10/6/2016

Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto

Theme 2
Scientific Writing

Maria Isabel Mota

Maria do Pilar Gonzalez

Dissertation Plan/ Project / Internship Report

Scientific Writing

• Motivation
There are many ways to organize and write a scientific work (dissertation,
project, internship report or article).
This presentation intends to provide students some scientific writing
notions, in particular, how to structure a scientific work and what are the
main rules of scientific writing.
It also aims to call students’ attention to the academic plagiarism.

1
 10/6/2016

Contents

1. How to structure a scientific work?

2. Rules for presentation of dissertations and reports.
3. Plagiarism

Bibliography

• Saunders, M. P. Lewis and A. Thornhill (2002), Research Methods for Business

Students, 3rd edition. Edinburgh. Prentice-Hall.
• Hart, C. (2008), Doing your masters dissertation: realizing your potential as a social
scientist. Thousand Oaks. SAGE.

1. How to structure a scientific work?

A scientific work has typically the following sections/chapters:

i. Cover
ii. Biographic note
iii. Acknowledgments (optional)
iv. Abstract / Resumo (in English and in Portuguese) (including Key words) [150-
300 words]
v. Index
vi. List of tables (optional)
vii. List of figures (optional)
viii. Introduction [10-15% of total words]
ix. Main text [75-80% of total words]
x. Conclusion [10% of total words]
xi. References
xii. Appendices

2
 10/6/2016

i. Cover

Source: FEP>>serviços académicos>>pós-graduação>>formulários

i. Cover

The cover must include:

- institution’s logo,
- title and subtitle,
Title and subtitle
- student’s complete name,
by
- degree and scientific field,
Name
- supervisors’ names,
- month and year.
Master Dissertation in Scientific field
Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto

Supervised by:
Supervisors’ names

Month, year

3
 10/6/2016

Biographic note and Acknowledgments

ii. Biographic note

1 page maximum
Name, date and place of birth, brief description of academic record, academic
work (articles, participation in conferences, etc.), professional occupation (if any).

iii. Acknowledgments
Optional

iv. Abstract (and Resumo)

The abstract (150 - 300 words, also in Portuguese) should include:

• Main goal of the research;

• A brief framework of the work in the literature /main contribution to the literature
• The methodology;
• Main results and/or conclusions.

• Key words:
• JEL codes: (http://www.aeaweb.org/jel/jel_class_system.php)

4
 10/6/2016

Abstract (example)
After recent corporate scandals and financial crises, there has been a lot of
Framework
discussion whether there should be more female representatives in top
management and company boardrooms. The movement of women into
management, including upper levels of management, has been an important
research topic for many years.
The study aims to examine the relationship between board gender diversity
Goals
and financial performance of banking sector in Georgia, a country which
historically has a very masculine culture.
It has been found that presence of just one woman on board has a negative
and significant impact on the performance of banks. However, if there are Methodology
two or more women on board the impact becomes positive and significant, / Results
which means gender diversity matters.
This research gives new light on Georgia’s boardroom dynamics, because it is
Contribution
the first to analyze Georgian reality and will contribute to the discussion
about gender quotas, which has already started in politics.
Key words: Corporate governance, diversity, gender, board of directors, Key words
performance.
JEL-codes
JEL-Codes: G34, M14, L25
Source: Beridze, T. (2016), Boardroom gender diversity and firm financial performance : evidence from the banking sector in Georgia. Porto. UP. Master thesis in
Finance.

