Mehlum & Moene, April 2003

How to write an exam-paper in the course development economics

(and maybe more generally)

1. Read the question and underline the terms you believe are crucial (maybe 3-5) and define them.
2. Make an outline for how to respond to the question(s).
   a) The purpose of the outline is to delimit your essay and to concentrate it around a few specific claims.
   b) Your essay cannot cover everything you know.
   c) What you choose to concentrate on needs a motivation.
3. A good essay may have the shape of a champagne glass:
   a) A broad introduction that is narrowed down to motivate your specific claims and your approach to analyze them.
   b) The analysis should be self-contained. Imagine a reader who has not attended the course but who is quite smart. Hence the reader needs to get all terms defined, assumptions made clear and the mechanisms explained, but not in a pedantic manner. Be explicit about how your analysis is relevant for the question.
   c) End by summing up and make sure that your main answers are clear.
4. Some final advice.
   a) When you read through your paper, almost every page should mention at least one of the crucial terms. Otherwise it's an indication that the paper is running astray.
   b) Make sure that you answer the question. Be specific when you check the paper: Where did I answer the questions?
   c) When you use a formal model use it explicitly. If you just mention some alternative approach, you don't have to formalize it.
   d) Focus on the aspects of the model that are relevant for the questions that you answer.
   e) Your outline is a guide. You may revise the outline as you work with the paper.