1. Choosing a Topic

The first and most important step is choosing a suitable topic. You need to make sure your topic is not too broad since this will prevent you from writing a well-focused term paper.

It is essential to do some background reading on the topic and be sure to start this process early since it will help you determine whether or not your topic is feasible. As you search for an appropriate
topic you should run ideas by your instructor who will help you narrow the focus and identify an interesting question. Once you have chosen an appropriate topic for your paper it should be easy to formulate a clear research question.

It is important to tailor your writing based on the type of paper you are assigned. There are several different types of economics term papers that you might encounter: theoretical papers, literature surveys, empirical papers (utilizing econometrics or descriptive statistics), issue papers and case notes.

Theoretical papers typically use mathematical models to understand economic behavior, though sometimes theoretical papers might rely upon graphical models. Constructing mathematical models requires a certain level of mathematical sophistication and might prove to be difficult for most undergraduate students.

A literature survey discusses and synthesizes a set of works from (mostly) published sources that are on the topic of interest to the researcher. This type of paper requires a lot of reading and it is imperative that you gather relevant books and peer-reviewed journal articles (i.e. articles that have been published in academic journals after being reviewed by other scholars in the field). A good literature survey not only presents all the relevant ideas but also attempts to seek connections between the articles.

An empirical paper uses data to answer questions about an economic issue. Such a paper requires some background in statistics and econometrics which will enable you to analyze the data. You should postulate some hypotheses and use the data to refute or support these hypotheses. Most empirical papers also have a literature survey that outlines the contributions of previous empirical research and may include some economic theory.

An issue paper describes a policy question and outlines a position using economic analysis (presented with prose and graphs, where appropriate) to support the writer’s position. This analysis will likely be drawn from class lectures and reading, as well as additional scholarly sources. If data is available to supplement the writer’s analysis, this can also be included in the
paper.

2. Structure of the Paper

Below is a framework for writing an empirical paper, though the steps can be modified to write any of the other types of term papers you might encounter in the discipline.

I. Introduction

A. Statement of the topic and question to be analyzed.

Once you have selected a topic you should be able to state it in the form of a question that your paper seeks to provide an answer to.

B. Rationale for the choice of topic

It is important to tell the reader why you chose this topic and what makes it interesting.

C. Organization of the remainder of the paper

Outline what will be covered in the following sections of the paper to provide the reader a roadmap of the author’s arguments.

II. Body of the Paper (inclusion of these subparts and the length of each depends on the type of paper)

A. Presentation of related literature

A literature review summarizes the views of other scholars who have written on this topic. The literature review will allow you to demonstrate how other scholars have approached the topic and indicates a gap in this literature that you seek to fill. The length of the literature review depends on the type of term paper you are writing and the amount of work already written on your topic.

B. Application of Economic Theory

You should present the economic model/theory on which your paper is based. You must display mastery of the material covered in class as well as appropriate usage of economic theory. This does not mean that you have to develop your own mathematical model.
Instead, it serves as a means to demonstrate that your ideas are grounded in economic theory.

C. Analysis of Data

Firstly, provide a description of your data, including a discussion of how the variables for your empirical model are constructed and the sources of all your data. Second, you should provide summary statistics on the relevant variables in a table either in the body of
the paper or in an appendix. In the body of the paper you should include a presentation of the results of your empirical analysis and provide a careful interpretation of your findings. Your empirical analysis might entail regression (if you are familiar with econometric methods), a simple statistical analysis of the data, or even the use of graphs and charts to effectively display interesting features of the data that help support the
arguments made in the paper.

III. Conclusion

While concluding the paper, you should restate the objective of the paper. Following this, you should provide your conclusions taking care to distinguish your contribution from the existing literature on the topic.

3. References

A. News Articles versus Scholarly References:
You may certainly read sources like The New York Times and The Economist in order to do some background reading on a policy issue. However, these sources are not peer-reviewed and therefore are not suitable for a research paper. EconLit, an online database for economics journal articles and books, is an excellent point from which to initiate a search for scholarly literature. Note that it is not appropriate to use open-source online
encyclopedias such as Wikipedia.

B. Formatting of References (plus information on parenthetical citations and footnotes):
Economics journals typically require a documentation style that combines parenthetical citations with the so-called Chicago/Turabian format for references and footnotes, and this is what we require for your papers. The parenthetical citations provide limited information about your sources and complete bibliographic information about each source is provided in a separate references page. Footnotes are used to incorporate additional material that is pertinent but supplemental to the statements presented in the text.

C. Academic Honesty:
Be warned of the dangers of plagiarism.

4. Miscellaneous Details

I. Outline

We advocate that you write an outline for the paper before you begin to writing the paper following the “Structure of the Paper” guidelines.

A useful outline usually takes some time to put together, but will save you plenty of time and effort when you sit down to write the paper and will also result in a more coherent paper.

II. Some Formatting Rules

• All margins should be one inch.
• Use a standard type face in 12 point font.
• Indent your paragraphs.
• Double space the text; single space footnotes, endnotes and long quotations.
• Single space within each reference entry and double space between reference entries.
• Since hyperlinked items are often underlined, use italics, rather than underlining, for titles of books and periodicals.
• Do not attach a cover page

III. Graphs and Charts

Graphs and charts should have numbers (such as Figure 1 or Table 1) and titles. The source of the data should be indicated at the bottom of the graph or chart. You may either insert the graphs and charts in the body of the paper or include them in an appendix to the paper. Graphs may be neatly hand drawn or you may use a drawing tool included in your word processing software.

IV. Proofreading and Revision

Use the spell-check feature of your word processing software, but do not use it as your sole proofreading measure! Carefully read your draft to eliminate the spelling errors that the spell checker misses, to correct awkward and/or repetitive phrases, and to reorganize your sentences and paragraphs to improve the flow of the paper and eliminate redundancies.
After a careful revision, we recommend that you have another person read the paper, too.