Dokbat 2016 plenary

Title ACADEMIC WRITING- MY WAY -

Farkas Gergely2016.04.28.

International Bata Scientific Conference

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Good morning everyone! I am Gergely Farkas, a young lecturer from the University of Szeged. Thank you for choosing my paper twice in a row as one of the best papers of this conference. Today I have a great opportunity to teach something for you about writing good papers, to publish in awesome journals like Journal of Competitiveness, or just tell a story about how did I get here on this stage. It will be an honest review about my works, to help you write better ones. In positive psychology flow is a mental state when you are so immersed in your activity, that when you are finished, you cannot tell exactly what and how happened in the process, but you are sure you loved every moment of it.

Dream job

THANKS GOD IT’S MONDAY.

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Do you know the feeling when you wake up energized early in the morning? You go for a few kilometers of run on the beach and after a hot shower and a delicious breakfast you spend your day in the library. There you work on your paper in a modern and elegant environment or in a hall filled with old books and paintings of professors from the past of your university. You can find any books or journal articles in the computer system of the library, and all you have to do is to think about new scientific theories all day long. At the end of the day, you go home to your family or friends and you just put aside the work until next day. Do you know what I am talking about? You don’t? Me neither. I can remember a few moments of flow, but the reality is far from the mentioned for most scientists.

WHAT SHOULD I DO?

Presenter

Presentation Notes

I could talk about many things, but I want to make this speech memorable. There are so many different ways.

UMBERTO ECO (1932-2016)

“If a student works rigorously, no topic is truly foolish, and the student can draw useful conclusions even from a remote or peripheral topic.”

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Can I make an academic writing 101 course in 30 minutes? I think everyone can read How to write a thesis from Umberto Eco, or read advices of editors on journal websites. Probably you read them already. You can work on many fields of economics. I have different publications with strong connections to psychology, education, marketing, finance, law, and even conservative dentistry. Some of them won a prize, some of them went to the drawer after a short conference. But you should know one thing: when you start a study you have to think about publication goals also. There is no way to finish something as good as you can, because your time is limited. In writing you can always add to your text. You can write a short summary or a long textbook about the same thing. Making a bigger venture in a topic is a risky thing because you need months for research, other months for analyze results and write the paper. And it needs even more time to get back the opinion of reviewers and react on them with good quality. There is a big competition to get in high valued journals, and there is a pressure from universities to publish more and more. And there are trends and expectations you should keep up with: new topics, new statistical methods, new software for analyzing data and presenting results. Your time is limited, so you should set realistic goals how you will contribute to the knowledge of mankind with a publication while you keep your job or pass your exams. I cannot give you instant answers for your life. You can challenge yourself with hard theoretical problems, commit yourself to find solutions for practical problems. It is up to you. But anything you do, look for publishing and presenting opportunities because without reactions, and critics you can go in the wrong way for too long. How can you write the perfect paper? I cannot tell the rules; I can tell stories about my experience only.

Steve Jobs“You can't connect the dots looking forward you can only connect them looking backwards.”

STEVE JOBS (1955 - 2011)

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Should I just tell my success story and pair it with some quotes to motivate you? This sentence from Steve Jobs is very appealing but it is only a wishful thinking about meaning of life. I will talk about these dots and I want to believe there is a hidden pattern, a greater entity who looks after me even if I have hard times. But do you heard the story about the scientist who worked hard day and night but no journal with impact factor accepted his papers? Never ever. No? Because nobody tells these stories. Stories about dots like the ones Steve Jobs talks about are always have a happy ending. You can change the world; you can affect the life of people. If you are a scientist you can be famous without a good look, or talent in arts. If I make a great motivational speech about scientific writing I can change your viewpoint for a few days. But after a day or two you will face problems, and facing them without a quick solution is a demanding task. I think all of you want some good advice how to write better papers, how to publish more than the person who is sitting next to you now.

