1. Empirical Project

2. Format 10 to 15 pages double spaced 1 inch margins all around
does not include bibliography or tables
double spaced
1 inch margins all around
Microsoft Word disk file
hard copy

3. Organization Introduction motivation results structure for example
educational policy
resource allocation
methodological issues
why reader should be interested
why you are interested
results
structure

4. Organization Literature review Describe the current state of knowledge
Reference articles
Highlight controversies or unsettled issues
Describe where your paper fits in

5. Organization Theory or modeling May be formal or informal
State your hypotheses
may be implications of formal theory
may relate them to the literature
indicate how they will be tested

6. Organization Data Describe the data source observations time frame
unusual or unique variables
potentially unusual or unique observations

7. Organization Data Descriptive statistics inferences about observations
inferences about hypotheses
unusual or unique observations
correlations
subsets of the data

8. Organization Empirical approach OLS Techniques to address problems
results
problems
Techniques to address problems

9. Organization Conclusions relate to your hypotheses
relate to the literature
further questions that arise from your work

10. Documentation Include your stata program disk and hard copy
data cleaning to final data set
redefining or constructing variables
including or excluding observations
constraint definition
estimation commands
post estimation tests or predictions

11. Object Formulate a model Describe hypotheses Estimate the model
account for any econometric issues
Report results
Put results in context
literature
what is learned