RESEARCH PAPER ASSESSMENT

The aim of this assessment is to enhance your ability to understand the research processes in finance and other related disciplines.

Therefore, you will be expected to:

• Develop clear research objectives, questions and/or testable hypotheses.
• Identify significant studies available on your topic, critically discuss and evaluate these and use clear arguments to justify the need for your research.
• Be aware of relevant sources of data and appropriate statistical methods that can be used to analyse data.
• Ascertain that results/research findings are well presented, logically and clearly explained, appropriately linked to findings from previous studies (literature) and can stimulate debate.
• Have an awareness of academic integrity – referencing sources appropriately. You are required to choose any finance or finance related topic that you would like to write a research paper on for publication in a finance related letters journal 1 such as Applied Economics Letters (formerly known as Applied Financial Economics Letters), Banking and Finance Letters, Economics Letters and Finance Research Letters. Make sure you familiarise yourself with the aims and scope or coverage of the journal before choosing your topic. The research paper must include the following:
• Research Topic and Target Journal (provided on the cover page) – The research topic 2 should be concise and reflect the contents of the paper. The research paper must be appropriate for the scope and coverage of the journal. Detail on scope is usually available on the journal’s website or you can check the reference list/journal website to see if similar research topics have been previously published.
• Abstract– a very short paragraph that summarises in particular the pertinent finding of the research report and what conclusions can be drawn.
• Keywords – up to 4 keywords that are specific and encapsulate your topic.
• Introduction – should be concise, focused and may include brief background on the research problem, rationale of the research, scope of the research, the key results and preamble to other sections of the paper. The main aims, objectives, research questions and hypotheses can also be included in this section. These should be very well defined, very clear and specific, well-structured and appropriate for the study.
• Literature Review – A critique of literature, which demonstrates that you’re knowledgeable about pertinent theoretical and empirical literature on your research area. The review should be coherently structured and sources used should be up to date and appropriate – principally sources should be studies from academic journals. The justification for the research should also be evident from the review.
• Data and Methodology – Brief details should be provided on source(s) of data, the time period chosen, frequency of data, sample size and selection criteria, data items (variables) and how these are defined or measured. The section should also include the statistical techniques/models that will be used for analysing the data. Additionally, justification for the methodology should be
  succinctly conveyed (possibly through reference to previous studies that have adopted a similar approach you have chosen).
• Results – This section should include concise discussion of results from the analysis 3 , compare and contrast of your results to previous studies on the research area. The relevant results tables must be clearly presented within the main report. The tables must be typed, should be titled, not disjointed, symbols used to indicate levels of significance explained under the table (as notes).
• Conclusion – should summarise briefly and highlight importance of the main findings, discussion of rational limitations and realistic recommendations for future research.
• References and Structure of Paper – Harvard Style Referencing should be used. References must be complete, accurate and consistent. The report should also be professionally presented and well structured.