This writing assignment asked you to “do some research on a social problem you are interested
in.” And “it was a practice to conduct a basic research on a social problem from economics
perspectives.”
Hence, I read and evaluated your assignment according to the following guideline in the order
of importance and sophistication.
1. Writing quality: Same principles as for the writing assignments applies here. Read my
Writing Assignment Grading Guideline.
2. Topics and connection with economics: Same principles as for the writing assignments
applies here.
3. Clear identification of the question(s) you want to address/ask in your research project.
As we talked a lot in our class, a research project comes from your own curiosity, and you
need to know what you want to learn as a result of your research. So first and foremost,
you need to communicate with the reader what you are asking in your research.
4. Clear idea about how to address your question(s). I did not expect you to conduct any
independent and original research for this assignment, and I expect all of you used some
sort of published resources (news articles, academic papers, or publicly available statistical
data, etc). If you cite those resources, you need to have a good reason why those are useful
for addressing your question(s). And more importantly, you need to communicate with
the reader about why.
A research paper is not a mere collection of information. For example, encyclopedia
or dictionary contain lots of information, but those are not a “research” in itself. The
information needs to be organized in such a way that you can guide and tell the readers
why and how you used those resources to address your question(s).
5. Consistency and strength of your analysis: This is somehow more advanced than what I
meant in Point 4. Point 4 is about logical aspect of your analysis, but this is more about
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how well you address your question(s). First of all, your analysis needs to come from
economic perspectives. For some questions, the basic economic analysis as you learned in
Econ 201 may be sufficient. However, when it comes to social problems, you may need
to go through more critical analysis as we have been doing in our class throughout the
semester. For this, you may need to refer a bit more advanced economics idea(s) or you
may need to use non-economics resources or ideas. But you need to have a good reason for
that, and also you need to communicate with the reader well. Research is communication
after all.
6. Last but not least, for this assignment, especially at this level of your economics study, I do
not expect you to come up with any sort of conclusive results or answers to your question(s).
Yes, I hope that you found a reasonable ”settle point” or temporary resolution of your
analysis. That is what the conclusion of your paper may sound like, and you need to be
clear about it.
However, if you have a truly critical eye, you should be still wondering what more you need
to know to further address your questions and issues around them properly or completely,
if possible at all. An excellent research will often lead to more questions and thus more
research. For this reason, research is innately an on-going process. This is the most
advanced aspect of a research activity, and I want you to use this assignment as well as
the whole class activities to hone your critical eye for your own work