RAWALPINDI: The best way to get the research published is to present an interesting idea in a simple and precise way, suggested Dr Abdul Jalil, SBP Memorial Chair at Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) speaking as the keynote speaker, during the concluding session of Fifth Annual Workshop on ‘The Philosophy and Techniques for Quantitative Research’ organized by Fatima Jinnah Women University (FJWU), Rawalpindi.
Five-day workshop with training on software VOS viewer, STATA and R along with lectures on the philosophy and techniques of research by renowned experts was organized by the Department of Economics, FJWU.
While Dr Sajid Amin, Deputy Executive Director, Sustainable Development Policy Institute was the guest of honor. In his keynote address, Dr. Jalil discussed the basic tips for writing a publishable research paper.
In this regard, he highlighted the importance of title, abstract and introduction in capturing the attention of the reviewers while not discounting the need for a strong literature and quantitative analysis.
Dr. Sajid Amin talked about the importance of policy research along with highlighting how it differs from the academic research.
Dr. Bushra Yasmin, the workshop patron, gave the concluding remarks in which she appreciated the work of the organizing team as well as resource persons and the guest speakers.
Dr. Saira Tufail presented the vote of thanks and the session concluded with presentation of souvenirs to the speakers and a group photo.
Earlier, in the inaugural session on first day of the workshop, Dr Lory Barile, Associate Professor at University of Warwick was the keynote speaker.
She spoke on “Philosophy for Producing Top Quality Research.” She went step by step in explaining the process of carrying out research. Her emphasis was primarily on generating ideas for viable research paper for which she explained the importance of critical thinking, practicality and logical reasoning.
She further elaborated on the importance of research question. The guest speaker Prof. Dr Zahid Asghar from QAU, Islamabad, also delivered a lecture titled, “Quantitative Methods: Thinking Clearly with Data”.
He explained that simply focusing on statistics and econometric techniques is not a good idea. There is a need for continuous discussion and refinement of idea.
He further informed the young researchers regarding various biases that can affect the research process.
He particularly focused on differentiating between causality and correlation and also emphasized the need for a clear research question requiring specificity.
He encouraged the participants to explore new tools and techniques for research.