Writing for Economics

The purpose of writing in economics is to take a complex concept and present it, your argument about it, and/or your policy recommendations based on it, in a simple and clear way.

• Types of Writing in Economics

  There are different types of writing in this discipline, often aligning with the class level you're in.

  • The bulk of writing in 100-level econ classes will be policy memos, which allow you the opportunity to evaluate the costs and benefits of a situation, policy, or individual choice and to clearly weigh different outcomes, explaining the evidence supporting your argument while also acknowledging the necessary costs and trade offs if that choice is made.
  • Other types of writing in 100-level courses may include short reflection papers after reading a published article, or papers discussing and applying an application to class models.
  • 200 level courses can include those above as well as short essays in response to prompts and argument-driven research papers.
  • Writing in higher level econ courses can include any of these as well as writing economic-analysis research papers, theoretical modeling papers, and empirical analysis papers.

• Good Writing in Economics

  Good economics writing will use short sentences, clearly indicate multistep processes through signposts such as “Step One” “Step Two” etc, and make a complex issue simpler and more understandable for the reader. As one member of the econ department puts it, “there can sometimes be a desire to dazzle, but this can leave the reader confused. I prefer a paper that really walks me through the logic step by step, so I leave with a sense of what the argument was and how evidence was employed in making it.”

  Tip: Keep jargon to a minium and your prose straightforward.

   

  Faculty do not want 4-5 pages of freestyle on your opinion. They want you to impartially weigh the evidence and make the case for why you find a particular reading of the evidence most compelling. Further, professors don’t evaluate papers based on how well the argument corresponds with their own opinions, but rather based on the strength of the argument itself—is it coherently expressed, does it make appropriate use of high-quality evidence? A successful paper will summarize and analyze the evidence, and use student-generated and/or existing-research evidence to make a claim.

• Faculty Tips for Writing in Economics

  In order to brainstorm your introduction, speak your main ideas aloud (to a writing tutor or a roommate or a friend) in just a sentence or two; this is the first draft of your thesis statement. When your friend asks why you’re making that argument, list at least three reasons. Draft your outline based on this conversation.

  When outlining, decide which pieces of evidence you will use, and how you will organize your argument based on those choices. In other words, begin with the evidence, and then start writing.

• Structure of a Policy Memo

  A policy memo asks you to stake out a position, consider the pros and cons, and make a recommendation about what should be done.

  Your goal is to establish what you’re doing early, build the case through evidence, and repeat the thesis towards the end. State your thesis up front, rather than building up to it and serving it as a punchline at the end. This will inevitably result in some repetition, specifically between the introduction and conclusion—don’t fight this.

  Either in the introduction or in the conclusion, state what hole is filled by your line of logic, or how it fits into a larger line of inquiry. Some students prefer to state this right at the start, to establish why the reader should care. Others want it placed at the end, after the whole case has been built.

  Be forthright about why the reader should care about this topic. What is important about the topic, what big questions from the world will be answered by memo? Say right up front, “My paper is important because this issue affects a lot of people…” or something similar.

  Throughout the policy memo, use signposts, “First,” “Second,” “Third,” if you have three points, etc. Aim to use a parallel structure: this stance is a good idea for this reason, but a bad idea for this reason.

• Research Papers

  The goal of this type of paper is to present your big research question, why it is important, what gaps in the literature you are filling in, and, if this is a policy analysis: what policy changes are you exploiting to uncover this research, followed by your results.

  Policy analyses should extensively ground the discussion in data and results, not in hypothetical situations. For example, if your data tells you that X is statistically significant, avoid talking about how X could be related to Y and Z, unless you have evidence of that relationship.

  Research papers should avoid extensive quotes from sources. In other words, don’t stitch together chunks of other people's text with no analysis of your own. As one professor puts it, “I always tell students that a brief paraphrase focused around what's relevant for their argument is more effective than extensive quotations.”

  The general structure for these papers is an introduction stating your argument; background research and/or policy mechanism; data, sample description, and empirical strategy (in policy analyses), results or an analysis of your research, and conclusion indicating where the research may lead.

  Tip: Minimize suspense. The best papers say in the first paragraph what they are going to do.

• Can I Use I?

  Use of the first person is perfectly fine in economics, and talking about the paper as its own entity is also standard practice. You can do both. “This paper will discuss…” followed by, “In section 2, I document…” or “Table 1 shows that there has been…” Write in a matter-of-fact tone, rather than using your personal voice.

• Citation style

  The preferred method is a style, such as the Chicago Author-Date system, that uses author-date parentheticals in the text with a bibliography at the end (not footnotes).