Writing for Economics Courses

General Tips

• Read your assignment sheet carefully and check for specific questions that must be answered. Use the formatting style of your professor's choice, whether that's Chicago Style's Author-Date system, Chicago Style's Notes-Bibliography System, APA, or something else.

• Use the third-person point of view for the entire report.

• Use correct grammar, spelling, and syntax. 

Research

Any argument you make must be proven by evidence. While a firehose of information is available on the internet, simply "googling" will probably result in too many sources with not enough credibility. To help narrow down potential research and find more credible sources, try databases like Google Scholar or Kiefer Library's many databases. You can also visit the Kiefer Library, located in the Learning Commons, and talk to a librarian for more help. 

See our Finding and Evaluating Sources page for:

• Tips on effective internet searches

• Guide to using the Kiefer Library

• CRAAP guide for evaluating sources for credibility

Creating a Thesis to Guide Your Paper

Once you've researched your topic, you'll want to formulate your thesis. This is the argument you'll be making in your paper. A thesis should tell us what we will be learning. Sometimes in economics, your thesis may make predictions. See our Thesis page for more guidance.

Not a thesis

In this paper, I will talk about housing prices.

What about housing prices? Will they increase? Decrease? What is putting pressure on the housing market? Make an argument here.

Housing prices are increasing.

Getting there... but what argument can you make with this information?

A thesis

Because of lowered interest rates and rising housing prices, investors should consider real estate instead of banking their savings.

This is a clear, specific argument that will further be proven by evidence. Note that someone could disagree with it- that does not make it a bad thesis!

Organizing the Paper

You will probably want to create an outline before moving on. An outline helps you to organize your thoughts. Unless your professor has asked for a specific layout for your paper, you can count on these elements in your paper:

Introduction paragraph 

the introductory paragraph will give us a little background info on your topic and introduce your thesis.

Body paragraphs

unless your professor has indicated otherwise, you can think of body paragraphs as the place where you prove your thesis, point by point. For example, using our thesis above, we might organize our body paragraphs like this:

Body paragraph 1: Proves lowered interest rates using credible evidence from research

Body paragraph 2: Proves rising house prices using credible evidence from research

Body paragraph 3: Proves a historical trend of better returns on real estate compared to savings accounts.

Evidence

Within each body paragraph will most likely need evidence from your research. Make sure to cite all sources in the style your professor has assigned, and avoid plagiarism.

Conclusion

Your conclusion paragraph tells the reader what they should have learned from your paper.

References List

Your references list, or bibliography, shows your readers where your information came from. Each reference citation corresponds to a source used within the paper.

Drafting and Revision

Once you've got your outline, it's time to begin drafting. Don't worry about getting it perfect at first; it's best to get all your thoughts out and edit afterwards. Once you've drafted, you can:

• Revise

• Double-check for grammar issues

• Double check your citations and formatting