Chapter 7 Writing, argumentation, presentation, and (Economic) logic
How to write if you have difficulty writing in English (foreign and domestic students included)
Revising, rewriting and proofreading
“Reading your own writing cold, a week after drafting it, will show you places where even you cannot follow the sense with ease.” – McCloskey
Never turn in a paper for preliminary feedback nor for your final submission without first doing a spelling and grammar check, as well as looking over the entire paper one last time for random errors.
On MS Word: Select your entire document, use the “Tools” menu to make sure your entire document is set to language: English. Use –“Tools” –“Spelling and grammar check.”
Six rules for clear writing:
Avoid using metaphors, similes, or other figures of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Think of fresh ones wherever you can.
Prefer short words to long ones.
Try cutting a lot of your word-count, especially those words that add little extra meaning.
Don’t over-use the passive voice. And whether passive or active, be clear who did what to whom.
Prefer everyday English to foreign, scientific or jargon words.
Good writing is no place for the tyrant. Never say “never” and always avoid “always”, or at the least handle them with care. Overusing such words is an invitation for critics to hold you to your own impossible standard.
– From The Economist online (Prospero blog, “Johnson: Those six little rules”, July 29, 2013). Many years ago George Orwell famously proposed six rules for writing (“Politics and the English Language”, 1946). While much revered, Orwell’s rules are now regarded as overly strict – even Orwell failed to comply on occasion – hence the revised list, above.
7.1 Writing well: Clarity, focus and tone
Your writing must be understood by others. This sounds trivial but it is not. As McCloskey (ref) writes, try to write
[not] merely so hat the reader can understand but so that he cannot possibly misunderstand.
Write so that the reader’s brain does not freeze up but comes along with you for the journey. By all means make sure your word processor is set to language=English and do a grammar and spelling check (as well as online tools for this like Grammarly). Read over your paper and have others read it over to make sure it is readable.
Simple, short sentences with few clauses are usually easier to follow than long-winded excursions with many clauses, like this marathon of a convoluted sentence, where I go off on an unrelated narrative that obscures the main point, making it more and more confusing, which is exactly the point I’m trying to make—see what I’m doing?
…
Make your paper presentable and standard in format: Find examples of well-written papers and their correct formats and make your paper look like them in its style and format.
Be focused. Your dissertation should ask a question and try to answer it. Do not stray from this.
Write about economics. Your dissertation should be an economics dissertation. It should demonstrate (some of) what you have learned in your modules.
Show understanding, but don’t “show off” pointlessly. Be sure to show that you understand the concept you’re talking about, but also be sure to only include concepts that are relevant to the previous point, answering your topic question.
Modesty of results. Very little in economics is ever conclusively demonstrated, perhaps unfortunately. You don’t have to claim to have definitively answered an earth-shattering question. Just present a small but credible piece of evidence that contributes to answering an interesting question. If you’re doing a theoretical paper, consider applying (and extending) an existing model to a new context. If your paper is a literature survey, try to bring a new perspective or a new insight into your overview of the existing work.
What is yours and what is others’?
Be clear to differentiate what you have done from what others have done. Explain what your contribution is and fully reference others’ work that you mention and cite.
7.2 Writing in a professional style
Terminology
Tone
7.3 Presenting an argument
7.4 Polishing your paper and making it look professional
7.5 Logic and rigour
7.6 Statistical and econometric logic and rigour; stating your results (and others’)
For example, if you are using an instrumental variables approach, what is your instrument and how do you justify it? State this early in your paper and prominently.