Tag: academic writing

Make Examinations Relevant Again

Alice Evans (and if you are unfamiliar with her work, here’s a great way to begin learning more about it) recently tweeted about a topic that is close to my heart:

And one of the replies was fascinating:

I’ve asked students to create podcasts in the past for assignments, but not yet for final or semester end examinations, because I am constrained by the rules of whichever university I’m teaching in. There are some that allow for experimentation and off-the-beaten-path formats, but the vast majority are still in “Answer the following” mode.

But ever since I came across that tweet, I’ve been thinking about how we could make examinations in this country better, more relevant, and design them in such a way that we test skills that are applicable to the world we live in today, rather than the world of a 100 years ago.

To me, the ideal examination would include the following:

  • The ability to do fast-paced research on a collaborative basis
  • The ability to work as a team to be able to come up with output on the basis of this research
  • The ability to write (cogently and concisely) about how you as an individual think about the work that your team came up with

What might such an examination look like? Well, it could take many forms, but here’s one particular form that I have been thinking about.

Imagine an examination for a subject like, say, macroeconomics. Here’s a question I would love to ask students to think about for such an examination today. “Do you and your team find yourself on Team Transitory or Team Persistent when it comes to inflation today? The answer, in whatever format, should make sense to a person almost entirely unacquainted with economics.”

This would be a three hour long examination. Say the exam is for a cohort of 120 students. I’d split the class up into 10 groups of 12 each, and ask each group to spend one hour thinking about this question, and doing the research necessary to come up with an answer. They can discuss the question, split the work up (refer to textbooks, refer to material online, watch YouTube videos, discuss with each other, appoint a leader – whatever it is that they need to do) and come up with an outline of what their answer is.

The next hour would be coming up with the answer itself: write a blogpost about it, or record audio, or record video. The format is up to them, as is the length. The only requirement is that the output must answer the question, and must include reasons for their choice. Whether the background information that is required to make sense is to be given (or referenced, or skipped altogether) is entirely up to the students.

And the final hour must be spent on a short write-up where each individual student submits their view about their team’s submission. Given that the second hour’s output was collaborative, does the student as an individual agree with the work done? Why? Or why not? What would the student have liked to have done differently? This part must be written, for the ability to write well is (to me) non-negotiable.

To me, this examination will encompass research (which can only be done in an hour if the students are familiar enough with the subject at hand, so they need to have done their homework), collaboration and the ability to think critically about the work that they were a part of. Grading could be split equally on a fifty-fifty basis: half for the work done collaboratively, and half for the individual essay submission.

Sure, there would be some problems. Students might object to the groups that have been formed or students might end up quarreling so much in the first two hours that they’re not left with much time. Or something else altogether, which is impossible to foresee right now.

But I would argue that such examinations are more reflective of the work that the students will actually do in the world outside. More reflective than “Answer the following” type questions, that is.

The point isn’t to defend this particular format. The point is to ask if the current format needs to change (yes!) and if so how (this being only one suggestion).

Right now, examinations provide a 19th century solution to very real 21st century problems, and their irrelevance becomes ever more glaring by the day.

We need to talk about examinations, and we aren’t.

Economist Writing Everyday

That’s a blog I came across thanks to MR, and if you’re a student learning about economics, this is very much the kind of blog you should be reading.

Why?

  1. Updated regularly, which should serve as inspiration
  2. Written in an easy, conversational style (ditto)
  3. A lot of interesting blogposts that serve to help you think through concepts you may have learnt recently (students who’ve just embarked on macro might like reading this post, for example)
  4. And a meta point that I’m going to spend the rest of this blog post on, so please continue below the fold 🙂

One post that Tyler Cowen himself linked to in his post on MR was this one, about academic publishing:

There are a lot more people writing academic journal articles.
There is a lot more well-executed economic research.
The teams of co-authors on papers/projects have become much larger.
The number of journals whose prestige is commensurate with a tenured position at an elite school has grown slower than the total faculty employed by elite schools.
Economics research has become more expensive and labor intensive.

