A3 Literature Review & Research Proposal Guideline
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TASK
The assignment should have two main sections: research proposal (or replication plan) and literature
review (1000 Words).
Resources
− Your OP is the best guide on how to proceed with this assignment. Additionally consult the
first two lectures.
− Lecture 2 recording+slides (Let's talk about literature review).
− Canvas Project Resources (look under Project Resources/ Reviewing the literature).
Formatting requirements
− Word count & Formatting: Use 12 pt font and 1.15-line spacing, normal margin.
− Maths/Equations: The word equivalent for displayed math and other equations is 16 words per
row for single-column equations. Two-column equations count as 32 words per row.
Submission Instructions
− Submission deadline: Saturday, March 30, 11:59 pm.
− Students should submit their assignment by uploading a PDF via Canvas assignment. This will
be processed with Turnitin (similarity detecting software).
− Assignments submitted after the deadline will be subject to Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
late submission guidelines. Simple Extensions and special consideration can be requested
through the official Faculty system.
INSTRUCTIONS
Section 1: Your Research Proposal (Replication Plan)
In the research proposal, clearly describe your replication idea with reference to the following points:
[IMPORTANT: We understand that your proposed research project is a replication study and therefore
in describing your proposal you will be guided by your replication paper or original paper (OP). Please
do, however, clearly describe your own extension/or reanalysis – e.g. are you planning to extend OP’s
study to more recent years or extend OP’s analysis to a different country/setting or planning to use a
different model to test OP’s hypothesis and so on. If you are not making any change to OP’s study
(pure replication) then you must clearly mention it in the proposal.].
➢ Introduce the topic. Briefly state the context of your research. State the research problem and
discuss the motivation for this research (e.g., what is the area of conflict, concern, or
controversy; something that needs solution?
➢ Clearly state the research question/research objective/or hypothesis.
✓ Clearly state the research question (s) that you would like to investigate. Briefly discuss the
rationale-support your claim using evidence from the literature (appropriately cite)
➢ What is the expected contribution of this research?
➢ Briefly discuss the proposed empirical approach with respect to the following:
A3 Literature Review & Research Proposal Guideline
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1. Data: at the least mention following:
a. the name of the survey, study period, type of data (cross sectional, time series,
pooled or panel, survey design if relevant (e.g., stratified random sample).
b. Your expected sample size.
c. Unit of analysis (e.g., women aged 14-49 years or households/families with
children or cities with population < X million).
2. Key variables: e.g., dependent variable, key independent variable, control variables.
3. Proposed empirical strategy (e.g., Logistic regression, Panel fixed effect, ARDL etc.).
Include a brief justification as to why this is the appropriate method to test your hypothesis.
Note: Your research statement must reflect the following:
• Clarity. Self-explanatory. Your research idea must be clear – give specifics/details/avoid
vague and general statements.
• Rationale: Justification of research idea – it should be an explanation that justifies the need
for the study. Should be evidenced-based - always provide a high-quality citation
supporting your claim.
• Innovation: What value does it add to the existing literature? How is it advancing
knowledge?
• Feasibility: The research plan is feasible. That is, the proposed research is not too
ambitions, and can be successfully completed within the given time frame (only 8 weeks
are left for you to complete this project!).
Section 2: Literature Review
You will review of the scholarly literature using instructor specified database (Google scholar, Econlit,
Jstor, Op’s reference list). In your literature review, you are required to include some output generated
by ChatGPT and highlight them. Subsequently we will evaluate the co-creation with AI. We will
assess you on the following aspects:
• Prompt: How thoughtfully you design the prompt(s) for AI and consider the complexity
and clarity of prompts.
• Critical evaluation: How effectively you evaluate and utilise AI suggestions, as in
whether you simply adopt AI-generated content or make conscious choices about what
to include.
• Information and digital literacy: How you complement AI-generated content by
relevant scholarly sources to enhance the rigour and reliability of the output.
• Ethical consideration: Students’ awareness of the reliability, biases, and other
limitations of AI generated content.
The literature review MUST focus on the following:
➢ Core issues. In general, how has thinking in this area of research evolved over time and how
has this informed the analytical approach OP (or the literature in general) took to investigate
the problem? Refer to key issues related to data, study design, theoretical/or analytical
framework.
➢ Conceptual framework. What theoretical framework/conceptual framework guides the
research design / and analytical approach in this literature?
