Assignment Requirements
Please be sure to include both. Anything more than 525 words or less
than 475 words is unacceptable
Evidence and Citation This course requires you to communicate your opinions on a certain set of topics about which the discipline of economics has something to say. An opinion, of course, is not enough; a winning argument is backed by evidence, data, statistics, and authority. If you say that cutting taxes will lift the economy out of recession, you need to offer some sort of proof that this is true. If you say that the income tax is too high compared to the tax rates of other industrial nations, then show me actual numbers. If you assert that a certain nationality’s workforce is the best in the world, define and quantify the word “best.” In this world, you cannot expect to be accepted on faith alone, but you can certainly expect to be taken seriously if you approach your arguments seriously. Taking care to argue with the force of evidence is proof, among other things, that your arguments are in fact serious, and not mere assertions of what you believe to be true.
Your assignments will not call for footnotes or parenthetical citations; indeed, I will not read a paper that comes in with them, and it will earn an automatic D. In the real world, only formal reports come with such things; op-ed pieces do not, speeches certainly do not (for how can you hear a footnote number?), and most other kinds of business writing do not.
For the purposes of this class, forget that you know how to use a footnote—which does not mean that you do not have to cite your sources. That is to say, your assignments will call for research, the consideration of expert opinion, and the use of good, solid, accurate data. That research and the enlistment of good data and outside opinion, all of which add weight to the opinions you venture, can be acknowledged without footnotes in the following manner:
Inserting your sources into an argument in this way makes your argument all the stronger. Who, after all, dares contest the wisdom of such important thinkers and data sets? The idea is to shore up your opinion to the point that it is unassailable. Outside of academia and the law, such shoring up takes place outside of footnotes. To repeat: We will not use footnotes, bibliographies, or other formal citations in this course.
Order Now