Writing an extended essay in economics Essay Example for Free

Writing an extended essay in economics Essay Approaching an extended essay in any subject area can be an intimidating prospect. However, like most large tasks, the essay is much more manageable if you take it one step at a time and rely on your advisor to lead you in productive directions. What makes for a good economics EE? You may want to look at some previous essays I have on file in my room to get an idea for the scope of topics that recent students have undertaken. There is a lot of variation, but successful ones are nearly always based on a central question that the author attempts to answer. Investigating this question will lead you to review the research of others, to synthesize others work in new ways, and to conduct theoretical or empirical research on your own. In its most basic form, your essay should be an argument, using tools of research and reasoning appropriate to the field of economics, in response to the central question you have chosen to investigate. Producing a good EE can be broken down into a series of stages, as outlined below. Each stage involves a substantial amount of work and, to some degree, must be completed before the following stages can proceed. Steady progress throughout the EE process is crucial to produce a successful essay. Students who achieve the benchmarks for progress set by their advisor are usually able to minimize the amount of stress arising as the final essay deadline approaches. Choosing a topic Selecting a good topic is the first step in a successful research project. You will be devoting considerable energy over an extended period to studying this topic, so it is important to choose an area in which your interest is likely to be sustained through the lengthy research and writing process. Within your area of interest, the most crucial issue is do-ability. A major cause of disappointment and frustration for students is choosing a topic on which it is difficult to make progress, either because the question is so large that they cannot manage it or because the question topic cannot be easily investigated using the tools that they command. While you are the best authority on your own areas of interest, you will have to rely on your advisor’s advice, to help you find a specific topic that you can complete on time with the resources that are available. Specific, focused topics are almost always better than highly general or vague ones. Questions like How can we reduce water pollution? or What determines the rate of technological progress? are so broad that an adequate answer could not fit into an extended essay. However, once you have a general topic, you will need to undertake research in order to narrow it down. Reviewing relevant literature All scholars in economics build on the shoulders of others. The first step of your thesis research is to search broadly and deeply to find out what others have discovered about your question. There are many resources available to help you with this search. Everything you read will contain citations to earlier work on related topics. SSRN, EBSCO and Questia, on-line libraries, are excellent resources for economics research. If you cast your net broadly at the beginning, and devote time to this part of the research process, you are more likely to acquire the theoretical background that is essential to conducting further research. As you begin reading for your EE, you should also begin writing. You will need to keep detailed notes on everything you read, including full bibliographic information in the appropriate format. (Be very sure that your notes distinguish between the authors words and your own. Plagiarism can arise inadvertently if you aren’t careful). Photocopy all passages you think you might want to quote and any tables that contain useful data. The notes you make as you read can be the basis of your â€Å"literature-review section†, which is an important part of any research essay. Collecting data If you are doing an EE that requires empirical data, and a good EE will, your biggest obstacle is likely to be assembling your data base. Since you cannot proceed with your analysis until your data are in place, the prompt completion of your data collection is of critical importance. Much of what you need is likely to be easily available through standard published or electronic sources. But there may be other data series for which you will have to search extensively and some you may not ever find there are almost always snags. The first step in data collection is to compile a wish list. You should consider the characteristics of the data that are most desirable for your study. List all of the variables that you think you might need. If you have doubts about the availability of some variables up front, formulate strategies for doing without them in case you cannot obtain them. Once you have your list, start collecting numbers and entering them into your computer data base. The earlier you organize your data into data tables, the better. Creating results Once you have reviewed the relevant literature and collected the data you need for any empirical work you plan to do, you are ready to get down to the central task of research: creating results. The way that you achieve these results depends entirely on the research methodology you and your advisor have chosen. It may involve theoretical reasoning using economic models, combining and/or comparing the results of others, interpreting numerical data, or conducting surveys/experiments. About all that can be said in general about the process of creating results is that some aspects of the results are very likely to surprise you. Solutions of theoretical models, and experimental outcomes usually do not end up exactly as you envisioned them at the beginning. If these results arrive just a few days before the draft of your essay is due, you are unlikely to have time to develop a satisfactory explanation for them or to conduct the additional research that would resolve them. At a bare minimum, you should plan to have all of your results generated two weeks before the first draft of your essay is due. This will give you at least a little time to reflect on and refine them in the completed essay. Finishing the Essay The last stage of preparing your EE draft is the formulation of your conclusions and the preparation of the draft itself. At this stage, you turn all the work have done into a coherent argument, starting with your central question, explaining how your work builds on that of others toward an answer, describing and interpreting your results, then summing everything up with your conclusions. The argument should flow naturally from a statement of the question to a discussion of the contribution of others to a description of your own research to your formulation of an answer. Each section should advance the argument, following from the previous piece and leading to the next one. If a section does not relate to the overall argument of your thesis, it should not be in the essay. It is advisable to leave a week or so before the first draft is due to reread the entire essay and make sure that the pieces fit together. At all stages of writing, you need to deal with issues of formatting. Make sure to include appropriate references and citations in a consistent format the minute you put pen to paper. Do not think that this is something you can do once you finish writing. Additionally, you will need to sequence the numbers of your sections, figures, and tables, produce a table of contents and write an abstract. Revisions Regardless of how good the first draft of your essay is, your advisor will have comments and suggestions for improvement. Arguments that seem clear to you may not be as readable to someone else. There may be flaws in empirical work or theoretical arguments that are not apparent until the entire EE is read in proper sequence. As soon as your advisor tells you that they have finished their reading, you should pick up your draft and read through their comments. You will need to meet with your advisor to discuss the essay and clarify what revisions are necessary. It is to your benefit to understand and fulfill the expectations about revisions since you will have only one chance to improve your essay. Adapted from: http://academic.reed.edu/economics/thesis/writing.html Useful links to further links/sources of economic information/data: http://cc.ysu.edu/~eeusip/internet_data_sources.htm#INTERNET%20SOURCES http://www.pitzer.edu/academics/field_groups/economics/research.asp

