Your essay is worth 15% of your grade.
You will act as discussant for a macroeconomics journal article. A discussant at an academic conference is the person with the responsibility of providing valuable feedback to the author and audience. In your role as the article discussant, you will 1) identify the question that the article is trying to answer, 2) explain how the author tries to answer the question, 3) explain the article's conclusion and relevance, 4) give criticisms that you have with the paper, and, importantly, 5) offer your suggestions for making the paper better. The essay will be 3-4 pages long, typed, and double-spaced. Do not hand in a copy of the article with your essay, but instead provide a complete reference so that I can find it if needed. You should reference the economic theory and statistical and empirical terms and concepts learned in class. You must chose an article from Econlit <http://www.aeaweb.org/econlit/journal_list.php>. I must approve the journal article, and you must send me a link to your essay by November 12 for approval. The academic journal article that you are to discuss should be substantial in length (at least 8 pages). The article must be an original piece of research, and not a book review, a dissertation summary, or a summary of a conference, for example. The article must deal with an empirical economic question (not simply theoretical). You will turn in two drafts of your essay, and both will be graded. The first is due Wednesday, November 19 and is worth 2/3 of the score. I will grade and edit this first draft and return to you. The final draft is due Wednesday, December 10. You must turn in your first draft along with the revised draft or you will receive no credit for the edits.I strongly suggest that you visit the HSU writing center in Library 32 (basement) before you turn in your first draft.
Your essay will be graded on writing mechanics, your summary of the article, and your critique and suggestions. You can read the Grading Rubric and Good Writing Rules. Here are good writing examples from Economic History of the U.S. 1, 2, and 3. And here are bad writing examples 1, 2, and 3.
Tips for writing your essay:
1. Make your essay easy for me to read. Organize it into the five sections listed above, in order, and label each section.
2. Give the complete reference for your article, including authors, title, journal, year, volume, and pages.
3. Newer journal articles (written after 1980) tend to be easier to follow, with an abstract, introduction, and conclusion. Older articles tend to be written in a less concise, essay format.
4. Use spell checker and grammar checker. Have someone proof read your essay before you turn it in.
5. Place special emphasis on sections 4 (criticisms) and 5 (suggestions).
Tips for reading the journal article:
1. First, read the paper's abstract, introduction, and conclusion. These will tell you what question that the article is trying to answer, how the author tries to answer the question, and what the conclusions are.
2. Second, re-read the paper's abstract, introduction, and conclusion.
3. Notice the outline of the paper. What is each section of the paper trying to accomplish? Usually the introduction tells you what to expect in upcoming sections. A common outline includes an introduction, a presentation of economic theory, a description of the data, the empirical results, and a conclusion.
4. The figures and tables usually have something important to say (otherwise the author wouldn't have taken the time to separate them from the main text body).
5. Skip over the more challenging parts of the paper during the first reading of the article. Try to read the article through the first time without getting stuck in the details.
6. Read the article a second (or third) time if needed.
7. If the mathematical or statistical parts of the paper make no sense, try to understand what is being done, even if you can't understand how to do it.
8. If you're really stuck, see Professor Eschker, or
consider picking another paper.