Writing papers on three hours of sleep and two shots of espresso is hard, but slaving away in Butler has its benefits–Bwog’s got the composition process almost down to a science. To help you through this finals season, here are some helpful guidelines for getting your thesis statement from your brain onto the page. Yesterday we gave you some advice on English and CC. Next up, a guide to that one thing for Frontiers of Science and an Econ paper.

Frontiers

This paper is an analysis of “The effects of ________ (television/video games/caffeine) on ________ (sight/aggressiveness/weight),” a study by _________ (professor from Harvard/international university/random school you made up). It seeks to examine the effects of ________ (watching six seasons of the Sopranos in a row/playing Skyrim/venti triplemacchiatomochalattes) on ________ (sight/aggressiveness/weight) by setting up an experiment. In the setup, test subjects were exposed to unusually high amounts of ________ (HBO Go/Wii consoles/Starbucks gift cards) and were tested for their _________ (ability to see researchers’ hands being waved in front of them/desire to punch random strangers/pants size). The same was done for a control group. In this experiment, the test results were used as a proxy for ________ (sight/aggressiveness/weight), and there were many sources of possible error, such as _________ (human error/ethically questionable experiment design/general validity). This is a significant study because its results could help scientist develop solutions for  ________ (important issue) all over _________ (country where study was performed/the world/the universe).

In the analysis section, use the words “proxy,” “standard deviation,” and “statistically significant” as frequently as possible.

Econ

 This paper seeks to explore the _______ (success/failure) of _______ (country)’s economic policy since ______ (WWII/the 1970s oil crisis/the 2008 stock market crash), especially in terms of _________ (different word for ‘policy’) decisions made by the _______ (government/Fed/WTO/ECB).  The __________ (major political or economic event) led to a _______ (recession/expansion) throughout _______ (country).  This board  _________ (implemented/did not implement) Keynesian policies, which was _________ (adjective) and led to ________ (change in trend).  In _________ (country) we see the _______ (beneficial/harmful) effects of ______ (keeping/adjusting) interest rates _______ (lower/higher).  Austerity measures _______ (were/were not) put into place, which created widespread _______ (feeling) across the nation’s population.  This reaction, in turn, led to a ________ (positive/negative) opinion of the country and ________ (confidence/lack of confidence) in the strength of the system, changing expectations.  The ________ (government)’s _________ (increased/decreased) spending, coupled with a(n) _______ (increased/sustained) money supply is widely believed to have _________ (verb, past tense) the employment rate.  These policies __________ (risked/led to) a(n) ________ (adjective) stagflation, affecting the ________ (industry) industry.  Through analysis of the ________ (pick any rate) data using regression formulas defined by _________ (program you kind of learned in econometrics), one can see a ________ (negative/positive) relationship between _________ (rate) and _______ (policy).  Placing _______ (data) into a Cobb-Douglas production function, one finds that a ________ (change) in ________ (input) would have been _______ (adjective). _______ (conjunction), if we observe the statistics in __________ (other similar country), it is plausible that the _________ (growth/failure) would have happened regardless of _________ (policies) due to natural changes in the business cycle.
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