How to Write about Economics and Public Policy

Katerina Petchko

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780128130117
• Topic: Volkswirtschaftslehre
• Subtopic: Öffentliche Finanzen

How to Write about Economics and Public Policy is designed to guide graduate students through conducting, and writing about, research on a wide range of topics in public policy and economics. This guidance is based upon the actual writing practices of professional researchers in these fields and it will appeal to practitioners and students in disciplinary areas such as international economics, macroeconomics, development economics, public finance, policy studies, policy analysis, and public administration. Supported by real examples from professional and student writers, the book helps students understand what is expected of writers in their field and guides them through choosing a topic for research to writing each section of the paper. This book would be equally effective as a classroom text or a self-study resource.

• Teaches students how to write about qualitative and quantitative research in public policy and economics in a way that is suitable for academic consumption and that can drive public policy debates
• Uses the genre-based approach to writing to teach discipline-appropriate ways of framing problems, designing studies, and writing and structuring content
• Includes authentic examples written by students and international researchers from various sub-disciplines of economics and public policy
• Contains strategies and suggestions for textual analysis of research samples to give students an opportunity to practice key points explained in the book
• Is based on a comprehensive analysis of a research corpus containing 400+ research articles in various areas of public policy and economics

Chapter 1

What Is Academic Writing?

Abstract

This chapter begins by examining the limitations of a traditional view of academic writing as a universal set of writing skills and steps and discusses the differences between academic and general-purpose writing. It then focuses on disciplinary differences in writing and shows how the requirements, preferences, and conventions of a particular discipline shape what writers working in that discipline write, what they write about, and how they create a flow of text that readers find coherent and persuasive. The chapter then looks at academic writing as part of the research process and as a dialogue between the writer and the reader and provides suggestions for learning to write like an expert.

Keywords

Academic writing; Disciplinary differences in writing; Genre; Research process; Expert writing; Graduate writing

Academic Writing as a Universal Set of Skills

Academic writing is often defined as a form of argumentative writing that is directed toward an academic audience and that is characterized by certain writing conventions (such as the use of references) and language use (such as the use of the passive voice or the third person).

This definition underlies many English for Academic Purposes courses, where students are taught linguistic and rhetorical forms that are said to be characteristic of all academic writing and where they learn various composing strategies such as outlining, summarizing, and proofreading. Students practice these forms and strategies by writing essays about personal experiences and opinions, which are evaluated by language teachers who often do not have any discipline-specific expertise in the students’ discipline.

The implicit assumptions behind this definition are that good writing is good writing regardless of the context, and that writing can be learned as a series of context-independent skills and strategies, which, once mastered, will transfer across genres and disciplines. Yet, research in writing shows that there are no abstract, context-free standards of writing quality because different contexts and reader expectations impose different constraints on writers: What is good writing in one context and for one type of audience may not be as successful in other contexts and for other audiences (Diederich, 1974). Good writing is really “a matter of achieving [the] desired effect upon an intended audience” (Irvin, 2010, p. 5). Achieving this effect requires, above all, understanding the rules and conventions of the particular research area the writer is working in.

There are enormous disciplinary and genre variations in writing, and these variations determine how writers go about completing and presenting their work. Ultimately, it is the conventions of the discipline and research area that will dictate not only what writers can write about but also how they should write about it—how they should frame their study, describe their contribution, present their results, and support their claims. As Hyland (2005, 2009) reminds us, even such “obvious” and universal academic practices as using and citing sources appear to be guided by disciplinary conventions, which dictate whether the writer should quote or summarize, cite or assume common knowledge, or place citations at the beginning of a sentence or at the end. Becoming a good academic writer, therefore, is not just a matter of acquiring generic skills and strategies for summarizing, describing, or citing sources; it is a matter of mastering “a repertoire of linguistic [and rhetorical—we might add] practices” (Paltridge, 2004, p. 90) that members of the writer's discipline or research area find persuasive.

