Econ 170 -- Spring 2005

It has to have sections.

Cover Sheet (name, title, date)

1. Introduction (1 page)

Two approaches:
a) para 1 "___ is an interesting/important question."
para 2 "This paper is about that."
b) para 1 "This paper is about ..."
goal: to reach people who only read introductions.

2. The Model (2 pages)
justify lhs variables. justify rhs variables.

3. The Data (1 page and a table)

4. Empirical Results (2 pages text (3 with equations), n pages tables)
regressions in text as equations
regression in tables
regressions in Stata format (log file, using fixed pitch (courier))
(Pros watch the number of decimal digits.)
Tables on separate pages is fine.

5. Summary and Conclusions (1 page)
Restate goal more briefly that in the introduction.
What did we learn?
Goal: Catch people who flip to the conclusions.

Every paragraph has a topic sentence, which comes first unless you have a really good reason for breaking this rule.

Every sentence has a subject and a verb, in that order unless you have a really good reason for breaking this rule.

Decide whether "I" wrote the report, "We" wrote the report, or nobody wrote the report and then be consistent.

Try not to "run regressions".