 -- 6.5%
• July 1979 -- 9.9%
• July 1980 -- 14.3%
• July 1981 -- 11.2%
• July 1982 -- 7.4%
• January 1984 -- 3.5%
• January 1985 -- 3.5%
• January 1986 -- 3.1%
• January 1987 -- 1.3%
• January 1988 -- 4.2%
• January 1989 -- 4.0%
• January 1990 -- 4.7%
• January 1991 -- 5.4%
• January 1992 -- 3.7%
• January 1993 -- 3.0%
• January 1994 -- 2.6%
• January 1995 -- 2.8%
• January 1996 -- 2.6%
• January 1997 -- 2.9%
• January 1998 -- 2.1%
• January 1999 -- 1.3%
• January 2000 -- 2.5% ( 1 )
• January 2001 -- 3.5%
• January 2002 -- 2.6%
• January 2003 -- 1.4%
• January 2004 -- 2.1%
• January 2005 -- 2.7%
• January 2006 -- 4.1%
• January 2007 -- 3.3%
• January 2008 -- 2.3%
• January 2009 -- 5.8%
• January 2010 -- 0.0%
• January 2011 -- 0.0%
• January 2012 -- 3.6%
• January 2013 -- 1.7%
• January 2014 -- 1.5%
• January 2015 -- 1.7%
• January 2016 -- 0.0%
• January 2017 -- 0.3%
• January 2018 -- 2.0%
• January 2019 -- 2.8%
• January 2020 -- 1.6%
• January 2021 -- 1.3%
• January 2022 -- 5.9%
• January 2023 -- 8.7%
• January 2024 -- 3.2%