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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 program.

Independent dissertation 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

4th February 2022: deadline to choose between the dissertation module (ECOM107 – ECOM093) and ECOM200 (and one/two more modules).

Friday 11th February 2022: Deadline for selecting your topic on QMPlus . please note that after this date you cannot change your topic selection from empirical to valuation or vice versa

Thursday 14th April 2022 at 23.55: Deadline for abstract submission

Monday 22nd August 2022 at 23.55: Deadline for dissertation submission

•   Dissertations that are submitted late will be penalized at the rate of 5 marks deduction for each 24 hour period after the set submission time, down to the pass mark. Work submitted 14 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 Queen Mary University 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 less than 1% of the student’s work, other originality reports with an index of 15% may 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 session on how to avoid plagiarism andmaintain 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.

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

•    Maximum 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

https://qmplus.qmul.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/206752/mod_book/chapter/4135/Referencing%20 guide.pdf

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.

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)

▪   4 meetings in total during the supervision period.

▪   You must not expect the TAs to do the work for you, the role of the TA is to help 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) 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.

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 organize 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 summarize 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.