JAY B. BARNEY SUSTAINED COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

Valuable

Rare

Imperfectly imitable

No substitution

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Should I just tell my success story and pair it with some quotes to motivate you? This sentences from Steve Jobs is very appealing but it is only a wishful thinking about meaning of life. I will talk about these dots and I want to believe there is a hidden pattern, a greater entity who looks after me even if I have hard times. But do you heard the story about the scientist who worked hard day and night but no journal with impact factor accepted his papers? Never ever. No? Because nobody tells these stories. Stories about dots like the ones Steve Jobs talks about are always have a happy ending. You can change the world; you can affect the life of people. If you are a scientist you can be famous without a good look, or talent in arts. If I make a great motivation speech about scientific writing I can change your viewpoint for a few days. But after a day or two you will face problems, and face it without a quick solution is a demanding task. I think all of you want some good advice how to write better papers, how to publish more than the person who is sitting next to you now. 6 There is an article from Jay Barney about firm resources and sustained competitive advantage. It has almost fifty thousand citations. I think its importance is beyond strategic management. When you want to be better than others in quality you can use these rules. Make something valuable. Last year I presented a very complex study with advanced statistical methods. I think it has a value for family business research. This year I just translated a short, but unique literature review. It has no strict methodology; it does not state new ideas. It is valuable because it summarizes a rapidly changing topic from a specific viewpoint. And this is interesting for the audience. Probably you will think about every paper of yours as a high value thing because you have many hours of work in it. But after you have the topic and before you start to sketch your research plan please think about who and where will read about it. How will it be valuable? Be rare. I heard such complains many times: “I cannot add any new results to this field.” and “Nobody researched this topic, I cannot write theoretical background without sources.” Both means you need more time to search and read sources. You do not have to craft a new theory or save the world in every publication. Find a new combination of constructs, find a new method to make a better research for an old topic, or do something what will be important in the future. Just keep in mind it takes a year or two to publish a good research and you have to answer questions of readers in the future. Here is a risk because valuable topics are usually more interesting for others, so the competition can be stronger. So think about some unique selling point of your research. What is imperfectly imitable? Of course not your results. If they are, you do it wrong. But your personal experience, your social capital is. Keep connection with peers and professors. Ask for reviews, discuss your ideas. I will talk about my mentors, but I don’t think you can or you should take the exact same way. They transformed me into the scientist I am today, but I cannot be objective about the success of this project. I think conferences like this one are very important for everyone to get unique experience what you cannot get in your home environment. The last one means you cannot substitute your writing skill with something other. You can say you can join a research team and do just a part of the job. That is good until you gather the knowledge and wisdom to make your own research. Just be aware to do not get stuck, because a research assistant is replaceable. You should come up with your own hypothesizes sooner or later and get the position of the first author. The big question is how to get into that position. I will share my story, but first I have some questions for you. There are now good or bad answers. Please be honest and answer quickly even if you cannot connect it to the current topic.

Sausage

DO YOU LIKE SAUSAGE?

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Who likes to eat sausage? Please, put your hands up! Thank you.

KidsDO YOU LIKE KIDS?

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Who likes kids? Please, put your hands up! Thank you.

ScienceDO YOU LIKE SCIENCE?

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Who likes science, to read interesting scientific papers? Please, put your hands up! Thank you.

Joke

IF YOU DO,YOU SHOULD NOT KNOW ABOUT HOW THEY ARE REALLY MADE.

Presenter

Presentation Notes

If you answered yes for any of the questions I suggest, you should not know about how they are really made. Because you came here to know more about it of course I will give you some answers. Do not be afraid, I will speak only about making scientific papers, and not the other two things I mentioned before it.

MY EARLY CAREER

Presenter

Presentation Notes

On this picture I am the DJ. There was 2003 when my friend Ferenc Polyák and I decided we will make a difference. We will chase a goal not inside the boundaries of the department of psychology at the university, but with the resources of it. After surviving the first two semesters we started to work on our first research. We got some help from experts outside the university, and the professors at least did not try to stop us.

