Guidelines for the term preparation of the term a paper
1. You must refrain from submitting a plagiarized work, which means writing your paper in your own words. 2. You must refrain from submitting a plagiarized work, which means writing your paper in your own words. 3. You must refrain from submitting a plagiarized work, which means writing your paper in your own words. 4. You must refrain from submitting a plagiarized work, which means writing your paper in your own words. 5. You must refrain from submitting a plagiarized work, which means writing your paper in your own words. ____________________________________________
6. You must meet with me for about 20 minutes or so in order to discuss your topic. I will give you some feedback and suggestions.
7. It should be about 9 pages double-spaced in length, which is the equivalent of approximately 2,000 words. The margins should be about half of an inch on each side of the page, and perhaps ¾ of an inch on the top or bottom. I am turned off by efforts to make your paper appear longer than it really is.
8. This is essentially a report paper, sometimes called a term paper. It is not an expository paper, by which I mean that you do not have much make arguments and defend them. Instead, you only have to discuss the idea or ideas on which you are focusing. You do have to persuade me that you understand the material about which you are writing.
9. The topic should be one of the following: a. A summary of the ideas of an economic thinker that I did not cover in class. In the case of a somewhat minor one, you might need some input from me regarding how to embellish it. In the case of a major one, on the other hand, you might need some input from me regarding how to narrow down your focus. b. A treatment of an idea of an economic thinker that I did cover in class, except that you deal with this particular idea in greater depth. c. Other models are possible, but you must clear them with me first. For instance, one former student read some of the modern economic research regarding the current-day economic phenomenon of increasing corporate concentration, and related it to Marx’s prediction that small-scale capitalists would be expropriated by large scale-capitalists.
10. For case a) above, you should use both of the textbooks (Rima and Landreth & Collander) as sources. From those works you can find a few more references. In some instances you can read part of the original work, but do not get hung up on technical details. For case b), you can commence your research by re-reading the texts, but you must find other sources. I have placed a number of great sources on reserve at the library. The Rima book can be accessed at: https://oculuo.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01OCUL_UO/s28b5q/alma9910448730 05005161
11. Last semester some students drew on articles that appeared in the scientific literature on the history of economic thought. If you choose such a source, you should show me the article, because some of them turned out to be hard to understand.
12. You should dedicate about two-thirds of a page to your introduction, in which you indicate your central thrust and the points that you are going to discuss. You should allocate about seven pages to your presentation and discussion of the economic thinker. It is here that you present the essence of his/her ideas to me. If there were several ideas, then you should probably concentrate on one of them. You should allocate about two-thirds of a page to your conclusion. In this component, I want for you express your view of this thinker. Was he/she totally off-base, or can you put yourself in his/her environment or context and see a slither of sense? 13. If you are a native speaker of French, you should write your paper in French. If you are not a native speaker of either English or French, I will not penalize you for bad writing provided that I can read it without too much frustration. If I have trouble reading your paper, I will send it back to you for a re-write. Students in this situation should hire a proofreader and/or editor for their paper. You must still be the genuine author of the paper, however. If much of your paper is actually written by an editor, your submission will be treated as an act of plagiarism.
14. The early deadline for the paper is Wednesday, 7 December. Papers that are handed in by that time will benefit from a slight bonus (one third of a letter grade). The firm deadline will be on Friday, 9 December, after which late papers will be penalized via a sliding scale. Other sources:
1. Encyclopedia / reference sources
a. World Book Encyclopedia of history of economic thought: https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/History_of_economic_thou ght
b. ‘The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics” Most of these entries are short.
c. “The History of Economic Thought Website“, which is another encyclopedia of the history of economic thought: https://www.hetwebsite.net/het/index.htm
d. Of course there is Wikipedia. Remember that Wikipedia is not edited for accuracy of content, and therefore not everything that appears there can be verified. The list of references that appears might be legitimate. These sources are to be used in order to inform you of the essence of economic ideas. After having digested the content, you should browse through other sources (often provided in the reference lists) to enrich your knowledge. Copying and pasting is a very dangerous practice that should be limited only to a few sentences, which you should then place in quotation marks and fully attribute.
2. Classic hardcopy volumes
e. “Handbook on the History of Economic Analysis” Edward Elgar Publishers
f. Backhaus, Jurgen (2012) “Handbook of the History of Economic Thought: Insights on the Founders of Modern Economics, Springer Verlag publishers
g. “Types of economic theory; from mercantilism to institutionalism. Edited with an introduction” by Joseph Dorfman. This classic is on reserve at the library.
h. History of Economic Thought – Lecture Notes on “Types of Economic Theory”. 2 volumes. By Wesley C. Mitchell. These are lecture notes that were edited by followers for Mitchell. Call number: HC 10 .J64 (related to item above)
i. “Economic history and the history of economics” by Mark Blaug, call number: HC 26 .B58
j. “The History of Economic Thought: A Reader” second edition, edited by Medema and Samuels: https://oculuo.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01OCUL_UO/s28b5q/alma991044 873366505161