Efficient Market Hypothesis; Empirical Study

1. Abstract

An abstract is a 250 words brief summary of the thesis containing all of the important concepts and conclusions of the work – some hints in constructing your abstract:

•Aim and objectives:

What are the main themes, ideas or areas of theory being investigated?

•Boundaries:

What is the context and background to this dissertation? In what areas of theory or business practice should the reader concentrate their attention?

•Methodology:

What was/were the main method(s) employed to generate the results?

•Results:

What were your main findings?

•Conclusions:

What are the main conclusions that you arrive at when viewing the entire essay?

•Recommendations:

(if appropriate) What solutions do you offer in answer to the problems posed in the research objectives?

2. Contents Page

Specifying the Chapters with their titles, and any Appendices with their titles. Give your chapter’s informative titles, giving the reader more help than just a bald statement of the subject matter. Show how the chapter will contribute to answering your research question. ‘The Ruritanian Stock Market’ is not such an informative title as ‘The Role of the Ruritanian Stock Market in the Final Collapse of Capitalism.’

Follow an appropriate numbing system for numbering the main titles and subtitles, the tables and the graphs.

3. Introduction

Notice that the essay begins with three summaries of increasing length: The Abstract, the Contents page, and finally the introductory Chapter 1.

In order to allow the reader to understand the logical flow of the essay, Chapter One should provide a one-paragraph summary of each Chapter, including any conclusions.

The introduction to your essay should explain to the reader what you are going to investigate. It should describe the essay's topic, scope and main theoretical framing. You should explain your reasons for investigating your chosen topic by referring to the appropriate literature.

It is important, however, to write the introduction as though you are setting out on a process of investigation. You need to emphasise the exploratory nature of your work. You should also avoid anticipating the discoveries and conclusions that you have made in the course of your investigations.

So, you might simply say that you have identified certain common features in the relevant literature, or a particular issue that it deals with, and that your essay will examine the literature closely in order to demonstrate the relationships between treatments of the issue in the sample texts. When you have completed the main body of the work, you may well wish to revisit the introduction to take into account your findings and any feedback.

4. Literature Review

Your essay is a substantial piece of written work that ideally should conform to a number of academic conventions. One of the most important of these academic conventions is the literature review.

You are going to carry out an initial literature review as part of Finding your topic. This is expanded to a discussion or 'review' of secondary literature that is of general and central relevance to the particular area under investigation.

Emerald’s guide to writing a literature review identify four stages to writing a well-developed literature review:

Keep in mind that not every source is valid or reliable,

Berkeley University provides the following framework

to evaluate the appropriateness any source:

• Authority: Who is the author? What is their point of view?

• Purpose: Why was the source created? Who is the intended audience?

•Publication & format: Where was it published? In what medium?

•Relevance: How is it relevant to your research? What is its scope?

•Date of publication: When was it written? Has it been updated?

•Documentation: Did they cite their sources? Who did they cite?

For more information, visit http://guides.lib.berkeley.edu/evaluating-

Resources

Evaluate the materials

Try and get a sense of the theoretical perspective of the author. This will be of use when you come to organise and present your literature review. Also, emphasise the way in which the piece of literature you are reading seeks to set itself apart from other literature.

Importantly, start to think critically about the piece you are reading; ask: what is this person trying to say and why? How is it different from the way others have dealt with this issue?

This critical component is very important as it demonstrates that you are engaging with relevant literature in an appropriate manner and that you can discriminate between different perspectives and approaches that exist within your chosen field.

5. Research Methodology

This must clearly identify the epistemological (i.e. your stance on what should pass as acceptable knowledge) basis of the study and demonstrate a good working knowledge of the methods to be employed.

According to the University of Southern California research guides, the content of the Methodology section should Indicate how the approach fits the overall research design. Your methods should have a clear connection with your research problem. In other words, make sure that your methods will actually address the problem. One of the most common deficiencies found in essays is that the proposed methodology is not suitable to achieving the stated objective of your paper.

• Describe the specific methods you are going to use. If you are analysing existing data, such as a data set or archival documents, describe how it was originally created or gathered and by whom.

• Explain how you intend to analyse your results. Will you use statistical analysis? Will you use specific theoretical perspectives to help you analyse a text or explain observed behaviours? Describe how you plan to obtain an accurate assessment of relationships, patterns, trends, distributions, and possible contradictions found in the data.

