The English Department of Vimala college, Thrissur had organised a two-day seminar ‘La Ricerca’ on the topic ‘The Perspectives in Research‘ on 21/8/2019 and 22/8/2019. Six of us attended the seminar. The first day was scheduled with 3 sessions; the first session was presented by Dr. N. Prasantha Kumar, Professor & Head (Retd.), Department of English,  Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, on ‘New Perspectives in Research’. He spoke about the things that we should take into consideration while choosing a topic for research, the language to be followed, and also gave a general idea about certain theories. The next session was taken over by Dr. Muraleedharan T., Senior Faculty, Chetana College, on ‘Freedom of Cultural Studies’. The final session of the day was presented by Dr. K.J. Varghese, Associate Professor, Department of English, Christ College on ‘ELT Research: Shifting Paradigms’. His lecture was on the topics that can be chosen from the ELT field for research. It took us to new possibilities in research. Day 2 began with a talk by Dr. Mani K. P. on the topic ‘Analytical Tools for Interdisciplinary Literary Research’. In the next session, Dr C. J. Davees talked on ‘Dissertation Dynamics’. His lecture focused mainly on the technical aspects of research and PG and UG dissertations. He also made the printed version of his lecture available. The third session of the day was taken by Dr. Sijo Varghese of Achutha Menon Government College, Thrissur, on ‘Techniques and Modalities of Writing a Thesis’. He cited some of the important books and websites that could be useful for research purposes. He made his lecture more interesting with the Kahoot game at the end of the session. The final session of the seminar was by Dr. Janaky Sreedharan, Professor, Department of English, University of Calicut, on ‘Where is the Joy of Research’. In her session she shared her experiences of being a research scholar, research guide, and also added her suggestions on how to make research joyful rather than a strenuous task. At the end of each session, 15-20 minutes were devoted for discussion where we could clarify our doubts. In general, the seminar was informative and useful for us, both as PG students and as aspiring research scholars.

[Prepared by Athulya Stephen and Mufeeda K., I MA English]