The Centre for Accounting, Business, and Finance (CABF) parked under the Faculty of Business and Finance (FBF) organised a webinar titled Mastering the Art of Thesis Writing: A Comprehensive Guide to Effectively Crafting and Communicating Your Research on 3 April 2024 via Microsoft Teams.

Invited to deliver the talk was the Director of Research and Research Training and Associate Professor in Finance at the University of Western Australia Business School, Dr Kam Fong Chan.

The talk aimed to equip participants with the essential skills to formulate precise research questions, conduct comprehensive literature reviews for effective thesis development, enhance participants’ proficiency in crafting compelling and effective communication of complex research findings, as well as providing guidance to overcome common challenges in the thesis-writing process.

Dr Kam started the talk by sharing invaluable insights on generating research ideas and crafting academic papers. Furthermore, he emphasised the importance of understanding one’s audience before embarking on paper writing and classified research ideas into three primary focuses; academic, industry, and regulatory.

While outlining three approaches to exploring new ideas, Dr Kam said, “The first involves extending existing literature by identifying significant gaps, while the second entails identifying real-world problems through sources like newspapers and proposing solutions, thereby bridging academic study with practical issues. The third approach encourages the utilisation of alternative data sources, such as bitcoins, blockchains, and big data, to generate innovative ideas.”

Dr Kam continued his talk by highlighting the structured template for writing a thesis or academic paper, including sections, namely Abstract, Introduction, Literature Review, and Empirical Findings; keeping the abstract concise without acronyms and summarising key findings clearly.

Additionally, he gave a demonstration of journal selection by choosing journal ranking systems like ABDC Journal Quality List (ABDC) and Financial Times 50 to compile information and encouraged the researchers to target top-tier journals and conduct comprehensive research findings for effective thesis development.

The talk ended with an insightful Q&A session and a group photograph session.