Message from the Director of Graduate Studies
Information for Teaching
Undergraduate
Writing Intensive Courses
Department of Economics
Graduate Program
Writing Intensive courses, as understood by the Council on Liberal Education, are defined as courses at either the upper or lower division level in which the course grade is directly tied to the quality of the student's writing as well as to knowledge of the subject matter, so that students cannot pass the course who do not meet minimal standards of writing competence. In Economics, WI courses require a significant amount of writing - minimally ten to fifteen finished pages. The writing assignments include revisions of drafts/proposals on which students receive feedback from the instructor.
In Economics, the objective of these assignments is to give students an opportunity to apply analytical skills and economic concepts to examine an interesting economic issue and to learn how to write a formal report underpinned by economic logic and evidence.
List of Writing Intensive courses in Economics:
Econ 4331W - Economics of Development
Econ 4421W - Economic Integration of the Americas - also satisfies IP Theme of CLE
Econ 4431W - International Trade - also satisfies IP Theme of CLE
Econ 4432W - International Finance - also satisfies IP Theme of CLE
Econ 4431V - Honors International Trade - also satisfies IP Theme of CLE
Econ 4611H - Honors Evironmental Evaluation
Econ 4100W - Undergraduate Writing in Economics
This is a one credit course, meets once a week, and is monitored by a TA. To receive writing intensive credit for any Honors course or Econ 4831, students can sign up for Econ 4100W concurrently. Course Permission Numbers are available from the TA. The instructors for the Honors courses (or Econ 4831) will set up the writing assignment and students will work with the Econ 4100W TA to complete the paper.
Note that Economics majors must take at least one upper-division writing intensive course in Economics in order to graduate. Not all of these courses are available at all times.
The requirement for completing the WI course is to write a paper examining an economic issue using economic theory and analysis. The finished paper should be 10-15 written pages, plus data, graphs, bibliography. We do not accept surveys and time-lines. Students must pose a question or make a statement (the thesis) and prove it.
The paper is to be written such that it incorporates feedback from the instructor at various stages. Students are required to turn in different iterations of the paper and receive feedback before continuing to the next stage. Typically, students complete a Topic; Outline; First Draft; and Final Draft of the paper. They receive detailed feedback on the first three iterations of their paper.
It is important to remember that the department prohibits using the same (or substantially similar) paper for more than one Writing Intensive Course or the Senior Project. Since Fall 2003, all students registered for Writing Intensive Courses are required to submit a final paper in two forms -- a written version and an electronic version. The electronic version is reviewed to detect any plagiarism. Should any plagiarism be detected, the student will receive a grade of F and a complaint is filed with the CLA Scholastic Conduct Committee. Students should be told to cite all sources used.
STUDENT PROBLEMS
Students face problems with topic selection, researching the topic, finding data, and time management. Instructors can help using the following techniques:
Formulating the Writing Assignment:
The writing assignment must be clearly written with detailed instructions. Please ask other instructors (and S. Sahi) to comment on the assignment itself - does it need to be clearer? Any suggestions? Also, if students comment on unclear issues, please modify your assignment accordingly for future use.
Sequencing with built-in training :
You need to prepare students so they can complete the paper. One way is to assign homeworks which require students to find specific data about the US/other countries or find news articles regarding current economic issues. These help with finding data and Topic selection for their papers.
Please make sure the topic is suitable; in certain instances, you may have to ask students to change the topic if it is not appropriate for analysis. Most students have a tendency to pick economic surveys. This is to be discouraged. Ask them to focus on one narrow question/statement, and then try to prove it. You will need to talk personally with almost every student during the phase of topic selection.
Time-management skills:
All due dates should be mentioned on the assignment.
Please send email reminders to students one week prior to submission of any assignment.
Help with research and finding data:
Introduce students to the Resource Links on the Undergraduate Homepage (links to data, articles, journals, news, government websites).
Show them journal and data resource websites in class - (the University libraries' electronic journals); show how to access EconLit and JSTOR; stress that student's look at previous work done by economists on their topic.
Introduce students to the Lumina website: The Undergraduate Virtual website; the Assignment Calculator; and the Sources for Economics.
You must set aside some class time to answer student questions and concerns about the paper.
Talk to Dr. Sahi about putting "A" papers (from previous courses) on reserve at Wilson Library, so that current students can view them.
Require students to read and summarize an economics journal article (from a reputable journal) - to become familiar with the format of economics articles; they can use the author's bibliography for their research, encourage them to write to authors to ask for data or clarification.
Read and discuss one "Current Economic Topic of the Day" at least once weekly; try to make these relevant to students' paper topics.
Sources of help for students:
- The Instructor should be available to help students - via email or in-class.
- Please use Grading rubrics and give detailed comments on each assignment. (check with S. Sahi on these)
- Please make sure that the grading criteria is explicit; grading scale should be mentioned in the syllabus. We normally do not assign a grade for the topic, but do so for the Outline, First, and Final draft.
- Please refer students to the Writing Center (and other sources) for help with English or with writing.
PLAGIARISM ISSUES
Specific assignment and course-specific strategies should be used to prevent plagiarism and teach responsible use of sources.
The assignment should be broken up into 4 parts- topic, outline, first draft, final draft.
No surveys allowed.
Insist on a thesis statement - (harder to plagiarize here- normally students require a lot of help with narrowing their topic)
Suggest topics such that plagiarism is difficult
Give students a grading grid which lists the criteria used for grading
Direct students to the Writing Center website for help with citing issues
Direct student to the Writing Center website - on how to avoid plagiarism
The department uses TURNITIN (a software program) to check for plagiarism. Papers from all WI courses and Senior Project (electronic copies) are to be turned in to S. Sahi, who will run them through TURNITN.
Dr. Simran Sahi is the CLA Writing Consultant for the department; please consult her for all concerns and needs about writing intensive courses. She is available to help you at all times. If you are teaching a WI course, please meet her during the course to discuss the suitability of topics and your grading.
