Economy

– General Education Writing Component
Objective: This course includes a writing component – a critique – for which the student must synthesize the material learnt throughout the course and apply their
knowledge to critique a particular point-of-view. Instructions: You are to submit a critique of the following article: Journal Title: Foreign AffairsIssue: November/December 2012 Pages: 97-109 Author: Lane KenworthyTitle of Article: It’s Hard to Make it in America: How the United States Stopped Being the Land of Opportunity Read it online at http://www.langaa-rpcig.net/+It-s-Hard-to-Make-It-in-America+.html You may choose to critique the entire article (not suggested) or an idea from it, a section, or even a paragraph. Whichever option you choose, you still must be
familiar with the entire article. The overall critique must be between approximately 750 words, well-written using formal language with proper English grammar and
spelling, nicely formatted and referenced, and an original piece of work (plagiarism will not be tolerated). It is worth 15% of your final grade and must be completed
by 11:55 pm, Monday, November 20, 2017. —————————————- What is a critique?A review (or “critique”) is not a summary. Rather, it analyses, comments on and evaluates the work or arguments presented in the article. As a course assignment, it
situates the work in the light of specific issues being discussed in the course. Your review should show that you can recognize arguments and engage in critical
thinking about the course content you have learned so far in economics. However, you are strongly encouraged to incorporate what you have learned in other courses as
well (e.g. history, humanities, political science, etc.).
What to keep in mind when you prepare your critique: 1. What is the specific topic and what is overall purpose of the article?
2. For whom is it written? 3. What is the thesis of the article? What are the theoretical assumptions? Are they discussed explicitly? Is the article biased in any way or are the arguments
objectively presented? Does the author use mostly normative statements, positive statements or analytical statements?
4. What kinds of material does the work present (e.g. primary documents or secondary material, personal observations, literary analysis, quantitative data,
biographical or historical accounts)?
5. How is this material used to demonstrate and argue the thesis? (As well as indicating the overall argumentative structure of the work, your review could quote
or summarize specific passages to describe the author’s presentation, including writing style and tone.)
6. Are there alternative ways of arguing from the same material? Does the author show awareness of them? In what respects does the author agree or disagree with
them?
7. What theoretical issues and topics for further discussion does the work raise?
To keep your focus, remind yourself that your assignment is primarily to discuss the article’s treatment of its topic, not the topic itself. Your key sentences should
therefore say “This article shows…, or the author argues…” rather than “This happened…, or this is the case…” You are encouraged to seek out various sources of
information to formulate your critique.
More information: Check out the following document for a good outline on how to present a high-quality critique/review of an article: http://wwwdocs.fce.unsw.edu.au/fce/EDU/eduwritingcritreview.pdf