Writing Tips For Economics Research Papers∗
Plamen Nikolov, Harvard University

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June 10, 2013

1 General Tips about Writing Style
When I read your term papers, I look for your ability to motivate your question using economic logic, your ability to critically analyze the past literature, and your ability to recognize empirical problems as they arise. In particular, it is important that your term paper demonstrates that you are more knowledgeable, analytic, and sophisticated about the economics of health or development economics than we would expect, say, a clever editorial writer for The New York Times to be. You should present evidence, cite literature, explain economic trade-os, and generally approach the issue from an analytic perspective.

Sometimes, a student is tempted to stray into opinion-page,

journalistic writing in his or her term paper. Do not do this.
Teaching good economics writing is one of the goals of the departmental writing requirement and is a valuable lesson for potential thesis writers. You will get a lower grade if your writing is

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ungrammatical,

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unclear,

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journalistic.

If you have trouble writing grammatically, please leave yourself some extra time and go to a writing

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tutor . Clarity is the rst priority in economics writing. Do not worry about being  snappy if you are being clear. Journalistic writing is characterized by the lack of an analytical tone.
Below, you will nd some notes about the  economics style of writing. The desirable style of writing is exemplied by most of the papers on the syllabus.

Economists have a certain writing

style that can be picked up easily and is useful to learn if you want to be taken seriously by other economists. Some of the points of style may seem arbitrary, but follow them anyway.

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Favor the present tense.

For instance: