The objective of this course is to provide students with the experience of designing and implementing an economic research project. Some of the important topics covered in this course include identifying researchable issue, preparing a research proposal, literature search and writing a critical literature review, theories in economic research, locating and transforming economic data, empirical methods in economic research, and the writing of an economic research paper.

2.1	To provide students with an understanding of the researching process and getting their involvement in each of the process.
2.2	To build students’ confidence in designing and implementing an economic research project, with a research proposal as the end output.
2.3	To provide a platform for students to present and defend their research proposal.

3.1	Fisher, C. 2004. Researching and writing a dissertation for business students. UK: Prentice Hall.
3.2	Wyrick, T.L. 1994. The economist’s handbook: a research and writing guide. USA: West Publishing Company.
3.3	Medeure, S and Sammuels, W. 1998. Foundations of research in economics. Edward Elgar.
3.4	James D. Lester. 2001. Writing research papers. 9th edition. Longman.
3.5	James D. Lester and James D. Lester, Jr. 2001. Writing research papers: a complete guide, 10th edition. Longman.
3.6	James D. Lester and James D. Lester, Jr. 2002. The essential guide: research writing across the disciplines. 2nd edition. Longman.

Week	Topic	Reference	Downloadable Items
1	An introduction to research methods	Fisher, Chp0	[A1] [A2] [A3]
2	Identify researchable issue	Fisher, Chp1	[Assignment 1] [Prop1] [Prop2]
3	Preparing a research proposal	Fisher, Chp1	[Notes] [Project]
4	Writing a short descriptive report	Wyrick, Chp5	[A1] [A2] [A3] [Assignment 2]
5	Literature search and writing a critical literature review	Wyrick, Chp3 Fisher, Chp2	[Assignment 3]
6	Writing a summary report	Wyrick, Chp6	[A1] [A2] [A3] [Assignment 4]
7	Theories in economic research	Wyrick, Chp10 Fisher, Chp3
8	Locating and transforming economic data	Wyrick, Chp1-2
9	Empirical methods in economic research	Wyrick, Chp11 Fisher, Chp4-5
10	Empirical methods in economic research	Wyrick, Chp11 Fisher, Chp4-5
11	Writing an economic research paper	Wyrick, Chp9 Wyrick, Chp12 Fisher, Chp6
12	Presentation of research proposal
13	Presentation of research proposal
14	Presentation of research proposal

Assignment 1: Identifying researchable issue	10%
Assignment 2: Writing short descriptive report	10%
Assignment 3: Writing critical literature review	15%
Assignment 4: Summarizing published research article	5%
Project: Preparing research proposal	20%
Presentation of research proposal	10%
Final examination	30%
Total	100%

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