The colonel

Dr. László Tóth, Ph.D.

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Dr. László Tóth is a former colonel of the Hungarian Army, a former ambassador, and he did many things for make the former Yugoslavia a better place after the war. He used his network to let us make a research about motivation of soldiers, but not before he trained us. It was a boot camp for writing. I started with short letters to officials for clearances required for the study. He pointed out every single error in those things. In grammar, in style, in content. I made half a dozen versions for every page until it was good enough. Now I do the same with myself and with my students. As journal editors usually say: you cannot make enough proofreading.

Old researchExplorative factor

analysis can be difficult if you have

160 items.

LOOKING FOR RESULTS

Presenter

Presentation Notes

In my first research there were a big sample, a great number of variables, and a huge responsibility to create something valuable for the army. It was our student project, but we met many high ranking officers. The results remained partially confidential. The most interesting parts went in the drawer because the results were not valuable enough for the army to use it on the long run, but it would be valuable for spies of other armies. We won a First Prize of Regional Committee of Hungarian Science Academy in 2005 and in 2007 with parts of the study. It was an important step to establish my confidence in research.

Own TDK

NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF SCIENTIFIC STUDENTS' ASSOCIATIONS 2007

Presenter

Presentation Notes

National Conference of Scientific Students' Associations is the most important competition for university students in Hungary. There are many fields and sections but any small prize means you are in the league of the best in your profession. Here you can see the head of the psychology department, my friend, and me on the picture. We got a reviewer from the field of behavioral economics. She did not like our work at all until I presented the results and explained every detail of it to her. We came home with an empty hand and I learned the lesson, that I need more experience in writing if I want to convince the readers without my personal presence.

PhD Application

If you make 7 years out from 5 until master degree you will have many papers to show.

Presenter

Presentation Notes

National Conference of Scientific Students' Associations is the most important competition for university students in Hungary. There are many fields and sections but any small prize means you are in the league of the best in your profession. Here you can see the head of the psychology department, my friend, and me on the picture. We got a reviewer from the field of behavioral economics. She did not like our work at all until I presented the results and explained every part to her. We came home with an empty hand and I learned the lesson, that I need more experience in writing if I want to convince the readers without my personal presence.

Colleagues

HOW I MET MY COLLEAGUES

Presenter

Presentation Notes

How I became an economic psychologist? There was a good opportunity to make some money with a small project in the department of economics. After some successful cooperation Gábor Dávid Kiss, who is here with me now, invited me to be a third author in a publication. And that paper was accepted for the 5th DOKBAT in 2009. So if I look at it that way it took me six years to write a better paper for this conference.

First DeskWorkstation is where the work stops.

Presenter

Presentation Notes

This was my first desk at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration. That computer was so slow that even typing was a pain. I switched for a laptop and I started to work on my research about extreme stress in decisions. I worked with police officers and I participated in experiments involving guns, EEG, and a lot of unforgettable moments. It was a very interesting topic. After 2 years I realized I will not get enough results in the foreseeable future for my doctoral thesis. Now if I look back I know I could publish it because other studies in the last five years came to the same conclusion as I did. But it was a dead end.

Boss

Dr. Éva Málovics, Ph.D.

Dr. Balázs Hámori, D.Sc.

Presenter

Presentation Notes

Here I have to say thanks for my two mentors. They both inspire me to improve myself. Most importantly they give me the time and freedom to find my own way. They always helped me when I asked them, and they have the patience to wait until I write my next paper. They are both an example for me how to write papers, but this is the part you can not copy. I suggest find the important people of your field in your country and make connections with them.

FAMILY BUSINESS

Presenter

Presentation Notes

My topic is family business now. As you can see on Google Street View my father is not a businessman. I worked in many projects from customer satisfaction at airports to financial literacy. A consulting company found us with the idea to work with family businesses. From the academic viewpoint it was underrated in Hungary with just a few publications. The Family Business Review, the most important journal of the field was around 20 years old, but in Hungary there were only one book about family business management.

