R. Keeney—April 23, 2012

 It is expected that if you have a Purdue AGEC degree, you will be an effective communicator of economic rationale and ideas  Written and oral  Interviews and applications  Assignments, projects, technical reports, your own promotion etc.

 All from Research without Tears  John Creedy, 2008, published by Edward Elgar Press  Quote from Samuel Johnson:  “What is written without effort is in general read without enjoyment.”  There are lots of types of writing  Each profession has its own standards and requirements  The aims here are meant to encompass nearly all professional (non-literary) writing

 Clarity  Written communication must emerge as a transparent statement of issues, methods, and results/conclusions  Data/Calculations/Graphs are not clear communication  These are supportive or contradictory evidence in the development of a thesis (argumentative or descriptive)  As the author, you are the expert providing the interpretation  Provide clear interpretations and justify them  Succinctness is a virtue (often where the effort part comes in)

 Demonstrates a clear depiction of the question or problem addressed  Motivates the question as worthy of study or investigation  Explicitly states both methods and results  Recognizes both the value and limitations of results and conclusions

 …tells the reader…  What they will discover in the reading  Why this discovery is worth knowing  How this discovery was made  What is the importance or significance of the discovery  …consists of careful draft and revision  Critical review can be important to revision  …takes time and planning

 Nearly every document has an introductory section, in almost every case it is the key to successful communication  In some professions this may be less important than an Executive Summary  It must provide (at least in general) answers to what, how, and why relative to the topic addressed in the writing  Also might lay out the further writing via signposts ▪ How is the document organized for the impatient reader who wants to read in a different order than you have written?

 Relevance  Reviewing literature is done to serve your purposes, not to drop names or show how much you have read ▪ Good literature reviews are not exhaustive ▪ Your knowledge/familiarity on the other hand…  Might be the worst taught aspect of the writing discipline  Be sure to avoid: Author 1 showed/said/found X…Author 2 showed/said/found Y…Author 3 showed/said/found Z…

 Technical and other descriptive reporting  Results reporting and analysis  A highly variable section of writing that is tough to generalize  Let your topic be your guide on how a body section is broken up among discussions of ▪ Data and methods ▪ Results ▪ Analysis

 Restatements  Question/Approach/Findings  Implications  Your analysis has to mean something…  What limitations have been overcome and what remain  Necessary future work

 On the class website, my writeup of the AGEC 352 diet using all foods from the 2009 database  Whether it’s a good or bad example of written communication is up to you to evaluate ▪ Reading critically helps your writing ▪ When you are reading and find something you don’t understand, ask yourself if it is your knowledge or the author’s ability to communicate that is limiting…