Dates: 27 February 2017 – 03 March 2017            Time: 4:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Venue: Room No. 119, First Floor, Block 4
Resource Person: Dr Sathyaraj Venkatesan, NIT, Trichy

 

Introduction
The Department of English, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), organized a seminar course for the MPhil scholars of the department. The topic for the 5-day seminar sourse was “Dissertation Writing: Theory and Praxis". The seminar started on 27 February 2017 and ended on 3 March 2017.

Mr. Joseph Felix, the MPhil coordinator of the Department, introduced the external resource person Dr. Sathyaraj Venkatesan, Assistant Professor of English in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, to the research scholars before handing over the session to him.

Date: 27/02/17                                           Day 1                                    Time: 4:30-7:00 pm

Topic: Literary Research – An Introduction
Dr. Sathyaraj decided to first interact individually with each one of the research scholars in order to encourage them to discuss their progress and asked relevant questions about the writing and publication process. He also noted down the questions and issues put forth by the individual participants consolidating them under various themes. He promised to address them in various sessions of the seminar course.

Dr Sathyaraj then began the session by defining what is meant by the term ‘research’. This was followed by an explanation of the 3 types of Research namely, – qualitative, quantitative and quasi. He also highlighted the skills / activities required for each, such as defining the topic, formulating hypothesis, collecting, organizing and evaluating data, making deductions and inferences followed by a systematized presentation of findings. He then proceeded to specifically define literary research by stating that it is mostly qualitative, interpretative and text-focused in nature.

He then highlighted the variety of choices available to a researcher when it comes to primary texts, which ranged from creative texts, film, architecture, comics, performing arts, music, new media studies, photographs, paintings, sculpture and miscellaneous textual objects. He also said that once the primary text was decided on, the researcher could choose to focus on theory, text / genre or area, and then proceeded to discuss the various factors which could motivate everyone in research.

After stating the difference between a thesis and a dissertation, Dr. Sathyaraj said that it is important for a researcher to identify his / her field of research before proceeding to choose the topic, which should later be followed by the identification of the research gap and question. He said that while it was virtually impossible to come up with an original topic, it is relatively easier to come up with an original research problem.
After presenting numerous samples of research problems and questions, he gave tips on how to create poetic titles for one’s research and as to how the Limitation / Future Research section in a journal or thesis would be a great place to begin with, in order to zero in on a research gap. Dr. Sathyaraj then emphasised the problems faced by researchers in India which included important factors like lack of proper training and poor access to published data. He then left the session open to the scholars’ queries and finally wound it up by answering each one of them.

 

Date: 28/02/17                                           Day 2                                 Time: 4:30-7:00 pm
On Day 2 of the seminar course, the M Phil scholars were introduced to how to write a literature review chapter. They were asked to identify the problems that they were facing collectively as a part of their dissertation. After identifying these problems, Dr. Sathyaraj Venkatesan devised a set plan for the session.

The idea of a literature review was defined, initially. The various steps involved in the process of writing a literature review were tackled next. Further, the scholars dived into the actual task of writing the literature review and learned how it would help in understanding the pool of knowledge that the researcher would be contributing to. The key ideas that were shared during this session were on how material must be collected, organized and evaluated. This process would be complemented by the external reading and the note making that came along with that process.

The process of ‘synthesising’ and its importance was one of the most important ideas that were imparted to the research scholars. This session was one of the most crucial sessions of the seminar course.

Date: 01/03/17                                           Day 3                                   Time: 4:30-7:00 pm
Day 3 of the seminar course focussed on libraries in India and the different types of resources useful for a dissertation. Dr Sathyaraj listed a number of Indian libraries most of which he had visited previously. Osmania University Center for International Programme (OUCIP, Hyderabad), Study Center for Indian Literature in English and Translation (SCILET), The American College ( Madurai, Tamil Nadu), Indian Institute of Advanced Study (Shimla) and Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Teen Murti Bhavan ( New  Delhi) are a few of them. He also described the strengths of each library along with the fellowships that they offered. Next he spoke about online databases like JStor, proquest, DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals), DOAB (Directory od Open Access Books) etc.  He demonstrated how to use online resources like www.journalguide.com, www.academia.edu.

The second part of the seminar course concentrated on the various parts of a dissertation. The resource person discussed every part of the dissertation from the initial pages like the title page, the abstract page, the dedication page as well as the core chapters of a dissertation.

Dr Satyaraj volunteered to look into the M Phil scholar’s research papers and dissertations. He also offered to assist the scholars on specifics.

 

Date: 02/03/17                                           Day 4                                   Time: 4:30-7:00 pm
On day 4 of the seminar course, Dr Sathyaraj Venkatesan focused on documentation and plagiarism. He initially talked about the various documentation styles such as MLA, APA, Chicago Manual Style, CSE and ACS, specifying that humanities generally follows the MLA or Chicago Manual Style and later explained the implications of documenting works. He introduced web sites such as Google Scholar, World Cat and Mendley which provide different style sheets for citation. Then he explained about plagiarism, the reasons why a researcher commits an intellectual theft and also its consequences. He made the participants aware of the various forms of plagiarism such as self-plagiarism, ghost writing, buying and downloading research papers and not obtaining consent from human subjects. He further spoke about the importance of using quotation marks and provided few tips for avoiding plagiarism such as the 3 word rule and in-text citations. He mentioned about Turnitin and Duplichecker as they are the popular plagiarism detecting software tools. Towards the end of the session, he read few of the research articles of the researchers and provided insights on the papers.

 

Date: 03/03/17                                           Day 5                                   Time: 4:30-7:00 pm
The last day of the seminar course was on the topic “Beyond Dissertations”. Dr.Venkatesan began the session by enumerating two ways of getting published i.e. the book route and journal articles. He gave the scholars reasons as to why the latter route was more productive and more valuable for an academician.
He then proceeded to outline the various steps involved in getting published and how to go about selecting a publisher. Dr. Venkatesan also touched upon how to prepare an enticing book proposal. He concluded by telling the scholars how to revise a dissertation for the purpose of publication and also briefly talked about how contracts in the publishing industry work.

The session was concluded with a vote of thanks by M Phil scholar Ms. Esha Nadkarni.
All the participants got a chance to learn about literature review and note making, how to identify materials and sources for research, bibliography, dissertation components, research documentation and plagiarism and journal writing for literary research through this seminar course.