Only Exceptional Proff

Term Paper

The student is expected to write a term paper discussing the ideas, or major idea, of one

economic theorist, or a school of economic thought. The student must consult with the instructor

before deciding on the theorist or school of thought. When in doubt, it is best to write about a

classical or early neoclassical theorist. You are strongly encouraged to pick from among the

following theorists: Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham, Thomas R. Malthus, David Ricardo, Karl

Marx, John Stuart Mill, Carl Menger, William Stanley Jevons, Alfred Marshall, Thorstein

Veblen, John R. Commons, and John Maynard Keynes. If instead you’d like to write about a

school of thought, the following would be recommended: Classical, Neoclassical, Institutionalist

(old, not new), Austrian, Marxian, or Keynesian.

The term paper will consist of a 10-page paper (type-written with 12 point font, double

spaced with one-inch margins) in the Author-Date style of citation. Students unfamiliar with

Author-Date format should consult The Chicago Manual of Style as well as the following

website: http://library.williams.edu/citing/styles/chicago2.php.

The paper must show evidence of having consulted academic articles; popular, or lay,

periodicals will not be accepted. The student may consult Wikipedia, and similar internet sites, to

obtain background information, but such sites cannot be used as the basis for the paper. Evidence

of having used such sites will guarantee a D. Examples of appropriate journals would be: History

of Political Economy, The Journal of Economic Issues, the Review of Social Economics, The

Review of Radical Political Economics, The Cambridge Journal of Economics or the Journal of

Economic Literature. The student may consult with the instructor before determining whether or

not an article has sufficient merit to be included in the term paper. The student is also strongly

encouraged to consult The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics as well as the assigned text

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and other well-known histories of economic thought (consult the bibliography that will be posted

on Blackboard).

Papers that do not follow the proper format and/or are sloppy will not get more than a C.

If, in addition to this, the paper is poorly written, the most that can be expected will be a D.

The term paper must be submitted to me through email; it must first be saved as a

Microsoft Word document file (doc or docx) and then sent to me as an attachment to an email.

The file name must read as follows (assuming I’m the one submitting a term paper on Leon

Walras): “Toruno on Walras”.