The academic seminar of “Literature Mining and Paper Writing for Postgraduate Students” was successfully held online by the Faculty of Law from 3.00 P.M to 5.30 P.M on 28th, October 2021, which was hosted by Mou Xiao Bo, the Director of Masters Degree Programme. Assistant Professor Dai Meng Liang presented as a keynote speaker. Associate Professor Zhao Linlin, Assistant Professor Xiao Hui Na, Chen Bo, Wang Jia, Zhang Chuan Qi, Wong Weng Kuok, and Zhong Wen Cai, together with probably 100 postgraduate students, attended the seminar.
Starting from the significance and importance of literature mining, Assistant Professor Dai Meng Liang emphasized the necessity of literature mining to understand the current situation of some specific research areas and select research topics, and explained differences between composition and paper writing by referring to academic articles. Besides, he also demonstrated how to mine literature by using the database in the library of MUST. In addition, Assistant Professor Dai stressed the importance of questioning. He said that questioning was the engine of the article, and questions could be divided into three categories, namely, topics to be discussed, problems to be solved and questions to be doubted, which could be further studied and explored by combining with the three-step questioning method. Meanwhile, Assistant Professor Dai suggested that students measure the significance of topics on the basis of their relevance, timeliness, contribution, and other factors, and he stressed that paper writing needed to be creative and its viewpoints should be explicit and demonstrative. Assistant Professor Dai encouraged said that paper writing was a time-consuming process with multiple revisions, and there was no strict standard, therefore, he hoped students could maintain high standards in their academic research.
In the end, other teachers also shared experiences with their own academic research and answered questions about paper writing raised by students. Teaching staffs and students from the Faculty of Lawfully discussed and exchanged online. The lecturers told students to attach importance to logic structure, rigorous words, accurate argument, complete expressions, taking their academic research seriously. Students from the Faculty of Law had a more in-depth and comprehensive understanding of paper writing and gained much from this seminar.