• Provide background and a rationale for methodologies that are unfamiliar for your readers. Very often in the social sciences, research problems and the methods for investigating them require more explanation/rationale than widely accepted rules governing the natural and physical sciences. Be clear and concise in your explanation.

• Provide a justification for subject selection and procedure. If you are analysing texts, which texts have you chosen, and why? If you are using statistics, why is this set of statistics being used? If other data sources exist, explain why the data you chose is most appropriate to addressing the research problem.

• Describe potential limitations. Are there any practical limitations that could affect your data collection? How will you attempt to control for potential confounding variables and errors? If your methodology may lead to problems you can anticipate, state this openly and show why pursuing this methodology outweighs the risk of these problems cropping up.

Once you have written all of the elements of the methods section, subsequent revisions should focus on how to present those elements as clearly and as logically as possibly. The description of how you prepared to study the research problem, how you selected data, and the protocol for analysing the data should be organized chronologically.

6. Findings / Results / Data Analysis Chapter

Many students confuse findings with discussion and it is important to keep

them separate. The findings are often presented in charts and tables (even

from qualitative data).

The main objective of this chapter is to report findings that emerged from the

methodology you applied. Thus, Saunders et al. (2009:535-536) stress two

important guidelines in constructing this chapter

1.If the purpose is to present facts, then this must be done objectively. The writers state ‘Many of us become confused about the difference between findings and the conclusions drawn from these which form the basis of the discussion and conclusion chapters.

2.The order of presenting the findings is suggested to align with the research questions/objectives. It also can be themed and ranked in accordance to its importance.

Make sure to adopt a consistent and a clear presentation throughout your

extended essay to make it easier for the reader.

7. Discussion Chapter

The University of Southern California research guides lay down the objectives of the discussion section to be as follows:

Reiterate the Research Problem/State the Major Findings

Briefly reiterate for your readers the research problem or problems you are investigating and the methods you used to investigate them, then move quickly to describe the major findings of the study. You should write a direct, declarative, and succinct proclamation of the study results, usually in one paragraph.

Explain the Meaning of the Findings and Why They are Important

Consider the likelihood that no one has thought as long and hard about your study as you have. Systematically explain the meaning of your findings and why you believe they are significant. After reading the discussion section, you want the reader to think critically about the results [“why didn't I think of that?”]. You don’t want to force the reader to go through the paper multiple times to figure out what it all means. If applicable, begin this part of the section by repeating what you consider to be your most significant or unanticipated finding first, then systematically review each finding. Otherwise, follow the general order you reported the findings in the results section.

Relate the Findings to Similar Studies

No study in the social sciences is so novel or possesses such a restricted focus

that it has absolutely no relation to previously published research. The discussion section should relate your results to those found in other studies, particularly if questions raised from prior studies served as the motivation for your research.

This is important because comparing and contrasting the findings of other

studies help to support the overall importance of your results and it highlights how and in what ways your study differs from other research about the topic.

Note that any significant or unanticipated finding is often because there was no

prior research to indicate the finding could occur. If there is prior research to

indicate this, you need to explain why it was significant or unanticipated.

Consider Alternative Explanations of the Findings

When writing the discussion section, you should carefully consider all possible explanations for the study results, rather than just those that fit your hypothesis or prior assumptions and biases. This is especially important when describing the discovery of significant or unanticipated findings.

Acknowledge the Study’s Limitations

Note any unanswered questions or issues your study did not address and describe the generalizability of your results to other situations. If a limitation is applicable to the method chosen to gather information, then describe in detail the problems you encountered.

Make Suggestions for Further Research and Policy/ Practical

Implications

You may choose to conclude the discussion section be making suggestions for

further research [this can be done in the overall conclusion of your paper].

Although your study may offer important insights about the research problem, this is where you can address other questions related to the problem that remain unanswered or highlight previously hidden questions that were revealed as a result of conducting your research. You should frame your suggestions by linking the need for further research to the limitations of your study [e.g., in future studies, the survey instrument should include more questions that ask..."].

8. Conclusions

The conclusion offers the opportunity to review your work as a whole, to identify the points of comparison and contrast the various texts you have examined, and to show that, in the process of your study, you have developed a more precise, critical understanding of the way they deal with your topic. This is also an appropriate place for you to point to the limitations of small-scale research of this kind and to indicate possible avenues for researchers to address the issues in the future.