Focus of the Essay:

Testing some economic theory and presenting personal research.

 

Graded on ability to:

Selecting appropriate information, showing personal research in this information through surveys, etc., and linking the data to the research question.

Using appropriate economic terms.

Understanding the relative economic concepts.

Using relevant economic theory from the start of the essay.

 

Choosing the topic:

Must rely on personal research rather than secondary sources.

Start with the unknown and progress to the known.

Know the theory you are testing, the data required to test it, how you are going to test it, how you will analyze and evaluate it.

Important to show emergence of unresolved questions and discuss them.

 

Sources:

Primary Source: raw data from personal research

Secondary Source: any information from reference materials that relate to the topic.

Use online sources sparingly

 

Treatment of the Topic:

Consider conducting a small-scale investigation to test an aspect of economic theory.

A larger topic would lead to the examination in depth of a small case study.

Problems in the Past:
One problem is the reliability of the secondary sources, such as scholarly journals rather than websites.  A description of the topic must be made of the event to show understanding.  A substantial number of quotations and citations must be made, around 20-30.  Presenting a balanced point of view rather than one sided has also proven difficult.