Beautiful news on Sunday morning!!

I can't help it to paste this email here once I received and read this email from John, the Scientia Professor in UNSW. Here goes...

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H******

Br>

I have had a look at what you have written so far, and it is good.I have a few comments to make, as follows.

If I were you I would lead with the research question, not the background. While I was reading the background (which by and large I liked), I kept asking myself "Why is H****** telling me this?" If you start with the question, then the reader will understand how the background sets the context for what you are going to tell him/her about. It also helps you to focus the background to that which helps you address the research question in hand. The part of the proposal that is the most interesting is the last page and that is where I would concentrate your attention (What is your contribution and how will youmake it?).

I do understand that sometimes it is hard to get uptodate numbers, but in such a fast moving market, forecasts in 2001 of what will happen in 2005 could be complemented with some more recent data.

The research topic that you have chosen is terrific: '**********************'. You do have to be careful that the problem is tractable. For example, if you do a cross sectional study there may be many variables that might jointly cause ********** and ********** (e.g., innate innovativeness), threatening any inference of causation. If you use longitudinal data you have to worry about the source of that data and the time it takes to collect. I think that this is a thesis whose scope will probably be bounded by the data that you are able to collect. To that extant the way in which you intend to address your research question may well be on the critical path to making progress on it.

In thinking about the drivers and barriers to the ************ I do commend you to Rogers' book (The Diffusion of Innovations).

I have some minor issues (for example, Is involvement a prerequisite or a catalyst to behaviour?), but they will get ironed out as you progress.

Good luck with your research!

Cheers

John R.

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So, what say u ppl? See.. I have the feeling that this area is somewhat interesting and fruitful.... although as John pointed out there are a number of issues to be paid attention to as well...but what I wanted to know most was that the topic I suggested is no nonsence and receiving these encouraging remarks from one of the top researchers in UNSW sure helps a lot!..

So I guess what I have to do now.. is tackle or rather explore further on the weaknesses in this work and work towards convincing my supervisor...rather than venturing into a whole new area/topic. See how it goes...

But.. alhamdulillah.....lega sikit... at least I think I did the right thing from the beginning....

Later