Course mechanics.

 Texts.

• I have asked the bookstore to order the following, both as recommended.

  • Oliver E. Williamson, The Economic Institutions of Capitalism. New York: The Free Press, 1985 (paperback).
  • Deirdre McCloskey, Economical Writing. Waveland Press, 2nd edition, 1999.

  Most of the other readings are available online. Some are in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format. To read them, you will need the Adobe Acrobat reader. If you don't have it, you can download it for free.

 Course requirements.

• The grade for the course will be based on six or seven short papers written over the course of the semester. I will assign each paper two weeks before it is due. Each assignment will ask you to write five to ten pages addressing an issue we will cover after the paper's deadline. This will help you -- i.e., force you -- to keep up with the reading. I will deduct one-third of a grade point (e.g., the difference between a B and a B-) for each day the paper is late, and I will not accept the paper at all once we have begun discussing its topic (as to do otherwise would give advantage to procrastinators). This is not a "W" course, so you will not be graded on style, except to the extent that it is impossible to separate form from content and that lousy writing often implies lack of content.  The recommended book by McCloskey may be useful to you in improving your writing.

 Plagiarism.

• The UConn student conduct code defines plagiarism as “presenting as one's own the ideas or words of another for academic evaluation.”  Here are some resources from the UConn Libraries, the UConn English Department, and Harvard University.  Please read these carefully. I take plagiarism seriously.  If you have questions or concerns, please ask me.