Researchers are expected to produce original findings, yet nobody explains how original contributions are conceived in economics. Recently there have been calls for more creativity in economic research, yet there is no literature that explores creative research apart from collections of biographical essays. This book aims to address that gap, exploring the process of conceiving and generating ideas for interesting and original research contributions in economics (and potentially other social sciences too). Creative Research in Economics serves both a practical and theoretical purpose. Theoretically it presents a unique way of thinking about the nature of problems and questions in economics and the role of social science researchers in society. As such it offers an interesting way to think about the philosophy of science and methodology in economics, and how new ideas emerge in the discipline. Practically it develops techniques for finding interesting and original research contributions (as opposed to conventional data-gathering research). Whether you are a graduate student looking for that first interesting question, a novice researcher in search of fresh avenues for research after your PhD, or a seasoned academic looking to teach the philosophy and methodology of economics in more interesting ways, you will find this book of great use.

Integrating insights from learning science with practical guidelines and stepwise approaches, Teaching Complex Ideas helps educators masterfully translate their expertise into easy-to-understand, interesting, and memorable instruction. Covering areas such as identifying the critical ideas within a complex topic, designing clear explanations, and making lectures useful and engaging, this resource brings together subjects and skills never before adequately addressed in a single book. Using real world examples and full of practical tips, this book guides college instructors to improve their understanding of their subjects, select the most valuable ideas to teach, and integrate those concepts with other aspects of teaching such as presentation design, technology, and assessment of understanding. This practical book helps professors at any stage in their career convert even the most complex ideas into great teaching.

Integrating insights from learning science with practical guidelines and stepwise approaches, Teaching Complex Ideas helps educators masterfully translate their expertise into easy-to-understand, interesting, and memorable instruction. Covering areas such as identifying the critical ideas within a complex topic, designing clear explanations, and making lectures useful and engaging, this resource brings together subjects and skills never before adequately addressed in a single book. Using real world examples and full of practical tips, this book guides college instructors to improve their understanding of their subjects, select the most valuable ideas to teach, and integrate those concepts with other aspects of teaching such as presentation design, technology, and assessment of understanding. This practical book helps professors at any stage in their career convert even the most complex ideas into great teaching.

Research is difficult. Even though students are trained in the basic research methodology skills, when confronted with research writing, it feels to them as if they enter a bizarre world, with its own language and conventions, where it is hard to get things right. This book translates the apparent complexities of research writing into everyday ideas, language and skills, and will enable novice researchers to start overcoming the major stumbling blocks immediately.

This book focuses only on the greatest challenges in research writing, specifically those that supervisors find most difficult to explain to novice researchers. These challenges include both basic and more complex skills, such as: finding original research contributions; establishing one’s voice while drawing on other authors; turning a vague idea into a feasible research question; generating literature reviews that are original in themselves; and avoiding list-like writing when discussing the research methodology.

Wentzel shows that it is easier to overcome these challenges, not with lists of prescriptions that are difficult to remember while writing, but rather by cultivating an argumentative mindset. Not only is such a mindset much easier to maintain, but it offers a central point around which one can organise any difficult writing task. The book shows how to use the argumentative mindset to approach every important writing challenge. It translates all the necessary skills into jargon-free language using a variety of visuals and simple step-by-step procedures that will enable any person to read the book quickly and start writing immediately.

The book is accompanied by a website containing an instructor’s manual with guidance on the teaching and assessment of research writing, as well as lecture slides.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Chapter 1. Research as Argument

Chapter 2. Understanding the Basic Research Skills in the Light of Argument

Chapter 3. Finding an Original Contribution

Chapter 4. Writing Argumentatively

Chapter 5. How to Get Started and Write Introductions

Chapter 6. Writing an Original and Argumentative Literature review

Chapter 7. Principles of Writing Argumentatively about your Research Design and Methodology

Chapter 8. In Conclusion

Index

Researchers are expected to produce original findings, yet nobody explains how original contributions are conceived in economics. Recently there have been calls for more creativity in economic research, yet there is no literature that explores creative research apart from collections of biographical essays. This book aims to address that gap, exploring the process of conceiving and generating ideas for interesting and original research contributions in economics (and potentially other social sciences too). Creative Research in Economics serves both a practical and theoretical purpose. Theoretically it presents a unique way of thinking about the nature of problems and questions in economics and the role of social science researchers in society. As such it offers an interesting way to think about the philosophy of science and methodology in economics, and how new ideas emerge in the discipline. Practically it develops techniques for finding interesting and original research contributions (as opposed to conventional data-gathering research). Whether you are a graduate student looking for that first interesting question, a novice researcher in search of fresh avenues for research after your PhD, or a seasoned academic looking to teach the philosophy and methodology of economics in more interesting ways, you will find this book of great use.

Research is difficult. Even though students are trained in the basic research methodology skills, when confronted with research writing, it feels to them as if they enter a bizarre world, with its own language and conventions, where it is hard to get things right. This book translates the apparent complexities of research writing into everyday ideas, language and skills, and will enable novice researchers to start overcoming the major stumbling blocks immediately. This book focuses only on the greatest challenges in research writing, specifically those that supervisors find most difficult to explain to novice researchers. These challenges include both basic and more complex skills, such as: finding original research contributions; establishing one's voice while drawing on other authors; turning a vague idea into a feasible research question; generating literature reviews that are original in themselves; and avoiding list-like writing when discussing the research methodology. Wentzel shows that it is easier to overcome these challenges, not with lists of prescriptions that are difficult to remember while writing, but rather by cultivating an argumentative mindset. Not only is such a mindset much easier to maintain, but it offers a central point around which one can organise any difficult writing task. The book shows how to use the argumentative mindset to approach every important writing challenge. It translates all the necessary skills into jargon-free language using a variety of visuals and simple step-by-step procedures that will enable any person to read the book quickly and start writing immediately. The book is accompanied by a website containing an instructor's manual with guidance on the teaching and assessment of research writing, as well as lecture slides.