Abstract (example)
Business cycle patterns in common stock returns have been widely tested in the U.S. (e.g. Fama Framework
and French (1989), Korniotis and Kumar (2013)) and the UK (e.g. Priestley (1997), Velazquez and
Smith (2013)).
And despite the relevance of the topic, the literature seems to lack evidence from continental Relevance
Europe.
This study fills part of the gap through testing whether stock returns vary with business cycles in a Goals
predictable manner for a set of continental European countries.
We collect a comprehensive set of data spanning from 1999Q4 till 2015Q4 and covering Portugal,
Methdology
Spain, Italy, France and Germany, then we regress residual returns from a market risk free rate of
value-weighted country portfolios over lagged economic indicators that are likely to vary with the
business cycle.
The main findings of the study suggest that (i) country-level business cycle indicators are not
robust predictors of stock returns and (ii) the Eurozone counterparts of these indicators
Results
incorporate more valuable information about future country-level stock returns. We present
several economic justifications for our findings. First, stock market wealth accounts for a small
percentage of household’s net worth in continental Europe which makes it harder for short-run
country-level economic fluctuations to propagate to the stock market. Second, the period covered
by the study starts at the time of introducing the euro as a single currency and captures several
economic crises; all of which are events that granted Eurozone indicators a significant predictive
power of country stock returns (…).
Our findings have significant implications for investors using macroeconomic trading strategies to Contribution
time the European equity markets.
Key words
Key words: stock returns predictability, business cycles, Eurozone
JEL Classification: G17, E30, E44 JEL-codes
Source: Farroukh, A. (2016), Business cycles and stock market returns predictability evidence from continental Europe. Porto. UP. Master thesis in Finance.

5
 10/6/2016

Indexes

v. Index (or List of contents)

List of chapters and sections with page numbers.

vi. List of tables

Optional
List of tables (numbered) with page numbers.

vii. List of figures

Optional
List of figures (numbered) with page numbers.

Notes:
• The numbering of the pages to the index (inclusive) should be in Roman numerals
(lower case).
• The numbering of the text from the Introduction (inclusive) is made in Arabic
numerals.

vii. Introduction

The introduction should include [10-15% of total words]:

• Motivation: synthetic framework of the problem, identifying the main

contributions in literature;
• Goals and research question(s): identification of the research objectives,
explaining what you want to analyse / study; formulation of the question (or
questions) for research.
• Relevance of the study: why is this study relevant? Why is it worth doing this?
What is the expected contribution of this research?
• Methodology: how do you want to answer your question? With what
methodology?
• Structure of the work: describe the structure of the work to be done in the
following sections.

6
 10/6/2016

Introduction (example)
There is a longstanding interest in studying the interactions between business cycles and equity returns, and
whether those interactions generate predictable return patterns that can be potentially exploited. The relevant Framework
literature widely covers the U.S. (e.g. Fama and French (1989), Korniotis and Kumar (2013)) and the UK (e.g.
Priestley (1997), Velazquez and Smith (2013)) but misses continental Europe; we intend to fill part of this gap in
the literature.
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study examining whether stock returns vary with business cycles in
a predictable manner for a set of continental European economies, namely Portugal, Spain, Italy, France and Relevance
Germany. We rely on the paper by Korniotis and Kumar (2013) “State-Level Business Cycles and Local Return Goals
Predictability” as our benchmark study; the authors tested for state portfolio return predictability in the U.S. Contribution
using state and aggregate U.S. level business cycle economic indicators. Conversely, we consider the Eurozone
as the aggregate economy and we test for country-level return predictability using country and Eurozone
business cycle variables.
First, we construct value weighted country portfolios including stocks of all companies headquartered in the
country; we exclude companies with market capitalizations lower than 45000 USD because their return and Methodology
market capitalization data is highly inconsistent. We use the residual return from a market risk free rate of the
value-weighted portfolios as the dependent variable to ensure that our return series do not reflect variations in
the European benchmark risk free rate. Our sample spans from 1999Q4 till 2015Q4 because some of the
economic indicators are not available at a higher frequency for a longer time interval. The main explanatory
variables are economic indicators that are likely to vary with the business cycle.(…).We include the same
indicators on a country and Eurozone level because it allows us to test whether country stock returns capture
trends in the aggregate Eurozone economy. In addition, we use the dividend yield of country portfolios as a
control variable plus two Eurozone spreads; term spread calculated as the return difference between AAA-
Eurozone 10-year government bond and AAA-Eurozone 1-year government bond and borrowing spread defined
as the difference between Eurozone average corporate borrowing rate and Eurozone average government long-
term bond yields.
The rest of the study proceeds as follows: section 2 reviews the literature, section 3 provides a comprehensive
Structure
description of the data and methodology, section 4 shows the estimation output and presents the analysis,
section 5 summarizes and concludes with suggestions for future research.
Source: Farroukh, A. (2016), Business cycles and stock market returns predictability evidence from continental Europe. Porto. UP. Master thesis in Finance.

ix. Main text (a)

The main text [75-80% of total words] typically includes:

a) A literature review about the topic under research:

• Introduction of main concepts related with the research question;
• Construction of a historical context or a theoretical framework of the research
question;
• Presentation of a critical review of main contributions in the literature.

b) An empirical analysis:
• Critical analysis of empirical studies related with the topic under research;
• Introduction of data;
• Description of the methodology;
• Description of data analysis;
• Interpretation of results and comparison with empirical studies previously
documented.

