Lecture 4: Outlining and structuring a paper

1. Lecture 4: Outlining and structuring a paper EC831, David Reinstein, 2013

2. Some examples of good writing & presentation by students The Essex Economics Students Journalincludes some of the best term papers and undergraduate projects from the past decade. However, be aware that these papers are not “edited” for presentation in the journal, so even these papers may have weaknesses. At UC Berkeley, https://www.econ.berkeley.edu/undergrad/theses lists all of their honors undergraduate papers. For example, here is a very good empirical paper on development economics (albeit with some grammatical and other small mistakes): https://www.econ.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/Soosun%20Tiah%20You_thesis.pdf This one, “Isolating the School Quality Premium in Housing Markets,” looks good https://www.econ.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/HonorsThesis.ArmanKhachiyan.pdf

3. Some examples of good writing & presentation by students… Here is a good example of how to present tables and output from Stata in a "nice" way: https://www.econ.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/David%20Arnold%20thesis.pdf These are examples from Stanford 2013 (there are also links to 2012 and previous years): http://economics.stanford.edu/content/honors-thesis-2013

4. Some examples of good writing & presentation by students… Here is a good, though rather advanced, micro theory paper. Winners of the “best thesis prize” at Duke University are shown here: http://econ.duke.edu/undergraduate/honors-program/awards-and-showcases This paper combines theory and empirical work: Joel Wiles, "Mixed Strategy Equilibrium in Tennis Serves" (2006)

5. Why an outline? The outline for your term paper is the agenda you set for the things youwant to accomplish. No matter what your field or topic, there is a fairly standard set ofthings you want to accomplish in the paper -From “Writing Economics” by Chris Foote

6. The outlining/working process Create an outline, take notes, write down your ideas and then integrate these into the outline Balance the different parts of your paper … literature review, theory, data work, econometrics, stating results, summarizing conclusions, etc. these will interact with one another and you cannot completely separate them. …Doing theory and empirics, integrating it into the outline, etc.

7. Cutting and pasting? It might be part of your process, but don't let final submission to be a cut and paste collage! [Write] out the notes as paragraphs, then print them out, cut them up with scissors, finding the best arrangement.–McCloskey This is “old-school” but a good way of thinking about things in general, whether in print or on a screen.

8. Standard format (for an empirical paper) Abstract Introduction Literature review Modeling Data description Analysis and results Conclusion List of works cited Exercise: examine and compare the section structure of the economics papers you are reading. Try to “diagram” the paper as you read it.

9. Abstract Brief synopsis of your paper (100-200 words) and it’s findings. A “sales pitch”. Example from a recent Essex Student (Fenghua Chen: see EESJ)  A very strong (award-winning) paper and a good succinct abstract. I’d like to see a brief mention here of what the 2 tests are, though.

10. Abstract Student example: Khachiyan, UC Berkeley Note how the abstract both describes the technique in context, and presents the key result.

11. introduction Describe your question/topic and motivate “why it is interesting" and “why it is useful”. Many authors make the introduction a miniature version of the paper, including the key results and a ‘roadmap’ of the paper at the end of the introduction. There is some disagreement about the extent to which this is good practice, but it is certainly common practice

12. Literature review: Survey the literature on your topic. Focus on: • what previous papers have found that directly relate to your topic, • what techniques have been used, and • what the implications are for your analysis. ! This will draw from, but not be identical to, the literature survey you are to turn in at end of Autumn term.

13. (Modeling etc.) • Adapt/present a theoretical model? • Derive an “estimating equation” for your empirical work • Explain and justify your approach and econometric technique

14. data Specifically describe and cite it • Describe the data (or case studies) you use here. • If it is public data, what is its official name and source? If not, how did you obtain or collect it? • What years are using, and for what "population"?

15. Examples • GDP and education data from all OECD countries from 1990-2010, accessed through DataStream. I merged this to the Index of Democracy and Freedom published by the Heritage Foundation (citation here) in 2012. • BHPS (now USOC) regular sample, all households present from years 1995-2001. • Administrative data on tax returns of high-earners in the UK (over 100k) for 1984, accessed by arrangement with the HMRC. • NYSE stock market data on the S&P 500 stocks from 1900-1975, accessed through DataStream

16. Data on bids and sales prices of “Penny Black” stamps downloaded from Ebay for auctions ending between Jan. 2010 and December 2012, accessed on November 1, 2013. (Downloaded using a web crawler). • Data collected by from the Primary School Deworming Project (published in Miguel and Kremer, 2004; data obtained from the authors by request) • Data on proposed firm mergers and acquisitions submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission or the US Federal Trade Commission in the years 1950-1970.

17. Data (sectiOn) • What does it look like? • Broadly, what does the data look like? What are the means and what is the dispersion of key variables of interest? How does this breakdown by others the variables of interest (e.g., income by gender)? • Summary statistics • You may want to a table (or multiple tables) of summary statistics here and comment on these. [We will come back to how to produce this.]

18. Plausibility and Reliability • Particularly if this is a nonstandard data source, how reliable is it? Do the summary statistics seem reasonable, and do they align with other related data sets? • Subsetting choices, data transformations, etc. • What choices did you make with the data? Did you select a subset of for a particular reason? If there were missing values, how did you deal with them? Did you create any interesting transformations and combinations of variables? Did you adjust for inflation, and if so, using which index?

19. Results: Present your results using graphs and charts (be sure to carefully label them). Describe your results. Make sure they are stated in interpretable and well explained "units" (e.g., income rather than log income). Consider their statistical significance as well as their magnitude. Check the “robustness” and “sensitivity” of your results.

20. (Discussion) • Critique your method and its strengths and weaknesses • Robustness checks • Further discuss and interpret the results • Extensions/policyimplications

21. Conclusion • Summarise your results (again some people largely repeat the introduction here/but I don’t recommend this) • Further interpretation and (policy, management, theoretical, methodological) implications • Suggestions for future research

22. End bits • List of Works Cited (Use correct citation, alphabetize by first author’s surname) • Appendix • Tables (or supplementary tables)

23. Organise from large to small • Outline • Sections • Paragraphs • Sentences

24. Does it mean anything (to someone reading it for the first time?) Is it relevant to your paper? Does it repeat what you already said? Does it belong in this paragraph or section? Is it economically meaningful? Is it “correct economics”? Does it contain a logical flaw? Is it too long? Is it fully explained? What is the purpose of every sentence?

25. Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte. I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time. Blaise Pascal, Provincial Letters: Letter XVI, 4 December, 1656. [English Translation]