Economics for Managers - BUS702
Assessment task 2: Essay
TOPIC for 2016
When the GFC crisis hit, most of the developed world went into recession. According to the strict official definition of recession, Australia did not. Examine the relative roles played by the Federal Government, the Reserve Bank of Australia and foreign trade in this outcome.
SUMMARY OF CRITERIA
Factual content and economic analysis should be correct, argument should be clear and coherent, referencing should be complete and follow the Harvard system, grammar, spelling and presentation should be of a high standard and the essay should be well-structured, including an introduction that answers the question.
SUGGESTION OF A PLACE TO START YOUR RESEARCH
The ANU’s journal Agenda, available free online at:
http://press.anu.edu.au/titles/agenda-a-journal-of-policy-analysis-and-reform-2/
Especially look at Volume 18 Number 1 2011 and Volume 17 Number 2 2010.
COPY OF REQUIREMENTS FROM COURSE OUTLINE
See next page.
Goal: The topic will require you to apply your knowledge of the economic theory you have learned in the context of a contemporary problem. The topic will change each session and will be available on Blackboard at the beginning of the course.
Product: Essay
Format: This is an individual assessment.
Introduction and conclusion
The introduction should be one paragraph that introduces the topic of your essay, answers the question, and shows how you intend to address this topic.
The conclusion should summarize the major points covered in the essay and bring these together in a way which follows logically from the body of the paper. New ideas should not be introduced in the conclusion.
Body
While essays should be written in a formal tone, they should also be written clearly and concisely. This means you should use paragraphs composed of short sentences and choose the simplest words that convey you’re meaning accurately. Your essay should also be structured so that your argument flows logically from point to point.
The content of your argument should be factually correct and relevant to the question.
Research and references
The essay should demonstrate the depth of your reading on the subject.
Reference your discussion in Harvard style. This means that whenever you draw on another author’s argument or theory; include the author’s name and the year of the publication in brackets at the end of the sentence. If you quote directly from that author, use inverted commas e.g. ‘……’ around the quote and include the page number in the brackets. Do not use footnotes for references. This link at ANU gives some simple examples of how to use Harvard style , as well as links to further detail:
https://academicskills.anu.edu.au/resources/handouts/referencing-harvard
At the end of your essay, you should include a bibliography, which lists more complete details for the sources you have referenced within the body of your essay. The citation for each reference should be author, year of publication, title of the book or article, publisher and city of publication. If you are citing from a newspaper or journal article, the citation should be author, year of publication, title of the article, title of the newspaper or journal, volume and issue number or date if it is a newspaper article, page number(s) of the article.
Spelling, grammar and presentation
Attention to the final edited version of your paper is important. It is expected that you will not have spelling or grammatical errors in your presentation and that your essay will use idiomatic standard English.
You are required to word process your essay. Type on one side of the page only, using double-spacing, font size 12 and wide margins.
Graphs or statistical information do not contribute to the word count but may be a useful part of your essay. It is important that they relevant to the argument that you are developing, are actually referred to in the discussion component of your answer and are presented in your assignment as close as possible to this discussion. It is quite acceptable to use hand drawn graphs, provided they are correctly and neatly labelled, and all graphs are relevant. Hand drawn graphs can either be scanned into your essay in order to facilitate electronic submission.
Criteria • Economic analysis
• Correct and clear argument
• Communication
• Referencing - Harvard system,
• Grammar, spelling and presentation
• Essay structure
Generic skill assessed Skill assessment level
Communication
Graduate
Information literacy
Graduate