https://economistwritingeveryday.com/2021/05/31/academic-publishing-how-i-think-we-got-here/
  1. I’ll get to my thoughts about this in just a bit, but I want to spend a little bit of time in helping you learn how to draw parallels.
    1. Those points noted above, they work just as well if you replace journals with universities, and faculty with applicants.
    2. Further reading, if you’re now suddenly interested in the topic. Also ask yourself if your answer changes depending upon whether you’re in Harvard or not (or have been published in a top-tier journal or not – same thing, for the purposes of this post)
    3. “Where else can this be applied?” is a question that should be front and center when you’re learning a new concept is the larger point I want to make.
    4. So when you learn about the pyramid in publishing, ask if it can be applied to the world of student applications. To, say, the IPL. To, say, becoming a “top lawyer”, or a “top doctor”…. you get the drift.
  2. The rest of the post is a wonderful explanation of how to build a simple model to help you arrive at the equilibrium. More people should learn this skill, and more universities should teach this skill!
  3. The author’s conclusion? More papers should be published by top journals, which is tantamount to saying more students should be accepted by Harvard. Who is right? Mike Makowsky or Tyler Cowen? Why? If your answer is both, what makes student applications different from paper submissions? What a wonderful set of questions to think about!
  4. This blog (not just the blogpost, the blog) gets better from here on in because they’ve published a follow-up post on this topic!
    1. It’s written in “yes, and” style, rather than a “no, but” style, which is a lovely thing to see
    2. It asks this question: “As an academician, what are you optimizing for?” And employing the concept of division of labor, Jeremy Horpedahl argues that if you’re the kind of academician who likes to teach, maybe it’s ok to not be published in a top 5 journal. If you’re the kind of academician who likes to research, on the other hand…
    3. Homework: how does this work in the case of student applications?
  5. And all this from just two posts on the blog! I’ve subscribed, of course, and I would strongly recommend you to do the same.
  6. I’m going to be a little greedy, and give one final recommendation. This post on Identifying Ideas That Motivate You is great reading for young would-be researchers.

The Return of Protectionism, Writing Better Papers, 100 True Fans, Corona Virus and Classics on the Kindle

Five articles that I enjoyed reading this week, and figure you might as well.

 

Vivek Dehejia raises an uncomfortable question: are we more protectionist now than at any point of time since 1991, and examines some of the possible impacts.

Even the most well-inclined observers can no longer palm-off previous tariff increases by the current government as mere one-offs or aberrations. It is abundantly clear now, unfortunately, that the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in its second innings even more than the first, has abandoned an almost three-decade commitment to trade liberalization, going back to the initial liberalization impetus of 1991. Notably, even governments that did not further liberalize, at the very least refrained from sliding back into protectionism. No more, though—we are now witnessing a more or less explicit embrace of import substitution, which had been thought abandoned in 1991 and beyond.

Useful advice for writing academic papers on development better. Even if you don’t write these yourself, this article might have useful advice about selecting which ones to read.

You win or lose your readers with the introduction of your economics paper. Your title and your abstract should convince people to read your introduction. Research shows that economics papers with more readable introductions get cited more. The introduction is your opportunity to lay out your research question, your empirical strategy, your findings, and why it matters. Succinctly.

Some years ago, Kevin Kelly wrote an article called 1,000 true fans (he does a lot else besides, by the way, and learning more about him is worth your time). Li Jin has written a follow-up piece that I hope rings true in the years to come.

Today, that idea is as salient as ever—but I propose taking it a step further. As the Passion Economy grows, more people are monetizing what they love. The global adoption of social platforms like Facebook and YouTube, the mainstreaming of the influencer model, and the rise of new creator tools has shifted the threshold for success. I believe that creators need to amass only 100 True Fans—not 1,000—paying them $1,000 a year, not $100. Today, creators can effectively make more money off fewer fans.

I have so far resisted linking to or speaking about the Corona virus, primarily because I don’t know enough about the topic to speak responsibly about it. That, I’m sorry to say, hasn’t changed, but reading this article was helpful for me, and hopefully is for you as well!

The next two months will be critical, and it is important for all of us to do everything in our power to minimize viral spread. The simple stuff includes washing hands more frequently, greeting others without handshakes, getting a flu shot (if you haven’t already), and cleaning and disinfecting frequently touched objects. All of these actions are recommended by the CDC. Hopefully, through behavioral changes such as these, we will be able to keep R0 below 1 and prevent this virus from becoming a pandemic.

A random question asked in class this week spurred this search, and maybe you find this list useful yourself? I certainly did! Free classic literature on Kindle.