7
 10/6/2016

ix. Main text (b)

The main text [75-80% of total words] typically includes:

a) A literature review about the topic under research:

• Introduction of main concepts related with the research question;
• Construction of a historical context or a theoretical framework of the research
question;
• Presentation of a critical review of main contributions in the literature.

b) The development of a theoretical model:

• Description of the methodology;
• Development of the model;
• Interpretation of results and comparison with other studies.

x. Conclusion

The conclusion [10% of total words]:

• Should relate with the introduction , giving answers to the questions raised;
• Must be clear and not very long, including:
o A brief synthesis of the work;
o Results and main conclusions, and consequences of these results to the stated
problem;
o Research limitations;
o Future research lines.

8
 10/6/2016

Conclusion (example)

In this study, we derived the return series of value weighted country portfolios for Portugal, Spain, Italy,
France and Germany. Then we computed the residual return from a benchmark market risk free rate to Sinthesis
examine whether country-level stock returns exhibit predictable business cycle patterns that can be
potentially exploited.
We found evidence suggesting that country-level business cycles fail to predict stock returns whereas
aggregate Eurozone business cycles demonstrate a significant predictive ability for country-level equity Results
residual returns.
Our results contradict those of analogous studies performed in the U.S. Korniotis and Kumar (2013)
found that state-level business cycles can significantly predict state-stock returns whereas aggregate U.S. Consequences
level cycles cannot. We present two main economic justifications for this contradiction. (…) The study has
significant contributions to the literature because it is, to the best of our knowledge, the first to examine
of results/
predictable business cycle swings of stock returns in continental Europe. Despite the relevance of the Relevance
topic and the abundant evidence in the UK and the U.S. the literature seems to lack evidence from
continental Europe, our study partially fills this gap. Our findings have significant implications for
investors using macroeconomic trading strategies to time the European equity markets because we find
evidence suggesting that Eurozone business cycle indicators incorporate more valuable information
about future country-level returns than their country-level counterparts. Therefore, investors should rely
more on Eurozone indicators in timing the European equity markets.
We have several suggestions for future research. First, it is intriguing (though challenging) to increase the
sample size of the study by including all Eurozone economies in the analysis regardless of the local equity Lines for
ownership criterion. Second, it is also interesting to extend the sample for the countries in which future
economic data are available for a longer time span, then analyze the responsiveness of equity returns to
country and regional business cycles before and after adopting the euro as a single currency in the 1999.
research
Finally, data to calculate the cay ratio are available for Spain through FEP databases, therefore it is
possible to analyze the predictive power for the cay ratio in Spain and compare the results with similar
studies done in the U.S., UK and Germany.

Source: Farroukh, A. (2016), Business cycles and stock market returns predictability evidence from continental Europe. Porto. UP. Master thesis in Finance

xii. References

• References must contain the scientific works used in the preparation of the
dissertation/project/internship report.
• References should be cited in the text (see citation rules).
• The list of references should be arranged in alphabetical order of the surname of
the first author (see how to organize a list of references).

9
 10/6/2016

How to organize a list of references

Monography:

Surname, first name (year), Book title and0subtitle in italics, (Edition). Place: Publisher.

Examples:
Book tittle in italic

Becker, G.S. (1957), The economics of discrimination. Chicago: Chicago University

Press.
Surname, Initial(s)

Edition - if available

Dixit, A., S. Skeath and D. Reiley (2015), Games of strategy, 4th ed. New York: W. W.
Norton.
Several authors

How to organize a list of references

Journal articles:

Surname, first name (Year) 'Title of article',

0 Title of journal in italics, Vol. Nº., pp..

Examples:
Title in quotes
Groshen, E.L. (1991), “The structure of the female/male wage differential. Is it who
you are, what you do or where you work”, The Journal of Human Resources, Vol. 46,
Nº 3, pp. 457-472.
Journal in italics

Voss, C. A and S. J. Robinson (1987), “Application of Just-im-Time Manufacturing

Techniques in the UK”, International Journal of Operations and Production
Management, Vol. 7, Nº. 4, pp. 46-52.

