Zahra Batool

Topic : Does Income play a role in Happines? A cross-sectional study of Wah Cantt.

Supervised By : Dr. Hamid Hassan

SLIDE 3: Use Informative and Attractive Titles -- here "Can Money Buy Happiness?" would be a natural.

Two large paragraphs of text are not good. Use Bullets to focus on KEY ideas. First quote is abstract and difficult to understand. One should try to start with some issue which is simple and grabs attention. For example:

  • Economists have been pursuing growth for decades, assuming that more money will bring prosperity and happiness.

  • Happiness studies challenge this assumption, showing that increasing incomes have not led to greater happiness (Easterlin)

  • Instead, Happiness is determined by many factors - for example, institutions, social norms, etc. (Frey & Stutzer)

SLIDE 4: Use informative titles, like "Two Types of Happiness Studies". Also, define terms (briefly) when they are first introduced:

  • Macro -- study happiness of society as a whole

  • Micro - study happiness at individual level.

SLIDE 5: use informative title. Use Bullets concentrating on MAIN idea, instead of large paragraphs of text. FIRST quote seems mysterious, how does it relate to proposed research? Second bullet gives OBJECT of research. When we use two bullets than they should about similar things. Here Bullet 1 is LIT REVIEW (of irrelefvant literatr) while Bullet 2: describes Goals of Research, they are UNLIKE items and should be presented on separate slides.

The literature on Happiness Studies starts with Easterllins paper, which shows that income is NOT an important determinant of happiness IN THE LONG RUN. This is the most famous finnding -- known as Easterlin's Paradox -- which led to the creation of the entire field of Happiness studies. Income CAN buy happiness in the SHORT RUN and for POOR people. Your writeup shows no awareness of this.

SLIDE 6: Research GAP: No work has been done, especially for Pakistan -- NO WORK ON WHAT?? you have not yet specifed a research topic. Furthermore, when you do specify it (in title) as micro determinants, then YOU MUST REVIEW relevant literature. You must look at Micro Determinant Studies all over the world and show that, for example, studies on micr dets of happiness were done in India (2007), bangladesh (2011), Nigeria (???) but no work in this area has been done in Pakistan. A sentence like this is believable, because it shows that author has searched for the literatuer and found it for many countries, but NOT for Pakistan. Your sentence just suggests that the author is completely ignorant of the area, and does not know of any studies done on any topic.

Second bullet point seems relevant, but is missing details and we cannot tell exactly what is being claimed.

SLIDE 7: First point is again stated in mysterious and lengthy way. Shorten to: Most studies done at MACRO level, mine will focus on a small community.

AGAIN this is NOT TRUE, there are many community level happiness studies. You just dont know about them. BHUTAN is a country, so a MACRO study. If you plan to research MICRO DETERMINANTS, then your lit review must FOCUS on MICRO level studies -- this will provide pattern which you need to follow.

SLIDE 8: Satisfactory motivation for research. Use short bullet points -- also note that you are investigating the main idea of happiness study, namely does mmoney buy happiness in Wah Cant. Previous research shows that RELATIVE income makes people happy - that is, having more than others in their neighborhood. ABSOLUTE does not -- someone with five times as much as a person in a poor neighborhood, will be unhappy if he/she lives in a neighborhood where everyone is richer. ALSO, more money bring more happiness in the short run; people get used to it in the long run, and then it no longer makes them happy. Your slide shows NO AWARENESS of these key issues in happiness research.

SLIDE 9: Objectives are clearly stated, but this should come MUCH EARLIER. After stating objectives, one should explain why it is important, and cite literature which has done SIMILAR research elsewhere with some detail.

A Research Proposal should focus sharply on same/similar research, and explain it in some detail. IT should not provide a brief review of the whole field.

SLIDE 11,12,13; An annotated bibliography is presented as a literature review. FURTHERMORE all of the literature reviewed is COMPLETELY irrelevant, since it is all MACRO studies of happiness. Relevant literature for you is MICRO level studies of small communities.

SLIDE 14: Finally refers to one study you are following. Castriota , This study must be emphasized in Lit Review and you must explain what they did . Is it the unique and only study of its kind (NO) then all studies which study micro level happines at community level using questionnaires must be reviewed, their methodology compared, and suitable one selected for problem

OVERALL: substance is good, there is genuine problem of interest which can be addressed. Format is exceedingly bad, mostly because of ignorance of relevant literature. DO forward and backward search on Castriota, and also find SIMILAR PAPERS. and review these to GET THE IDEA of how this type of research is done.