Write, Write On in ECON
Undergraduates at Case Western Reserve University have incredible freedom when it comes to choosing their academic major. The University’s “single-door” admission policy grants every admitted student unrestricted access to over 70 academic fields of study ranging from Biomedical Engineering to Religious Studies. Students are free to search for the major that really sparks their interest, without committing themselves to one of the University‘s four undergraduate colleges. While some new students abstain from declaring a major until the end of their second year (to be absolutely sure that they‘ve chosen the most suitable major), others discover their passion during the early months of their first year.
After conducting an unhurried exploration of Case’s academic offerings, I decided to declare my major during my first semester. I chose Economics as my major for myriad reasons, mostly because I thoroughly enjoyed my first-semester “Macro” economics class, and because I appreciated the logicality and “real world” practicality that accompany the study of taxes, interest rates, and exports. Although, I have recently learned that these reasons for choosing Economics won’t assure me complete success in my concentrated studies. In future coursework, the enjoyment and real-world application that drew me into the vast world of Economics will take a “backseat” to the essential skill of writing.
This fact remained aloof during my earliest days as a student of “Macro,” when I spent hours internalizing, not just studying, the basic concepts of the subject. I remember reciting aloud the “Ten Principles of Economics,” over and over again, while trying to understand the theoretical reasoning behind them. As I examined principles after principle, theory after theory, I detected an apparent correlation between Economics and writing. How do authors of such theories present their findings to the broad community of economic minds? They accomplish this through the translation of intellectual developments into words - writing. How did I come to understand why there is a “short-run tradeoff between inflation and unemployment?” I read A.W. Phillips’ (a mid-20th century British Economist) theory concerning the tradeoff, in my Macro textbook.
During later days as a first-year Macro student, the correlation that I had detected, between writing and Economics, became unmistakable in my day-to-day coursework. On several occasions, my professor issued homework assignments that involved summarizing news articles founded on familiar economic principles. As an example, one of the assigned articles, entitled “The $750,000 Job,” dealt with the costs and the benefits of free trade in today’s world. Working with such an article was a great benefit for me, because it effectively bridged a mental gap between the classroom setting at Case, and economic issues in the “real world.” I soon learned that summarizing articles can be a critically important factor in the coursework of an aspiring Economist.
During an interview with my professor, Martine Lussier, she divulged her reason for asking her students to summarize articles. She believes that completing summaries develops writing skills essential to a serious study of Economics. To develop this point, Professor Lussier reflected on her past, when she herself was a student of Economics.
At the beginning of her undergraduate studies, Professor Lussier assumed that a concentration in Economics would require sharp math skills over developed writing skills. She was soon proven incorrect in her assumption, when she was required to summarize newspaper articles which pertained to pertinent economic issues of the day. Her first summaries were long, drawn-out essays, devoid of clear topics or any sense of direction. However, after completing several summaries, she learned to narrow down her topic and focus on the “core” of the article about which she was writing. When constructing her summaries, she asked herself, “Is this [piece of information] important?” This strategy helped her cut out the extraneous information, construct shorter, more concise sentences, and maintained a constant focus on her topic. Her sharpened, more developed writing skills and strategies were utilized later in her study of Economics. When writing research papers, especially the more challenging ones (sixty pages in length), she used the same strategies she used for her article summaries; she always began by dividing the paper into sections: first, identify the problem, second, explain how you tackle the problem, and lastly, state a conclusion. With any writing project undertaken in Economics, each claim must revolve around the thesis.
Several of Professor Lussier’s thoughts about writing as a student of Economics were reflected in a second conversation I had, this one with a student currently majoring in Economics. I spoke (through email) with “N,” a sophomore Economics major at Case Western Reserve University, and asked him to comment about the role that writing plays in his major field. Some of his thoughts are as follows:
Writing in economics courses requires being very precise and brief. You have to get to the point and explain yourself clearly without a lot of sentences or unnecessar[y] big words. The purpose of writing in economics is to explain concepts and ideas. This is unlike creative writing or poetry, which in some cases requires vagueness in order to
be profound.
Writing is extremely important for an economics major because in economics, so much is based on theory. Theory requires explanation and a basis for why [a theory] makes sense. We [Economics majors] have to be able to write in words why certain theories make sense and why they are rational. In upper level economics work, forming your own experiments and theories requires you to explain [theories] precisely and succinctly to others in the field. That's how research papers are written and lead to new findings and ideas. If the theories/ideas are not well written, [they are] unlikely
to be understood or accepted by other economists.
I drew several conclusions from my conversations with Professor Lussier and N. Firstly, the writing done within the field of Economics isn’t expressive or creative in nature or tone. Rather, it seems to be a very functional kind of writing, defined by purpose and structure. Both N and Professor Lussier spoke to this point. Concise, “well written” explanations bridge the gap between the development of economic theories (the pillars of this academic major) and the acceptance of those theories by the worldwide economic community. Secondly, in order for fellow and future economists to accept a proposed theory, the explanation and justification must be founded on “rational” claims that focus on the “core” of the economic phenomenon being analyzed. Thirdly, you have to defend your arguments and explain in writing, how you arrived at particular conclusions. There are so many different schools of thought in Economics, from the classical school of thought to the theories of early 20th-century Economist John Keynes. As N suggested, if a student of the discipline chooses to focus on the quantity rather than the quality of his writing, then the reader will be hard-pressed to find any merit in the theory or economic principle being justified in the writing.
Following my conversations with N and Professor Lussier, I completed an assessment of my current writing skills, and formulated a strategy to improve them for future coursework. I know I have a habit of becoming wordy in my writing, and, contrary to N’s advice, I insert unnecessary words into my arguments. In order to “be profound,” as N put it, I cram page after page with fluffy language, when the same ends could be accomplished in a few concise paragraphs. I have already adopted my improvement strategy, by pausing during my writing assignments to check for flow, clarity, and a definition of purpose. If these conditions are met, then I can be sure that I am well-prepared to tackle the writing that defines the life of an Economics major.
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