Volume, number, pages.

10
 10/6/2016

How to organize a list of references

Anthology:

Surname, first name (Year), “Title of chapter or essay or article in quotes”, in

0
Surname editor, Initial(s) (ed.) Book title in italics. Place. Publisher. Pages.

Example:

Essay’s authors Essay title in quotes

Corado, C. and J. Gomes (1995), "Adjusting to trade liberalisation. The case of

Portugal", in G. Navaretti, R. Faini and A. Silberston (editors) (2000), Beyond the
Multifibre arrangement. Third world competition and restructuring Europe's textile
industry. Paris. OCDE. pp. 61-76.
Book title in italics
in Editors

How to organize a list of references

Conference paper (not published):

Surname, Initial(s) (Year), “Title of paper in quotes‘” Title of conference in italics.

0
Place. Date.

Exemplos:
Chen, Z. and T. Lux (2015), “Estimation of Sentiment Effects in Financial Markets: A
Simulated Method of Moments Approach”. 11th Artificial Economics Conference.
FEP.UP. Porto. 3 - 4 September.

Conference in italics
Place and Date

11
 10/6/2016

How to organize a list of references

Unpublished papers:

Surname, Initial(s) (Year), “Title of paper in quotes”. Name of the series of working
0
in progress in italics, Number, Institution.

Example:

Gorton, G. and T. Muir (2016), “Mobile Collateral versus Immobile Collateral”,

Working Paper Series, no. 22619, National Bureau of Economic Research.

Name of the series Number Institution

How to organize a list of references

Dissertation and master thesis:

Place0
Surname, Initial(s) (Year) Title in italics. Place. Institution. Dissertation in

Example:

Beridze, T. (2016), Boardroom gender diversity and firm financial performance:

evidence from the banking sector in Georgia. Porto. Universidade do Porto. Master
dissertation in Finance.

Place and institution

Dissertation type

12
 10/6/2016

How to organize a list of references

Reports:

Surname, Initial(s) (Year) Title in italics. Place. Institution.

Or: 0
Institution (Year), Title in italics. Place.

Examples: Authors
Plasman, R., V. Cortese, E. Krzeslo, A. Plasman, M. Rusinek, F. Rycx, and A.
Vanheerswynghels (2001), Indicators on gender pay equality: the Belgian
Presidency’s report. Brussels. European Council.

Place Institution
Institution
European Commission (2005), Employment in Europe 2005. Luxembourg, Office
for Official Publications of the European Communities.
Place

How to organize a list of references

Web pages:

Surname, Initial(s) (Year), Title in italics. 0Available at website. Accessed on

Example:

OCDE (2014), Regards sur l’éducation 2014. Available at

http://www.oecd.org/fr/edu/rse.htm. Accessed on 12.9.2016.

Website Access date

Note: The web pages must be list in an autonomous list (List of webpages).

13
 10/6/2016

Citation rules

References should be cited in the text, quoting authors’ surname and year of
publication in parenthesis:

Author’s surname (Year)

0 ‘s surname (Year)
First author ‘s surname and Second author

Example: If in the main text we have:

“Following Staber (2001) and Boschma 0and Wenting (2007), creativity is …”

Then in the list of references we have:

Staber, U. (2001), “Spatial Proximity and Firm Survival in a Declining Industrial

District: The Case of Knitwear Firms in Baden-Württemberg”, Regional Studies, Vol.
35, Nº 4, pp. 329-341.
0
Boschma, R. and A. Wenting (2007), “The spatial evolution of the British
automobile industry: Does location matter?”, Industrial and Corporate Change,
Vol. 16, Nº 2, pp. 213-238.

Citation rules

If the document has more than two authors, then you must quote the surname of the
first author followed by et al. and the year of publication in parenthesis:

First author ‘s surname et al. (Year) 0

Example: If in the main text we have:

0
“According to Acs et al. (2007), entrepreneurship is …”

Then in the list of references we have:

Acs, Z. J., C. Armington and T. Zhang (2007), “The Determinants of New-Firm

Survival across Regional Economies: The 0 Role of Human Capital Stock and
Knowledge Spillover”, Papers in Regional Science, Vol. 86, Nº 3, pp. 367-391.

14
 10/6/2016

Citation rules

If the author has more than one publication in the same year, you must put a, b, c, ..
after the year:.

Example: If in the main text we have:

“According to Anderson et al. (1988a, 1988b),

0 the logit demand system …”

Then in the list of references we have :

Anderson, S. P., A. de Palma and J.-F. Thisse (1988a), "The CES and the logit: Two
related models of heterogeneity," Regional Science and Urban Economics, 18(1):
155-164. 0
Anderson, S. P., A. de Palma and J.-F. Thisse (1988b), "A Representative Consumer
Theory of the Logit Model," International Economic Review, 29(3): 461-66.

Citation rules

In case of a second reference, you should quote the original author, followed by the
year of publication in parentheses, then add (Apud/ Cit. By author consulted work,
year):

Original author (Year) (Apud Author consulted work, year)

0
Original author (Year) (Cit. By Author consulted work, year)

Example: If in the main text we have: Original work Consulted work

“The Second Price Sealed bid Auction (Vickrey, 1961) (Apud Varian, 2010) creates
0 truthful value.”
the conditions so that the buyers bid their

Then in the list of references we have:

Varian, H. R. (2010), Intermediate microeconomics: a modern approach, 8th

ed.. New York. W. W. Norton. 0

15
 10/6/2016

Citation rules

When using literal citations, these should be short, appear in quotes and in
highlighted text a paragraph between brackets Literal citations must also be
accompanied by reference to the author (year, page).

Exemplo:

“There is a growing consensus between politicians and academics about the

importance of creativity in revitalizing the cities. As Hall (2000, p. 640) states:

“Nations and cities have passed at extraordinary speed from a manufacturing

economy to an informational economy and from an informational economy to a
0
cultural economy. (…) Culture is now seen as the magic substitute for all the lost
factories and warehouses, and as a device that will create a new urban image,
making the city more attractive to mobile capital and mobile professional workers.”

The Creative Economy is then seen …”

xiii. Appendices

• Optional.

• It includes databases, their exhaustive treatment, ….

16
 10/6/2016

2. Rules for presentation of dissertations and reports.

(FEP.UP)
i. Dissertations and reports are printed on A4, with the text written in Times New
Roman, 12 pt, one and half spaced.
ii. The titles of the chapters or other sections should be written in bold and may have a
size larger than 12 pt.
iii. The top and bottom margins are 3 cm. The inner edge is 3,5 cm and the outer 2.5
cm.
iv. The notes to the text must be footnotes (not end of chapter), should be written in
Times New Roman, 10 pt, single-spaced, and should be numbered sequentially.
v. The pages are numbered at the bottom, corresponding the page number 1 to the
beginning of the text (usually the first page of the Introduction or Chapter 1).
vi. Each chapter (or other division) starts a new page.
vii. The equations or other mathematical expressions are highlighted (centered on its
own line), should be numbered when this is necessary (for example, if different parts
of the text are made references to these expressions). The numbering sequence
should be within each chapter or section, according to the model (a.b) in which
refers to the chapter and b is the number of expression.

3. Plagiarism
• Plagiarism is the act of presenting a work containing parts of a work that belongs to
someone else without referencing the original author.
• Types of Plagiarism
1. Direct or Integral – corresponds to copy word by word from a source without
indicating that is a quote and without reference to the author.
2. Partial – it is the selection of paragraphs or sentences of one or several authors,
without mentioning that works.
3. Concept - it is the use of the essence of a work but expressing it differently from the
author's original.
4. Plagiarism Mosaic – it is the most common type of plagiarism. It happens when the
"plagiarist" does not make a copy of the source directly, but changes a few words in
each sentence or slightly reshapes a paragraph, without reference to the original
author.
5. Self-plagiarism – it is the total or partial presentation of texts already published by
the same author, without proper references to previous work.
Plagiarism is condemned, leading to the student’s failure.
Source: pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plágio (accessed on 12.09.2014).

17
 10/6/2016

Manchester University

18
10/6/2016

19