A3 Literature Review & Research Proposal Guideline
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➢ Identify the gap in the literature: In what way(s) is the current state of knowledge on your
selected topic is lacking/limited / in need of extending? Include a brief discussion on what is
missing in this literature. [keep in mind that your research question follows form the gap in the
literature].
➢ Conclusion. Conclude by highlighting future direction(s) of research – what remains to be
done.
➢ Evaluating co-creation with AI. The final paragraph of your literature review must include a
brief evaluation of your interaction with ChatGPT versus the scholarly literature. You are
required to comment on the following:
✓ What was your prompt?
✓ In the context of this literature review, do you think you could solely rely on AI generated
output? Why or why not?
✓ How do the scholarly citations that you included improve upon ChatGPT generated
output?
Note:
− You should be able to critically analyze the existing literature on the topic, identifying the
strengths and key contributions of the literature as well as any deficiencies, omissions,
inaccuracies, and other problematic aspects of the literature.
− You should be able to clearly discuss the main issues in the literature relating to the conceptual
framework, data, empirical strategy; preferably organized by broad themes (see Appendix:
"How should I structure my literature review).
− Your literature review should synthesize the literature – that is, stitch together the streams of
research together to focus on core issues rather than merely reporting/summarizing the
previous literature.
− You review should have clearly defined scope and criteria (see Appendix).
− Your review should represent the breadth and depth of the selected topic (see Appendix).
REFERENCES
− You MUST include atleast three additional references (in addition to what is already
included in OP), with atleast one backward citation and at least one forward citation
[please consult Lecture 2 if you for the definition of forward & backward citations].
− At least one of these papers must be recently published (within the last 5 years). The
selected papers must be from economics journals.
− You may include references to journal articles from fields other than economics as long
as they are relevant and are sourced from high-quality journals.
− You must include full citations of the papers cited in the output generated by
ChatGPT and highlight these references.
− In addition to the three relevant economics research papers, you may include book
chapters, government reports etc. Pay attention to quality of these resources and cite
them appropriately.
− Try to stay restricted to resources published 2000 onward (that is, avoid older resource
published in the 90-s unless it is a seminal work).
[see next page]
A3 Literature Review & Research Proposal Guideline
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Note:
− Any source that you cite in the main text must be included in your reference list.
− Conversely, do not include in your reference list the sources that you have not cited in the main
text.
− Use author-date, Harvard style references. Please consult:
https://libguides.library.usyd.edu.au/ld.php?content_id=50827391.
− Please do not directly copy-paste materials from papers. If you wish to quote,
mark it as such (direct quote is marked with "..." and reference incl. page numbers
should be given).
Relevant economic journals or working paper series
− Pay attention to the quality of the references that you cite (please refer to our Canvas
resources if you are unsure about how to evaluate this: How do I know if a journal is
reliable?)
− The higher the ranking of the journal (Economics department/school), the more likely it is
that the quality of the article (working paper) is higher.
− Working paper series such as the ones below should also be fine (list is non-exhaustive
though): NBER Working papers, IZA Working papers. World Bank/OECD papers.
APPENDIX
How should I structure my literature review?
There are many possible ways to organise the material. For example:
− chronologically
− from most to least important
− by issue or theme [such as study design - longitudinal vs cross section; debate – for
and against a certain claim and so on]
The best way to approach the review is to choose an organisation that will enable you to
compare the various authors' treatment of ideas. This is often best achieved by organising
thematically or grouping ideas into sets of common issues tackled in the various texts. These
themes will weave together the different threads that are the focus of your study.
What do we mean by criteria and scope of the literature review?
Scope and criteria for the literature review must be well defined –decide what literature you will
include and exclude, based on your research question, objectives, and methodology. Consider the
scope of your literature review, such as the time period, geographical area, theoretical framework, and
disciplinary field (economics in your case). Have clear and consistent criteria for selecting the sources
such as relevance and quality.
What do we mean by breadth and depth of the topic?
Generally speaking, depth of a topic would refer to narrowing down the focus to a particular aspect of
a broad issue, and breadth would imply covering a wider range of aspects related to the broad issue. In
your research context, breadth of the topic would imply that the literature search covers a broad range
of views and information relevant to your topic. You can start with a general overview of your topic
covering multiple aspects of the research problem (breadth of a topic), then narrow it down to a specific
subtopic, and subsequently to a specific question. When you narrow down your focus to a specific
research question, problem, or argument it may help you avoid being too broad or vague and allow you
to go deeper into the relevant aspects of your selected topic.
GOOD LUCK!