gnrlies
Member
- Joined
- May 12, 2003
- Messages
- 781
- Gender
- Male
- HSC
- 2003
Hey guys, just a note regarding your essays.
Ive read a few, and have the following to say about marking criteria, guidelines etc, to help you people out.
Note that the title is "make a good essay great" not "make a bad essay great", so i guess the point is that if you're not 100% with your economic theory and content then this wont help you get 20/20.
But if you do know your content, and theory, and are a good student, but you just dont know how to convert that into marks, then here are some suggestions:
1 - Notes on statistics -
You should all know about how statistics can be a real breadwinner for your essays. This is true, but be carefull. The best things about statistics is that they help you demonstrate an arguement that you might be making. To simply put a statistic in because you know it is a waste of time. For example if you're talking about CAD's, dont simply say:
"australia has a current account deficit of $X"
say something like:
"australia has a current account deficit of $X which represents Y% of GDP. This figure has been criticised by many as it is outside the recomended range prescribed by the IMF".
You are doing something that only top students will do. That is add value to your statistics. Without this extra bit of information, many statistics are just a number. So what if growth is 3% of gdp? so what it unemployment is 5%? The key point is that you have to interpret your statistic, not just regurgitate it.
Another point to make about statistics, is to have some sort of comparative figure. For example when throwing up a statistic in australia, it is often usefull to know either a past figure to compare a current figure, or to have some sort of OECD average. My tip is to remember statistics in pairs. So for example if im gonna remember that australia's unemployment rate is 5%, im also going to remember that OECD unemployment is 6.8%.
Dont forget to try and get some stats for your case study. Theres no reason why it cannot come up as an essay.
Finally, dont get tied up in remembering pages and pages of data (for exams only). if you follow the pair of statistics rule, or in cases where more depth is required, then just remember 3 or 4 numbers (i cant think of anything other than unemployment where you might want to do this).
2 - Economic Models
For anyone who goes onto study any kind of economics at university, you will soon learn that in any assignment or article you write (or read for that matter), there is an expectation that you back up what you are saying with an economic model. Good HSC essays will do exactly the same thing (although understandably not to the same depth)
So the question is what is an economic model? well quite simply any kind of economic analysis that you can represent using things such as equations of diagrams, that demonstate what you are saying.
For example, if I want to talk about unemployment and inflation, I would draw a little phillips curve.
A model is usually an equation or a diagram, so it helps to remember as many as you can. Even though they are not always directly examinable, an essay thats thrown in a good diagram or equation (or even just a simple identity) will look a lot better than one without.
My advice is to scour your textbook, and notes, find every diagram and equation you see, and literally write them down on some notes to look at and remember. Even if you only use a quarter of them, thats still a lot. (plus it helps in your understanding of concepts).
You need to use your model to explain something, so its important to connect it to the content of your essay.
3 - Essay Structure
Teachers like a few things when looking at essays. The most important thing they like, is to see that youve answered the question. This sounds easy, but a lot of students dont answer the question. They go on all sorts of time wasting tangents. It's very easy to do, especially when so many things in economics relate to one another.
A very effective way to prevent this from occuring is to predefine your structure. Hopefully most of you already do something like this, but how you do it can also be a very important difference between a good and an excellent essay.
Spend 3 minutes or so actually deciphering the question, and seeing which parts of the syllabus. Remember that teachers want to see those magic syllabus points your syllabus and you often have an immediate structure to your essay. Naturally not all are relevant, but if you form your structure with the syllabus in mind, you obviously know you are talking about relevant things (unless you choose the wrong things in the syllabus).
Apologies for the poor grammar, sentence structure and spelling haha. I wrote it late at night and wasn't 100% on the ball.
---------
Hopefully these points will help some people, and if not, hopefully thats because you already know how to do it! I guess these are the points which really make a strong essay
Ive read a few, and have the following to say about marking criteria, guidelines etc, to help you people out.
Note that the title is "make a good essay great" not "make a bad essay great", so i guess the point is that if you're not 100% with your economic theory and content then this wont help you get 20/20.
But if you do know your content, and theory, and are a good student, but you just dont know how to convert that into marks, then here are some suggestions:
1 - Notes on statistics -
You should all know about how statistics can be a real breadwinner for your essays. This is true, but be carefull. The best things about statistics is that they help you demonstrate an arguement that you might be making. To simply put a statistic in because you know it is a waste of time. For example if you're talking about CAD's, dont simply say:
"australia has a current account deficit of $X"
say something like:
"australia has a current account deficit of $X which represents Y% of GDP. This figure has been criticised by many as it is outside the recomended range prescribed by the IMF".
You are doing something that only top students will do. That is add value to your statistics. Without this extra bit of information, many statistics are just a number. So what if growth is 3% of gdp? so what it unemployment is 5%? The key point is that you have to interpret your statistic, not just regurgitate it.
Another point to make about statistics, is to have some sort of comparative figure. For example when throwing up a statistic in australia, it is often usefull to know either a past figure to compare a current figure, or to have some sort of OECD average. My tip is to remember statistics in pairs. So for example if im gonna remember that australia's unemployment rate is 5%, im also going to remember that OECD unemployment is 6.8%.
Dont forget to try and get some stats for your case study. Theres no reason why it cannot come up as an essay.
Finally, dont get tied up in remembering pages and pages of data (for exams only). if you follow the pair of statistics rule, or in cases where more depth is required, then just remember 3 or 4 numbers (i cant think of anything other than unemployment where you might want to do this).
2 - Economic Models
For anyone who goes onto study any kind of economics at university, you will soon learn that in any assignment or article you write (or read for that matter), there is an expectation that you back up what you are saying with an economic model. Good HSC essays will do exactly the same thing (although understandably not to the same depth)
So the question is what is an economic model? well quite simply any kind of economic analysis that you can represent using things such as equations of diagrams, that demonstate what you are saying.
For example, if I want to talk about unemployment and inflation, I would draw a little phillips curve.
A model is usually an equation or a diagram, so it helps to remember as many as you can. Even though they are not always directly examinable, an essay thats thrown in a good diagram or equation (or even just a simple identity) will look a lot better than one without.
My advice is to scour your textbook, and notes, find every diagram and equation you see, and literally write them down on some notes to look at and remember. Even if you only use a quarter of them, thats still a lot. (plus it helps in your understanding of concepts).
You need to use your model to explain something, so its important to connect it to the content of your essay.
3 - Essay Structure
Teachers like a few things when looking at essays. The most important thing they like, is to see that youve answered the question. This sounds easy, but a lot of students dont answer the question. They go on all sorts of time wasting tangents. It's very easy to do, especially when so many things in economics relate to one another.
A very effective way to prevent this from occuring is to predefine your structure. Hopefully most of you already do something like this, but how you do it can also be a very important difference between a good and an excellent essay.
Spend 3 minutes or so actually deciphering the question, and seeing which parts of the syllabus. Remember that teachers want to see those magic syllabus points your syllabus and you often have an immediate structure to your essay. Naturally not all are relevant, but if you form your structure with the syllabus in mind, you obviously know you are talking about relevant things (unless you choose the wrong things in the syllabus).
Apologies for the poor grammar, sentence structure and spelling haha. I wrote it late at night and wasn't 100% on the ball.
---------
Hopefully these points will help some people, and if not, hopefully thats because you already know how to do it! I guess these are the points which really make a strong essay
Last edited:
