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

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

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.

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

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.

Citing and References

• Follow the link and use Harvard Style criteria

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

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.

Structure for a literature review-based study 

Introduction: You must define your research topic and give the reasons why you chose this one (interesting topic, very high in the research agenda etc). In that part you can also include apart from the main research question any other sub-questions that may help structuring your dissertation.  Give also a brief overview of the structure that will follow at following parts.

Methodology and research methods: At this section you give details about the material you have used (peer reviewed papers, books, press reports etc). Depending on the subject you choose, you may also use material that is not peer reviewed and, in that case,, you must be aware of the limitations of that type of research and mention it in that part.

Analysis of literature: This part can be divided into several sections and/or chapters depending on how you wish to address your research question. In your analysis you can critically evaluate earlier studies and theories that contributed to the research topic you investigate. Any controversies, criticisms and limitations of the existing theories should also be mentioned. Since there is no empirical part in this type of dissertation the examiners will assess your ability to demonstrate your arguments in a critical and thorough way as well as your in-depth analysis.

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.

Structure for valuation-based study 

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)

Methodology and Data Description: it is important that you explain the method(s) you are using to value the company and that you describe the data used in your valuation exercise. 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(s) and of the data you use.

Empirical Analysis: this section is dedicated to the illustration of your analysis and of your investment recommendation. 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, i.e, reviews your investment case about the company you are analysing. The reader of this section is expected to be given a summarized perspective of your view on the company’s fundamentals and investment story backing your investment recommendation.