3 Guidelines for supervision

  1. Any team member can communicate with me via Teams on behalf of your group. I expect that all communication has been discussed an agreed upon.

  2. Just as you can expect me to read and provide comments on the days of meetings, I expect you to respect the deadlines you choose.

    1. If you want something read before the meeting, it must be sent to me at least 2 working days before the meeting, I.e. Midnight Thursday for a Monday meeting. (Max 10 pages per meeting)

  3. I will read and comment generally on the work but will not make decisions for you. Your ability to choose and apply the correct methods is part of what you will be assessed on.

  4. Each meeting is planned for one hour.

  5. For every meeting you should bring with:

    1. Your problem statement (as it evolves with your work).

    2. A list of literature that you have covered up to that point (only the literature you have already read).

    3. Any additional formalities (this will depend on how big your group is).

  6. The date by which you will be ready for the next meeting.

3.1 Examinations

You can write and be examined in Danish or English. If you choose Danish, it might be the case that one of our Danish speaking staff will join in the examination, 1x external examiner + me + possibly 1x Danish AAU examiner. This will depend on departmental resources, but you will not be disadvantaged in any way because of any limitations that I might have with the Danish language.

3.2 Leave periods (absenteeism)

I will be away from Aalborg for the following periods:

  1. From 03/11/2021 to 07/11/2021 (week 44).

3.3 Teaching and time pressures

Weeks 47 and 48 I will have a large number of lectures to teach, and will not be able to provide any feedback during those weeks.

3.4 Rough guide to project structures

This is a very rough guide to writing a project. It is intended to give you a very basic idea of what to include in a good project.

In terms of pages, each group will know how many people they have, the official maximum number of pages (by character count, 2400 key-strokes including spaces) are:

1 Person: 15 pages

2 People: 25 pages

3 People: 30 pages

4 People: 40 pages

Check the official guidelines here

Filling the pages is not the goal, and you will not be given a higher grade for filling all of your allocated pages with pointless text. You will also not be penalised if you can get your message across clearly in fewer pages. Keep in mind, that the average journal article is roughly 15 – 25 double spaced pages (around 8000 words).

You only need to address one problem, and to do it as well as possible.

The written project is intended to communicate that you have done your homework on your subject. This means that as a student you should be able to demonstrate that you:

  1. Can identify an economic problem (or gap in the literature) that you think needs to be addressed (and why?!).

  2. Can find, read and understand literature about the problem, and how others have dealt with it (reading and organising literature).

  3. Can find the relevant information or data that you need to assess the problem, and that you know what to do with it when you do find it (number 2 helps with this) (data and methods).

  4. Can present your findings in a well written document, where you give credit to all the authors that helped you to understand the problem (references).

  5. If you make a statement, you either need to back it up with your own evidence, or someone else’s.

Compressing all of that into 8000 words is much more challenging than filling 40 pages with unnecessary text and graphics. It also requires much more cooperation on and discussion of what needs to go into those pages to make them as effective as possible.

A good group member is one that can read a piece of writing critically and give constructive feedback – to do this effectively is necessary for all group members to be clear about the “red thread” in the project (the “why”).

I would personally prefer that you write about 15 pages of really good work than 40 pages of low-quality work.

3.5 For a journal article size paper these are some rough guidelines:

The share of pages between the sections depends on how much space you need. I say need, because people reading your work want to get the clearest message, in as few words as possible. A (very) rough guide as to how many (academic) references each section could have is included in red text.

  1. Abstract (+-150 words)

  2. Introduction (0.75 – 1.25 pages) (Motivation, justification, explanation of why? (4 – 5 references))

  3. Literature / theory (1.5 – 3 pages, depending on how theoretical your paper is) (Demonstrate reading (6 – 12 references))

  4. Method (0.75 – 3 pages, depending on how complex the explanation needs to be) (Justify choice, explain details (4 – 5 references))

  5. Results (1 – 3 pages) (Presentation of results (2 – 5 references))

  6. Discussion (2 – 5 pages) (Interpretations, comparisons, perspectives (4 – 5 references))

  7. Conclusion (1 page) (Link discussion to introduction (No new references))

(The max pages in this example is 16.5 pages – it is just an example, and the split between the sections will change depending on the type of research.)

(Min references in this example is 20, but this is on the high side. You won’t have time to read as much as that. 8 – 15 references in total should be enough if you find some really good ones.)

Keep it simple! That is the best advice I ever got. . . and the hardest to follow, because you really need to be sure of what you’re talking about to write clearly and simply.