May 8, 2008

How do we write a great paper ?

What makes a good paper ? Sure we all wonder how to get our work published in a great journal. Personally, I think about it every day. Yet I dont really have a clue how to present my research nicely in a paper, such that something mediocre looks like experience. Sure part of this process is experience and some of us are probably better writers than others. Yet I feel ( and maybe I am just silly in the head) that grad school experience may have given me a ton of technical skills from log-linearizing DSGE models to estimating econometric models with Bayesian methods in Matlab, but presenting and writing a good paper does not seem to be one of them so far. While some of us are probably naturally better writers than others, surely some of the skills associated with writing the kind of great papers we read in JME, AER, EER, JIE, and so on can be learned. TO be honest maybe it is just me who feels like that and maybe most people are better writers than me, yet I think that it may be usefull if we share wirting and presentation tips among each other. So let me start. The website 'Tips for Economists' provides valuable tips for economists at all stages of their life, from the application status to becoming a tenured prof. Much of the stuff posted there is focused on great writing as well.
http://www.iies.su.se/~masa/tips4economists.htm

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