Eviews Help

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DISSERTATION GUIDELINES (ECOM107 and ECOM093)

1. Aim and Objectives

• Enable students to advance their knowledge of the field covered by their degree

programme

• Independent research project

• Ability to evaluate, challenge, modify and develop theory and practice.

• Offer synthetic and coherent solutions

2. Requirements

• Well-defined research question

• Logically developed argument supported by evidence

• Element of your own independent research

• Relate existing literature in the field to your work

3. Timetable

• Friday 7th February 2020: Students to select a topic.

• February 2020: Students allocated to supervisor

• January to March 2020: Data Analysis presents a set of suggested dissertation topics

and data sources to help students with their topic and use appropriate methods and

data.

• March 2020: First meeting with supervisor. Students should bring a draft of their

dissertation abstract to this meeting. The draft should specify the research idea,

techniques to be used and data sources required as well as references to a few articles

that look at the same issue or use similar techniques. After this meeting students can

update their abstract before submission

Deadline for abstract submission: 23:55 Thursday 9th April 2020

• 8th June to 6th August 2020: Progress meetings with supervisor. Students have three

compulsory meetings with their supervisor over this period to discuss progress on their

dissertation and other issues

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• 15th June to 6th August 2020 - Technical meetings with TA supervisors: Students can

arrange meetings with TA supervisors to discuss issues such as data sources, software

issues, estimation techniques etc.

Deadline for final submission: 23:55 Tuesday 1st September 2020

• Dissertations that are submitted late will be penalised at the rate of 5 marks deduction

for each 24 hour period after the set submission time, down to the pass mark. Work

submitted 7 calendar days or more after the deadline will be awarded zero (check your

handbook). This rule applies for all days including weekends. Students are advised to

submit at least a day before the deadline in case of unforeseen technical problems etc.

4. Plagiarism

• Your dissertation should be the output of your own work. University of London and

the College take plagiarism very seriously.

• Incorrect referencing and citations may be considered plagiarism.

• For detecting plagiarism, the School uses Turnitin. Turnitin checks your dissertation

against 24+ billion web pages, 300+ million student papers and 110,000+ publications

and provides a similarity index. Once you will have completed your dissertation, you

can test it on Turnitin to verify that the similarity index is acceptable (green light)

before your official submission.

• Important: An acceptable similarity index could be anything below 20%. What does

this mean in practice? An originality report from Turnitin may have a similarity index

of 24% with the similarity coming from hundreds of different sources, each making up

le han of he den ork o her originali repor i h an inde of ma

have the similarity coming from just one or two web pages or published sources,

potentially a much more serious matter.

• After the exams in June, there will be a 2-hours session on how to avoid plagiarism and

maintain academic integrity. The attendance is compulsory for all students taking

ECOM093 and ECOM107. More details about the date and the venue will follow at a

later stage.

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5. Style and Format

• Front page: You must indicate the following:

� your programme of study

� your full name

� your student ID number

� the title of your dissertation

� the full name of your supervisor

• Use 1.5 spacing

• Number your pages

• Use 2.5 or 3cm on all margins

6. Dissertation Length

• 7,000 words (4,000 words for those taking ECOM093) excluding references, tables and

appendices. Lower or higher than this may lead to a penalty in your overall mark and

this is under the discretion of your supervisor.

7. Citing and References

• Follow the link and use Harvard Style criteria

http://www.library.qmul.ac.uk/referencing#1

8. The role of the supervisor

• Number of meetings with the supervisor: 1 meeting before the abstract submission

and up to 3 meetings during the period of supervision in summer (see above for dates).

• The dissertation is intended to provide an opportunity for students to pursue a

research project independently so students are entirely responsible for the work for

their dissertation.

• The role of the supervisor is to offer advice and guidance, not to direct the research.

• Your supervisor will help you to identify a topic, to draw up a suitable preliminary

bibliography and to plan the primary and secondary research you will need to do for

the dissertation. He/she will be available to advise you on approach, coverage,

questions to be asked and the outline structure and research design.

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More specifically, the supervisor is expected to:

� assist you in the definition and organisation of your project in the early stages

of preparation;

� offer you advice about sources;

� advise you on the feasibility of what you plan to do; and

� Approve your dissertation proposal.

9. The role of the Teaching Assistant (TA)

� 3 or 4 meetings in total during the period of supervision

� You must not expect the TAs to do the work for you, the role of the TA is to offer

assistance at various stages of your dissertation

� For empirical projects, the TA will assist you on how to download data and use library

resources. If you also need help with the statistical package (Eviews, STATA etc) you

use, TA will give you guidance.

� The TA will not give you suggestions about your research approach and will not

recommend research methods and literature. The TA has a supportive role only.

� Skype meetings with the supervisor and/or TA are not allowed. except under verified

Extenuating Circumstances (please consult your handbook) which must be approved

in advance. Separate EC must be submitted for extensions after the deadline.

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10. Structure for an empirical study

The introduction: It should state the topic and the general aim of the dissertation. It should also describe the structure of the dissertation (i.e. how you organise your dissertation in the various sections)

Literature Review: should review the literature on the topic and clarify how your dissertation fits within this literature. You can give any title to this section as long as, at the beginning of the section, you state clearly that the objective of this section is to review the literature on the topic under investigation.

Empirical Framework and Data Description: it is important that you summarise the method you use and that you describe the data use in your dissertation. You can give any title to this section as long as, at the beginning of the section, you state clearly that the objective of the section is give a description of your method and of the data you use.

Empirical Analysis: this section is dedicated to the illustration of your analysis and of your findings. You can give any relevant title to this section as long as, at the beginning of the section, you state clearly the objective of the section.

Conclusion: this section presents a summary of the findings of the dissertation, relates these to the argument outlined in the introductory chapter and states precisely what has been demonstrated.