Role of Colour in Impressionism :: Essays Papers

Role of Colour in Impressionism In this essay, I shall try to examine how great a role colour played in the evolution of Impressionism. Impressionism in itself can be seen as a linkage in a long chain of procedures, which led the art to the point it is today. In order to do so, colour in Impressionism needs to be placed within an art-historical context for us to see more clearly the role it has played in the evolution of modern painting. In the late eighteenth century, for example, ancient Greek and Roman examples provided the classical sources in art. At the same time, there was a revolt against the formalism of Neo-Classicism. The accepted style was characterised by appeal to reason and intellect, with a demand for a well-disciplined order and restraint in the work. The decisive Romantic movement emphasized the individual’s right in self-expression, in which imagination and emotion were given free reign and stressed colour rather than line; colour can be seen as the expression for emotion, whereas line is the expression of rationality. Their style was painterly rather than linear; colour offered a freedom that line denied. Among the Romanticists who had a strong influence on Impressionism were Joseph Mallord William Turner and Eugà ©ne Delacroix. In Turner’s works, colour took precedence over the realistic portrayal of form; Delacroix led the way for the Impressionists to use unmixed hues. The transition between Romanticism and Impressionism was provided by a small group of artists who lived and worked at the village of Barbizon. Their naturalistic style was based entirely on their observation and painting of nature in the open air. In their natural landscape subjects, they paid careful attention to the colourful expression of light and atmosphere. For them, colour was as important as composition, and this visual approach, with its appeal to emotion, gradually displaced the more studied and forma, with its appeal to reason. Impressionism grew out of and followed immediately after the Barbizon school. A distinctive feature of the work of the Impressionists was the application of paint in touches of mostly pure colour rather than blended; their pictures appeared more luminous and colourful even than the work of Delacroix, from whom they had learned the technique. To the modern eye, the accepted paintings of the salon artists of the day seem pale and dull.