KN

NIKOLETT VINCZE AND KITTI M. KÖTELES“Motivating factors in the case of family

businesses”

Presenter

Presentation Notes

As you can remember motivation was my topic until my master thesis. So I started to explore family businesses from this direction. I met two dedicated students. They used my master thesis as a base and they made a much better paper at the end. I was unexperienced as a mentor, and I did not realize how good are they in advance. They won the first prize of the National Conference of Scientific Students' Associations in the field of economics in the section of management. They left the academic field after degree, but they inspired me to learn more about this field. They were the proof that this topic is valuable, but rare in Hungary.

Conferences

Presenter

Presentation Notes

I started to attend conferences abroad. First I was in Exeter, England. My English was so bad in the abstract they sent me in the poster section. The conference main topic also did not fit my research. I did not want to make the same mistake twice so next year I went to Bordeaux, France for a family business conference. There I was in a discussion session what means no real publication in the proceedings. But it was a step forward, and I met editors and famous authors from the field. It was inspiring to work harder on my language skills and aim for publications in journals. But I also realized that Hungary is a small and exotic but uninteresting country in the western world. We started to look for an opportunity to participate in an international research.

PROF. DR. DR. SASCHA KRAUS

Head of the Institutefor Entrepreneurship

at the University of Lichtenstein.

Presenter

Presentation Notes

We started to work with professor Kraus and his team on a research project. Through this cooperation I came aware of many differences between our countries economic systems, and I learned about new research methods. My advice is to look for opportunities of international cooperation because you will learn how to present your study in a way scientists from other countries can understand and work with. You have to think about all the readers’ interests and needs, if you want to publish in an international journal.

Maja“Analysis of the factors of consumer preferences in

dental procedures“

MÁRIA KESZEG

Presenter

Presentation Notes

I had a side project with faculty of dentistry. Because I can not make every interesting study alone I gave it to a student. She won the first prize in Culture, health and marketing section at the National Conference of Scientific Students' Associations, but our goal was a journal publication. Until we realized there is some problem with the theoretical background of the study and even whole rewrite cannot make it good enough to publish it in a journal. The lesson is even if your work hard, you need a solid theoretical background. She is a student of University of Southern Denmark now and prepares for a Ph.D. programme.

MÁTÉ REPISKY

“Entrepreneurial personal traits and attitudes towards

entrepreneurs from the perspective of three groups”

Presenter

Presentation Notes

He is my third student who won the above mentioned prize in the economic psychology section. By that time, I had practice about supervising others work. Because in that period I focused on my own papers, I was not involved so much. I reviewed the text and made a few suggestions. I mean more than five hundred corrections. Working as a reviewer is very useful because you experience the way others will read your work.

BA Degree

STUDENTS ON THESIS DEFENSE

They keep my mind open.

Presenter

Presentation Notes

I am the supervisor of many bachelor and some master students. They give me new inspirations, I can practice research planning with them, and they remind me where I started my life as a scientist. I always tell them: Learn now, or you will end up like me: you will be forever at the university.

DOKBAT 2015

The effects of strategic orientations and perceived environment

on firm performance

Presenter

Presentation Notes

In 2015 I was here with my best paper so far. The feedbacks from the conference were very useful. After a year and three hundred grammar and style corrections you can read it in the last issue of Journal of Competitiveness.

DOKBAT 2016

Agent-principal problem,

stewardship theory and behavioural

agency model in the explanation of

family business performance

Presenter

Presentation Notes

This year I just used what I have learned so far. There is no empirical research in my paper. There is no new theory invented by myself. I just gathered all the evidence about a topic from the literature and presented in a way that can be interesting for the wider audience of economists. And now I am here, looking for international cooperation and publication opportunities. You can find me around this poster later at the social evening.

