Introduction

Abstract

This symposium was organised with Orhan Albayrak, a Ph.D. student of mine. Originally, we expected that my other Ph.D. students would also contribute to the organisation of the symposium, but due to their personal circumstances they were not able to. The symposium was meant for M.A., Ph.D. students and young academics so as to encourage them to write academic papers. It turned out to be fruitful. The number of applicants turned out to be much more than we expected. The quality of papers likewise was above the level of our expectations. Eventually we had a symposium with over sixty participants and quite a number of audiences including academics and students. The selection committee examined every abstract with care and selected the best. The selection for this volume had to be thematic and accordingly some papers were left out despite the fact they were also well written. I sincerely encourage every academic to motivate their students and organise a symposium at least every other year in the field of their expertise. Although most papers were presented in Turkish, we had a few in English. This Introduction is meant to address the English reader and reflect a glimpse of the content of papers. The Introduction is organised in a sequence that would reflect a theme for each chapter, the book is divided into.