A Streetcar Named Desired

The Character of Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire Blanche, Stella's is by far the most complex character of the play. An intelligent and sensitive woman who values literature and the creativity of the human imagination, she is also emotionally traumatised and repressed. This gives license for her own imagination to become a haven for her pain. One senses that Blanches own view of her real self as opposed to her ideal self has been increasingly blurred over the years until it is sometimes difficult for her to tell the difference.It is a challenge to find the key to Blanche's melancholy but perhaps the roots of her trauma lie in her early marriage. She was haunted by her inability to help or understand her young, troubled husband and that she has tortured herself for it ever since. Her drive to lose herself in the â€Å"kindness of strangers† might also be understood from this period in that her sense of confidence in her own feminine attraction was shaken by the knowledge of her husband's homosexuality and she is driven to use her sexual charms to attract men over and over. Yet, beneath all this, there is a desire to find a companion, to find fulfilment in love.She is not successful because of her refusal or inability to face reality, in her circumstances and in herself. Blanche has a hard time confronting her mixed desires and therefore is never able to sort them out and deal with them. She wants a cultured man but is often subconsciously attracted to strong, basic male characters, perhaps a response to her marriage with a cultured, sensitive man which ended in disaster. So although Blanche dislikes Stanley as a person, she is drawn to him as a type of man who is resoundingly heterosexual and who is strong enough to protect her from an increasingly harsh world.This seems to be the reason for her brief relationship with Mitch, but it becomes clear to Blanche that Stanley is the dominant male here and she begins to acknowledge that fact. When Blanche te lls the operator in Scene Ten that she is caught in a trap, part of her realises she has set herself up via her desires. Stanley is the embodiment of what she needs, yet detests, and, because of her sister, can never have. After Stanley has stripped her of her self-respect in this scene, she becomes desperate, unable to retreat to her fantasies and so this deeper layer of her desires is revealed. You can read also  Similarities and Conflicts in † a Streetcar Named Desire†Yet, Blanche does not know how to face these feelings and she senses to give into them could be disastrous for her. As Stanley advances towards her, she tells him, â€Å"I warn you, don't, I'm in danger! † but Stanley has made sure that this time there is no where for her to hide. In her final act, she silently acknowledges that her own desires have also led to this date. It is interesting that neither Blanche nor Stanley seriously seem to consider Stella as Scene Ten reaches a climax. They both recognise that somehow they are drawn together and also repelled by forces that are directly between them and that have little to do with Stella.Things come to a head so quickly that it is as if tensions have been bubblingore emotionally and mentally crippled than before. Yet, Stanley and by extension Stella, are not clear victors. Like Blanche, Stanley is also revealed to be capable of deceit, he does not admit the truth of what happened between him and Blanche to his friends, to Stella, and maybe not even to himself. Stella makes a conscious decision to believe Stanley instead of her sister because to do otherwise would be both emotionally and economically difficult with a new baby so she, too, is engaging in a measure of self-deception.Stanley survives because of sheer physical presence, not because of any innate superiority. Blanche suffers overall on many fronts in her new environment, but in conclusion although one does feel pity for Blanche she has to a large extent with her own weaknesses brought her own downfall. Blanche can not compete in the new household she is placed in Stella has already claimed her territory and ultimately will choose her marriage over her sister.Blanches past erupts into the present and without at the forefront is the contradiction to the facade Blanche has put up over her sexual needs and desires. So confused is Blanche over sex the one weap on she has to gain a husband her sexuality she can no longer use. In the end Blanche is living in a era which was smashed a hundred years before this moment of time in the play. This era Blanche lameness in is the gentile society of Southern America with wealthy European colonials engaging politely in society. For Blanche this refusal to let go of the past and adjust to her new surroundings and the

Adoption Of E Prescribing At The Va - 1923 Words

Adoption of e-prescribing at the VA will allow non-VA providers to electronically transmit prescriptions to the VA outpatient pharmacy. This change will bring an opportunity to align itself with the e-prescribing component of Meaningful Use requirement. It will also accommodate an increasing number of prescriptions from providers outside the VA pharmacy since the Choice Act of 2014. What are some specific benefits or ROI resulting from its implementation? 1) Improvement in clinical outcomes Adoption of EHR can derive a great amount of benefits in clinical outcomes such as patient safety and quality of care. Qualtiy of care can be measured with different dimensions such as patient safety, effectiveness, and efficiency. Patient safety is defined as ‘avoiding injuries to patients from the care that is intended to help them’(Menachemi and Collum, 2011, p. 49). Often times, lack of time can contribute to omission of asking patients important questions such as drug allergy information and confirming important patient identifiers such as addresses/phone numbers. Improvement of medication error is a well-noted benefit of EHR as seen in numerous researches. According to a study, researchers found that a CPOE system was contributory in reducing serious medication errors by 55% in the hospital setting (Bates, 1998). Many other studies have reported similar findings in patient safety improvement. When e-prescribing is used, prescriptions can be checked for any drug in teractions withShow MoreRelatedImplementation Of An Electronic Prescribing System5537 Words   |  23 Pagesimplementing an electronic prescribing system, a variety of sources were reviewed. 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