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Writing an extended essay in economics

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Writing an Extended Essay in Economics

Introduction Approaching an extended essay in any subject area can be an intimidating prospect. However, like most large tasks, the essay is much more manageable if you take it one step at a time and rely on your advisor to lead you in productive directions. What makes for a good economics EE? You may want to look at some previous essays I have on file in my room to get an idea for the scope of topics that recent students have undertaken. There is a lot of variation, but successful ones are nearly always based on a central question that the author attempts to answer. Investigating this question will lead you to review the research of others, to synthesize others ' work in new ways, …show more content…

Since you cannot proceed with your analysis until your data are in place, the prompt completion of your data collection is of critical importance. Much of what you need is likely to be easily available through standard published or electronic sources. But there may be other data series for which you will have to search extensively and some you may not ever find-- there are almost always snags. The first step in data collection is to compile a wish list. You should consider the characteristics of the data that are most desirable for your study. List all of the variables that you think you might need. If you have doubts about the availability of some variables up front, formulate strategies for doing without them in case you cannot obtain them. Once you have your list, start collecting numbers and entering them into your computer data base. The earlier you organize your data into data tables, the better.

Creating results Once you have reviewed the relevant literature and collected the data you need for any empirical work you plan to do, you are ready to get down to the central task of research: creating results. The way that you achieve these results depends entirely on the research methodology you and your advisor have chosen. It may involve theoretical reasoning using economic models, combining and/or comparing the results of others, interpreting

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