Category Archives: Guidance
The Professional Academic
Something occurred to me recently. Professions share common characteristics (Elliott 1972): Body of knowledge Barriers to entry Public service Mutual recognition Thinking about being a professional architect, QS, engineer or whatever, it is straightforward to identify how these things work. … Continue reading
Posted in Academic practice, Guidance
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Pie charts: graphical bling?
I find pie charts so tiresome. In an exchange with an author who thought they were a good idea, I was looking at the multi-coloured, three-dimensional, textured shading of a few segments of his pie chart, and thinking that this … Continue reading
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Publication rights and sharing your work
We often get enquiries from authors who have posted a pre-publication draft of their work in an institutional repository, or some other on-line repository of work-in-progress, such as SSRN or REPEC. These services invite authors to place working papers and … Continue reading
Posted in CM&E forum, Editorial policies, Guidance
Tagged author rights, open access, pre-publication drafts, repositories
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Complete and unambiguous complementarity
In writing research papers, should we be more careful in how we cite literature that supports our own findings? All too often, the nuances and tensions are overlooked. But they are the most important aspects Continue reading
Posted in Guidance, Style, Writing
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How to format papers for journal submission (and for dissertations)
Increasingly, authors have often asked how to format their papers for submission to the journal, Construction Management and Economics. In submitting a paper to a journal such as this, it may be helpful to note that your submission is, effectively, … Continue reading
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Secondary referencing (and the problem with aphorisms)
Secondary referencing is considered to be poor academic practice. It is important to find the original papers and cite them, or explain in a footnote why the original papers are no longer available or accessible. Merely mentioning that someone else has … Continue reading
Why computer screen dumps are not the best way of creating graphics
From time to time, students or authors ask me why I never want to see their computer screen dumps in their papers . It may be useful to share some of the reasons behind my views on this. In my … Continue reading
Posted in Editorial policies, Guidance
Tagged editorial policies, graphics, screen dumps
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How to decide on active or passive voice
A common problem in writing is deciding on whether to use active or passive voice. There is a general feeling among authors that writing in the third person is somehow better than writing in the first person. But that is … Continue reading
Posted in Guidance, Style, Writing
Tagged active voice, passive voice, writing style
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How to view a paper in two screens in Acrobat
Occasionally, a frustrated referee complains about a practice that this journal shares with many others. We ask authors to place the Tables and Figures at the end of the manuscript, rather than inserting them near the point at which they … Continue reading
Posted in Guidance, Refereeing
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How to compose an introduction
The introduction should provide the setting for the paper, introduce the reader to the topic under investigation and provide at least a partial description of what is to come. It can be useful to also explain how you have structured … Continue reading
Posted in Guidance, Style, Writing
Tagged guidance, Literature review, Opening sentence, Writing
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Management and Economics in Construction 