10 COMMANDMENTS1. Find a merciless supervisor.2. Learn English (at least).3. Follow the top 3 journals of your field.4. Make reviews to learn perceiving errors.5. Help others too in research planning.6. Look for international cooperation.7. Look for new methods and learn them.8. Use a citation management tool.9. Develop your presentation skills.10. Attend conferences.

Presenter

Presentation Notes

I summarize my advices on this slide. Find someone who can supervise you until you can stand on your own feet. Improve your language skills and follow the trends on your field. Making reviews and supervising others is a good way to improve your own writing skills. Look for opportunities to work in teams and learn new things. One minor, but important thing is to keep your sources and citations organized somehow. I use only basic tools, but these things can spare you a lot of time. Finally develop your presentation skills and attend conferences to get feedback about your work. There is no golden path but I believe you can do it.

Thank you“Academic success depends on research and publications.” – Philip Zimbardo

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!

Presenter

Presentation Notes

As Philip Zimbardo the famous social psychologist said: “Academic success depends on research and publications.” I do not know the context of this quote, but it is very true. Drive Your Knowledge and Be a Scientist! Thank you for your Attention!

SOURCESFonts:League Gothic with SIL Open Font License v1.10Droid Serif with Apache License v2.0

Slides:1,3,7,8: Free images from pixabay.com2: Nan Palmero: Runner Silhouette on the Beach CC BY 2.0 from flickr.com4: Umberto_Eco_1987.jpg CC-BY-SA-3.0 from commons.wikimedia.org5: COG LOG LAB.: Steve JOBS 1955-2011 CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 from flickr.com6: Jay B. Barney - Courtesy University of Utah David Eccles School of Business9: Thaler: University Library, Budapest CC BY-SA 3.0 from wikipedia.hu12: Segesvári Csaba: Dr. Tóth László from delmagyar.hu22: https://webdocs.uni.li/public/06781067.jpg from uni.liAll others photos are from Facebook or private sources.

Disclaimer:This presentation has been made for the plenary session of the 12th International Bata Scientific Conference for Ph.D. Students and Young Researchers. The stories and opinions are from a personal viewpoint and they may not reflect the official standpoint of University of Szeged, or any mentioned person in the slideshow.

Presenter

Presentation Notes

https://pixabay.com/en/book-pen-open-notebook-empty-731199/ Nan Palmero: Runner Silhouette on the Beach https://www.flickr.com/photos/nanpalmero/14183487521 https://pixabay.com/en/isolated-thinking-freedom-ape-1052504/ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Umberto_Eco_1987.jpg CC-BY-SA-3.0 https://www.flickr.com/photos/cogloglab/6216048568 Quote: Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement Address, 2005 US computer engineer & industrialist (1955 - 2011) http://archive.unews.utah.edu/wp-content/uploads/Jay-Barney-e1345574272696.jpg Jay B. Barney PhD, Presidential Professor of Strategic Management, and Lassonde Chair of Social Entrepreneurship. Photo Credit: Courtesy University of Utah David Eccles School of Business J. B. Barney publications: https://scholar.google.hu/citations?hl=hu&user=vGSZsWcAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate Mentioned paper: http://www.business.illinois.edu/josephm/BA545_Fall%202015/Barney%20(1991).pdf https://pixabay.com/static/uploads/photo/2015/12/06/23/03/sausages-1080138_960_720.jpg https://pixabay.com/en/boys-kids-children-happy-happiness-286245/ 9. https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyetemi_K%C3%B6nyvt%C3%A1r_(E%C3%B6tv%C3%B6s_Lor%C3%A1nd_Tudom%C3%A1nyegyetem)#/media/File:Egyetemi_K%C3%B6nyvt%C3%A1r4.JPG 10. http://www.delmagyar.hu/vilagvevo/a_legrosszabb_beke_is_jobb_mint_egy_haboru/2162134/ 22. https://www.uni.li/sascha.kraus?set_language=en https://webdocs.uni.li/public/06781067.JPG

Dokbat 2016 plenary

Self Improvement

Transcript of Dokbat 2016 plenary