Create new material

 Essays

Essays are texts on EE that are published under your name/the name of the writing team. To get a first idea of how an essay can look like, take a look at the following examples: 

 Global care chains, refugee crisis, and deskilling of workers

 Free Trade in economic theories

 The Economics of Populism in the Present

The central idea of an essay is to answer one question or hypothesis, presenting e.g. the main arguments of a controversy. The essay still complies with certain scientific criteria, but is less formal: the structure is more open to variations, e.g. you may present your own opinion. Keep in mind though that Exploring Economics is a platform for learning and teaching and not primarily for political debate. This means that your (political) opinions should be backed by scientific arguments that are embedded in the broader scientific controversy.

In general, the visitors of Exploring Economics will use your essay to learn something about the economy and economic science. Therefore, it will be helpful if you embed the question, hypothesis or controversy of your essay within the broader theoretical context of economics and/or political economy. If you, for instance, discuss the contribution of capital controls to stabilize national financial markets from a Keynesian perspective, the reader of your essay will profit if you outline why your approach is a Keynesian one and how this approach differs from other theoretical perspectives in economics/political economy.  Embedding your essay in the theoretical landscape in economics helps the users of the e-learning platform to learn something about the right application of theories and pluralist economics in general. 

How to write a good essay

In an essay, you need to motivate your questions/theses (“introduction”), then present your arguments (“body”) and give an own opinion and finally present some concluding remarks (“conclusion”). You can present your own opinion and emphasis it with scientific findings. It is possible to discuss one example or compare several cases. It is also possible to discuss a theoretical concept, as well as to support or reject the arguments of another author/paper. Though you are allowed to develop a personal opinion in an essay, keep in mind that Exploring Economics is a platform for learning and teaching and not primarily for political debate. This means that your (political) opinions should be backed by scientific arguments that are embedded in the broader scientific controversy. 

There are different kinds of essays, here are some examples: 

• analytic essay (What is feminist economics and why is it so important?)
• historical-chronological essay (How did feminist economics evolve?)
• comparative essay (What is feminist economics and what are countercurrents?)
• descriptive essay (What are the main features of feminist economics?)
• valuing essay (Why do we need feminist economics?)
• summarizing essay (What positions are represented in feminist economics?)

While writing you may consider the following questions: 

• Why is the topic important?
• Who is concerned by the topic?
• Which connection does a certain argument have with the topic as a whole?
• In which context is the argument embedded in?
• Which arguments (pro and con) exist in this context and what is your own position?
• Which steps are necessary to reach a good conclusion?

Formal criteria:

• Length of the essay: ~ 1.500 - 2.000 words (max. 2.500 if several persons write an essay together) 
• Please use American English
• You can write the essay individually or in a group
• Chicago Manual of Style: please use the author-date system

Sources for writing skills development

• Academic Pheasebank
• UW-Madison Writer’s Handbook
• Deirdre McCloskey’s ‘Economical Writing’ is a good resource. Here’s a handout.

Converting a paper, thesis or article into an essay 

Academic writing and learning often proceed in a standardized, sometimes even ritualised manner. Seminar-, B.A.-, M.A.- and PhD-theses, as well as conference and journal articles, are written along with a narrow set of criteria that are useful and justifiable from an academic point of view, but sometimes get in the way of a creative, collective and real-world-oriented writing process. Instead of student-written papers ending up in the file cabinet or journal articles behind paywalls, we envisage a bottom-up e-learning community where students and young researchers share and co-create learning and teaching material that can be used internationally and that addresses the scientific questions and economic challenges of the present.

We encourage you to convert your paper, thesis or article into an essay so that it can be used as an e-learning resource on Exploring Economics. In this case, we allow longer texts of at most 5.000 words. However, try to condense your thesis or paper, e.g. via leaving out methodological considerations and focusing on the conclusion and scientific or political implications of your work.

 Dossiers

The main idea of a dossier is to produce an overview of a certain issue, controversy or school of thought in economics (or related disciplines) via aggregating and visualizing pre-existing material. You can aggregate e.g. videos, texts, infographics, podcasts, etc. It is also possible to link for-pay contents like books or journal articles. You can use different visualisation tools, like Prezi or Adobe Spark. To get a first idea of how an essay can look like, take a look at the following examples: 

  An Introduction to Game Theory in Public Policy

  Could gender equality help the economy?

In general, there are two types of dossiers:

1. Linear dossier: A linear dossier, a linear text guides the reader through a certain topic (this means readers would go from start to end in a sequential path). In this linear presentation, you can lead from one material to the next one with short explaining paragraphs between each material. E.g. you could first present basic texts or videos that approach the respective topic in a general and introducing way, then present more in-depth and specified material. The material you refer to can be embedded in the text or appear as an external reference. Visualisations can/ should be an important part of an orientation text, but not its primary structuring principle. Adobe Spark is a recommendable tool for producing an orientation text.
2. Visualisation: In a visualisation, the different materials are not linked via bridging text elements, but primarily with the help of graphic tools. For example, you can create a “learning landscape” in the form of a Prezi presentation, where videos, text elements, podcasts, etc. are related in a visual way (see e.g. here). Prezi is a recommendable tool to create a visualisation.  

