It is time to pick a term paper topic. I will be approving your topics and will inform you if your topic is not suitable. Please stop by my office if you want to discuss an idea before putting in a lot of time and energy.
We are approaching this course from three viewpoints: (1) The lectures cover specific points of economics using short handouts. (2) The textbook describes the entire money and banking field in general, and we are interested mainly in the descriptive material from that source. (3) The term paper will cover a narrow, but descriptive topic in depth. Your goal for this third element is to learn a lot about a particular point without doing the sort of analytics we deal with in the lectures. Ideally, I would like you to read and evaluate the congressional hearings and reports (or material of a similar level) on one particular policy issue.
I strongly suggest that you find a topic by browsing. Look through CIS, EconLit, ABI-INFORM, or even your textbook. The most important point is to quickly, efficiently sort through a set of ideas, establishing the likelihood of finding good references for each. That is, think about some ideas before you start doing detailed reading, but make sure you see references listed for your idea. A good guideline is the following: if your reference has color pictures, it is not likely to be acceptable.
Please try to find something that you find interesting because you will do better work if you are interested in your topic. In your term paper, you will be discussing an issue with at least two opposing viewpoints that are expressed in your research material
Progress Report Contents. The form for Progress Report 3 is available as a pdf file. (From most computer labs, you can simply click on the link and then hit "print" once the form is visible.)
Staple your material to the PR3 form. Make your own copy of this progress report. I will be keeping the copy you turn in.
We want to be sure that ample reference material is available. The form asks for six references. You can either use the Reference Report Form or you can provide the same information in a similar format.
If a reference appears in a work with corporate authorship, which many of your references will, you must also describe the volume as a whole. I would suggest that you use one citation for a volume and then reference that volume by number. For example:
[1] Senate Student Activities Committee, Hearings on Restricting Hours of TV Viewing at Federally Supported Universities, May 1, 1991, ...
[2] Joe Student, "I Want my MTV All Night Long," in [1], pages 100-120.
(2) State the two viewpoints that you intend to evaluate. A few sentences for each position will be adequate. State the numbers of the references that present each position.
Professional Standard. Before you turn in your work, apply the following standard. Does this look like the professional work of an educated college graduate? Would anybody pay good money for this type of production? If your work does not meet this standard, why not?
Posted by bparke at February 5, 2003 09:49 PM