Economics 286W
Honors Seminar
Spring
2006
Wednesdays, 2-4
Room 123 Arjona
R. N. Langlois
322
Monteith X63472
Office
hours M 12:45-1:30; W 9:30-11:30
About the course.
This course is intended
primarily for students in the university-wide Honors Program or in the
Department’s Economics Scholars Program (for both of whom it is a requirement),
although other students may enroll with consent of the instructor.
This course will not try to
teach any particular body of substantive economics. Rather, it aims at preparing students to write
a senior thesis in economics. It does this by providing practice in the
writing of economics and by surveying the field through the eyes of various
UConn economics faculty members. A representative
number of faculty members will meet with us to discuss some aspect of their own
research, allowing students a glimpse of what professional economists do and
also helping students to choose a topic and an advisor for the thesis.
The overall objectives of the course,
then, are three: (1) to give you a taste of what professional economists do and
how they do it; (2) to make you a better writer; and -- perhaps most
importantly -- (3) to challenge you with new ideas and to provoke you to think
in new ways.
To help you with your writing, I’ve asked the
bookstore to order a new book called The
Student’s Guide to Writing Economics by Robert Neugeboren. I have also ordered as recommended Deirdre
McCloskey’s Economical Writing. Waveland Press, 2nd edition, 1999. See also my notes on 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.
Course requirements.
Course requirements are a
series of short papers focused on a class presentation by the instructor or a
guest speaker. Students will be assigned
an article or two to read on the subject of the presentation. Students will write a short (2 to 5 page)
essay on some aspect of the topic. The
faculty member will speak informally for 30 to 45 minutes, and then we will
turn to questions and discussion. The
reading and writing assignment is intended to prepare you to ask intelligent
questions during the discussion.
Toward the end of the semester,
I expect to schedule presentations by senior undergraduates who are completing
their thesis projects. These talks should
help you get an idea of what is expected in a thesis and the range of topics
that is possible. There will also be
one-on-one discussion of possible topics as appropriate.