A dossier can focus on a certain topic (“The Green New Deal” or “Alternative currencies”) or have a more educational purpose (e.g. presenting “new developments in Austrian economics” or “five ways to get to know feminist economics”). A dossier differs from an essay, as the linkage and combined presentation of pre-existing material is its key purpose and not the production of new material. However, in linking and combining different materials and perspectives, a dossier has also creative aspects and develops new content. 

iki-articles

Wiki-articles are Wikipedia-style encyclopaedic entries that approach a certain economic theory, issue, phenomenon or controversy in an easy accessible, condensed, and - as far as possible - neutral way. Have a look at the Wikipedia guidelines (Your first article and The perfect article) for more detailed instructions. Make sure that the respective article does not exist on Wikipedia already (in good quality). We will together attempt to republish your article on Wikipedia and our own Wiki-platform, Wiwi-Wiki. Here, you can find instructions on how to write an article as well, however so far only in the German language.

 Foundational text

A foundational text introduces a paradigm, school of thought or theory in a longer article. Similar to our perspective texts in the orientation section, the foundational text should introduce one specific theoretical school or scientific perspective in a structured, pedagogically sound and plausible manner. While an essay article focuses on one specific question, controversy or topic within the broader theoretical landscape, the Exploring Economics foundations are supposed to help the users of our e-learning platform to systematically aquire knowledge about the different theoretical perspectives of pluralist economics.

Creative content

If you intend to create new and innovative material for exploring economics, that neither has the form of an essay nor a dossier or Wiki-article, contact us and describe your idea to us. In the future, we want to enable people to produce a new type of content that presents economic issues in an innovative way (e.g. animations, cartoons, videos, podcasts, short info flashes, interviews, interactive infographics, learning games, etc.).

 Book Review 

 Looking for inspiration? Check out our list of exciting topics!

• Age of Pandemics and Economics
• ALBA (Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América – Tratado de Comercio de los Pueblos, ALBA-TCP)
• Alternative currencies
• Alternative economic systems
• Alternative perspectives on efficiency in microeconomics
• Alternative perspectives on Human Resources in microeconomics
• ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations)
• Authoritarian Neoliberalism
• Bancor (international currency)
• Bank of the South (Banco del Sur)
• Basic income
• Bilateral free trade agreements
• Blockchain
• BRICS
• Business Administration
• Capital concentration
• Capital controls
• Capital levy
• Care Work
• Central Bank Policy
• Chiang-Mai-Initiative
• climate crisis
• Collective Self-Reliance
• Cooperatives, Cooperation & Commons
• Corruption/Crime
• Critical Theory
• Currency Hierarchy
• Debt cancellation
• Decolonization
• Decommodification
• Definancialisation
• Deglobalisation
• Degrowth
• Delinking
• Democracy at the workplace
• Development Economics
• Developmental State
• (Digital) economic planning
• Digitalization of the economy
• Diverse economies
• Divestment
• Dollarization
• Economic Complexity
• Economic democracy
• Economic Geography
• economic history
• Economic pluralism
• economic sociology
• Economics of the alt-right/new far-right
• Economisation and financialisation of Nature
• Emergence Theory
• Emerging Economies
• Energy autonomy
• ethics
• Eurocrisis
• European Banking Union
• Experimental Economics
• Financial transaction tax
• Financialisation
• Food sovereignty
• Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs)
• G20
• General basic dividend/robot tax
• Gift Economy
• (Global) tax system
• Health economics and Global Health
• history of ideas
• History of thought
• Humanitarian Economics
• IMF
• Imperial mode of living
• Import-Substitution
• Indigenous Economics
• Industrial conversion
• Industrial Policy
• Industry 4.0
• Inequality
• Inflation
• Islamic Economics
• Labour market representation, time distribution in households (Feminist economics perspective)
• MERCOSUR
• Methods & Methodology (Impact Evaluation)
• Micro-foundations
• Mixed Methods
• Neoliberal constitutionalism
• Neoliberalism
• New Trade Theories
• New Work
• non-European thinking
• Notion of work (critical treatment of the concept of work)
• Overaccumulation
• Pension systems
• Performativity
• philosophy of economics
• Policies
• Political ecology
• Post-Capitalism
• Post-extractivism
• Post-growth
• Post-pandemic economics
• Power
• Privatisation
• Profit rate development
• Public debt (crises)
• Qualitative Methods
• Quantitative Easing
• Rating Agencies
• Regional currencies
• Secular Stagnation
• Shadow banking (system)
• Shanghai Cooperation Organisation
• Social and Solidarity Economy
• Social infrastructure
• Social reproduction (theory)
• Social-ecological transformation
• Socialisation
• Socialism
• Solidary mode of living
• South-South Relationships
• Special Drawing Rights by the IMF
• Spiritual Economics
• Stratification Economics (e.g. Stephanie Seguino)
• Sufficiency
• Sustainable consumption
• Sustainable development
• SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication)
• Tax havens and tax avoidance
• Taxation in Developing Countries
• Teaching plural economics
• Tourism and Economics
• Transformative business
• Transformative Science and Economics
• Transition economies/countries
• Transnational /Multinational corporations
• Transnationalisation of Capital
• Trust
• Two-way relationship between culture and economy
• Unemployment
• Unions and labour struggles
• Values & Ethics in economics
• War, disaster, terrorism & economics
• Washington Consensus
• Wealth of Time
• Welfare Indicators
• World-System Theory
• WTO

Suggest a new topic for this list