Economics 499
Dr. Reed Olsen
Spring 1999
Assignment 3

This assignment is designed to familiarize you with searching for economic literature. It follows the general outline of such searches presented in class and in the textbook. This assignment will result in a brief (2 or 3 page) written report. Do the following:

  1. Choose a topic for which you wish to find literature. Write down the topic in a sentence or two, being careful to be as specific as possible. Write a list of keywords that you expect to help you in your search. (Note: the topic chosen here need not have anything to do with your final project.) The topic must be related to economics (i.e., you can't search for articles on common treatments for rheumatoid arthritis, you could search for the economic impact of rheumatoid arthritis.)

  2. Go to the Internet and find at least 5 articles or books (at least 1 of each) related to the topic you chose. Print out a reference for each article and book. Make a copy of one entire article (not book) either by going to the Missouri State library and finding the article in the journal there or by printing it out from an on-line resource. Note: You may need to refine your search, either to limit it further or to extend it, once you've begun searching. Which you do depends upon the results obtained from the initial search. For example, your initial search may result in 500 articles being displayed. Then you would want to choose additional keywords to limit the search further.

  3. Go to the library and find at least 5 articles or books (at least 1 of each) from library-related indexes, rather than on-line indexes. Print out a reference for each book. If you're using a print data base for the article searches, photo-copy the page of print index for each of the articles. Make a copy of one entire article (not book) by finding the article in the journal in the Missouri State library.

  4. In your written report you must include a bibliography, which includes a listing for each article and book you found in (2) and (3) above. The bibliography must be ordered alphabetically by author. Each reference should be in the following format:

Books

Wyrick, Thomas L. 1994. The Economist's Handbook: A Research and Writing Guide. New York: West Publishing Company. Index Name.

Notice the general format. First is the author's name, the date of publication, the title of the book (either italicized or underlined), the place of publication: the publishing company. The "Index Name" refers to the index in which you found the book. For example, you would say "Missouri State University Catalogue" if you found it in the Missouri State library catalogue.

Articles

Olsen, Reed N. and Coppin, Addington. 1998. "Earnings and Ethnicity in Trinidad and Tobago." Journal of Development Studies. Volume 34 (no. 3), pp. 116-134. Index Name.

Again, notice the general format. First are the authors' names (be sure to include the names of all authors), the date of publication, the title of the article (in quotes), the title of the journal the article is published in (either italicized or underlined), the volume number of the journal (if present you should include the number of the volume), and the pages numbers within the volumes. Again, the "Index Name" refers to the index in which you found the article referenced. For example, if you found the article referenced in the CARL database, just type "CARL".

  1. Briefly discuss the results of your search. How useful are the articles and books that you found to investigating your topic? What did you have to do to find the articles or books in your search (i.e., did you have to change the search parameters, go to a new database, etc.)? You should end up with two copied articles from your search. Give a brief summary of each of these two copied articles in your report.

  2. Your written report should include the following elements:

The Assignment is due in class, Wednesday, February 10th.

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