Academic Writing vs. General-Purpose Writing

Perhaps a better way to define academic writing is to look at its features and how it differs from other types of writing. Below are some features that distinguish academic writing from general-purpose writing in English. If English is not your native language, as you read, consider to what extent the features of academic writing that are described below would apply to academic writing in your native language.

• • Purpose. The main purpose of academic writing is to persuade the reader to accept the writer's claims to knowledge. This requires that the writer display subject-matter knowledge as well as present arguments in ways that members of the discipline find appropriate. In general-purpose writing, the purpose is to inform or to entertain, and no display of subject-matter knowledge is usually required.
• • Audience. In academic writing, the audience is experts, people with expertise in their field and knowledge of what counts as acceptable writing in that field. In general-purpose writing, the audience is nonexperts.
• • Use of evidence. In academic writing, claims to knowledge are supported with evidence, which usually comes in the form of scholarly literature or data. General-purpose writing, in contrast, does not require presentation of evidence beyond personal opinions or experiences.
• • Intellectual engagement. General-purpose writing does not require a great deal of intellectual engagement and has been compared to impromptu speaking (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987); it requires only that the writer be familiar with the topic and have a grasp of the linguistic system including grammar and vocabulary. Academic writing, in contrast, requires a significant amount of intellectual engagement, as writers are expected to analyze, synthesize, and interpret academic literature and data.
• • Style of argumentation. Academic writing is explicit in argumentation. Ideas are developed clearly, reasons behind claims are explained, and arguments are supported. The reader should not have to ask, “Where does this come from? What does this mean? What is the basis for this assertion?” There is often a clearly formulated central argument, which is developed without departures from the main point. In general-purpose writing, writers usually present personal opinions and support them with personal experiences.
• • Tentativeness. Academic writing tends to be cautious in making claims. Hedges are used to make claims sound more tentative. General-purpose writing is usually more direct.
• • Predictability in structure. Academic writing has a predictable organizational structure, with an introduction, a conclusion, and a body that is often broken into sections and subsections. In each of these sections, information is organized in a predictable manner. For example, in an Introduction, there is usually a statement of the problem, a review of relevant literature, and a statement of purpose.
• • Strict conventions. Academic writing follows strict conventions for citations, references, use of rhetorical devices, and format including headings and subheadings. There are virtually no strict conventions beyond the conventions of grammar in general-purpose writing.

A focus on the features of academic writing may be useful for learning the similarities that many academic texts share across disciplines. However, such a list of distinguishing features obscures one crucial fact: that the specific realization of these features—the specific things that make academic writing logical, explicit, predictable in structure, and so on—differs among disciplines and genres. Successful academic writing, therefore, depends not only on the writer's understanding of how academic writing differs from general-purpose writing but also, crucially, on the writer's understanding of the specific rules and conventions that exist in his or her discipline and in the target genre (Hyland, 2005). These two concepts—discipline and genre—are at the heart of becoming a successful academic writer.

The Notion of Genre in Academic Writing

The term genre may refer to two things—a type of text such as a description, comparison, or problem-solution, or a category of communicative events that share certain characteristics, such as a research article, a book review, a university lecture, or an academic textbook (Paltridge, 2001). It is in this latter sense that the word genre is used in this book.

Genres exist in a particular social, cultural, and institutional context; this context reflects the goals, values, and expectations of the members of a discipline, and at the same time it determines the specific features that characterize a particular genre in a particular discipline (Paltridge, 2004). Because of their inseparability from the context, genres cannot be learned in a decontextualized manner. This is especially true of the genre research article because this genre is strongly influenced by disciplinary ways of thinking, researching, and writing. Not only the content but also the structure, style, and features of this genre will depend on the discipline, subdiscipline, and even on whether the article is qualitative or quantitative; they will also depend on the institutional and cultural contexts and on where exactly the article has been published. As a result, a qualitative research article in public administration written for a discussion paper series will look very different in content, structure, style, and language from a quantitative research article in labor economics written for a major publication of the American Economic Association.

To understand how a particular genre “works,” writers need to become aware of the context in which that genre is produced and understand what one can write about...