Economic writing differs significantly from other forms of writing. Its core characteristic is technical precision, with clarity as the ultimate goal. When presented clearly, the strength of the core analysis and the high quality of the research will stand out.
Unlike narrative writing in other fields, economic research requires time and dedication. Successful papers are not produced quickly the day before the deadline.
General Guidelines for High-Quality Social Science Research
Getting Started Effectively
The most challenging aspect of any writing assignment is often the initial step. Social science research typically begins with a strong understanding of the existing literature. Papers often benefit from a section that summarizes and applies previous research to the current work. This is a great place to begin.
Your writing should demonstrate a clear understanding of relevant findings.
Structure and Organization
Social scientists typically use the opening paragraphs to establish the research questions and the models or data used to explore them. While this may seem straightforward, this method makes sure that both the writer and the reader have a clear understanding of the topic and structure of the following work.
Achieving Clarity and Conciseness
While clarity can be difficult, revising and editing can result in a paper that is simple to read.
- To organize your thoughts into an argument, use an outline.
- Define all key terms clearly.
- Formulate your hypothesis, then use deductive reasoning to arrive at your conclusions.
- Avoid excessive verbiage.
- Revise your work by editing and removing anything unnecessary. Continue revising until you can communicate in a straightforward, efficient manner.
- Use active voice whenever possible.
- Frame statements positively.
- Omit unnecessary words to make your writing clearer.
- In summaries, maintain a consistent tense.
Effective Time Management
Even the most well-thought-out articles may be ruined by poor time management. Deadlines are critical to the completion of research papers.
- Begin by identifying your topic.
- Start researching as soon as possible.
- Make an outline.
- Write a rough draft.
- Revise and polish your work.
Understanding the Language of Social Science Analysis
Economic theory has become increasingly mathematical. Many PhD candidates have a math background and not just economics majors. As a result, a solid understanding of mathematical language is typically required for quality social science research. Economic analysis uses models that are simplified representations of how economic events work. The model’s predictions about the past or future are essentially empirical hypotheses. Because economics is difficult to test through controlled experiments, research necessitates real-world data (census reports, balance sheets) and statistical techniques (regressions and econometrics) to assess the predictive power of models and hypotheses.
The Social Science Writing Process
Finding a Relevant Topic
Finding a topic can be accomplished in a variety of ways. You might be writing for a specific economics subfield, which would limit your topic choices and make the process easier. Most research, however, begins organically, from passive reading or prominent news items. Choose something that interests you. Find a specialty and contribute to the subfield.
You’ll also need a project that fits into the parameters of the assignment. A potentially fascinating topic may be unachievable given the time and other limitations you confront. The secret is to be realistic.
Begin your research as soon as possible. Your topic will change over time, and the question you start with may become less appealing as new information pulls you in new directions. Shaping your topic based on the available data is acceptable, but avoid becoming bogged down in endless revisions.
Finding and Using Reliable Sources
Economic sources are divided into two categories: empirical data (information that is or can be easily converted into numerical form) and academic literature (books and articles that help you organize your thoughts).
Economic data is collected in a variety of useful secondary sources:
- Economic Report of the President
- Statistical Abstract of the United States
- National Longitudinal Survey
- Census data
- Academic journals
Structuring Your Work with an Outline
A good outline serves as an agenda for your goals.
- Introduction: Pose an intriguing question or problem.
- Literature Review: Examine the existing literature on your topic.
- Methods/Data: Define your hypothesis and describe your data.
- Results: Use graphs and charts to show your results.
- Discussion: Evaluate your method and discuss any policy implications.
- Conclusions: Summarize your findings and pose questions for future research.
Writing a Strong Literature Review
The literature review demonstrates your familiarity with scholarly work on your topic and lays the foundations for your paper. The issues you wish to raise, the terms you will use, and the approach you will take should all be defined in relation to prior scholarly works.
Presenting a Clear Hypothesis
Formulate a question, problem, or hypothesis, and explain how you intend to answer, solve, or test it. When presenting your hypothesis, include a discussion of the data set you’re using and the type of regression you’ll be running. Indicate where you acquired the data and provide a table, graph, or basic statistics to summarize it. It may be impossible to get firm conclusions in term papers. Don’t be hesitant to state this clearly and accurately. It’s acceptable to have an inconclusive paper, but making excessively broad and unsupported statements is not.
Effectively Presenting Results
There are two key decisions to make: (1) How many empirical results should be presented, and (2) How should these results be described in the text?
- Focus only on what is important and be as clear as possible.
- Less is often more: Reporting a small group of relevant results is preferable to covering every possible statistical analysis that could be performed on the data.
- Clearly and precisely describe your tables, graphs, and figures in the text of your results section.
Discussing and Analyzing Results
When discussing results, avoid value judgments and stick to economic facts and analyses. Drawing policy implications is not the job of an economist, even if the study provides strong evidence in a particular direction.
Referencing Sources Accurately
As with any research paper, the referencing depends on the will of the professor. Economists, however, typically employ soft references in the literature review section and then cite sources in standard formats at the end of papers.
