-Excerpted from Professor Qian Yingyi's American Economist.

There are two kinds of papers, one is theoretical and the other is empirical. If it is a theoretical paper, there should be new models and new achievements; If it is an empirical paper, there should be new methods (or new data) and new discoveries. If there is both theory and demonstration, it would be better to have new achievements and discoveries. It is not enough to have new ideas and new viewpoints, but also to have concrete results of logical reasoning or argumentation.

What kind of paper is good paper? The purpose of economics papers is to improve people's understanding of economic phenomena. Usually in a paper, economic thought is the most important, and it is embodied and implemented by mathematics and measurement methods. Specifically, whether a paper is good or not depends on at least three aspects. The first is to see if the problem is important. The second is to see whether the argumentation process (including logic and evidence) is clever.

Rigorous and persuasive The third is to see whether the results are correct and significant. If the theory and results are "surprising" first, then "resonate" and then make people feel "unexpected and reasonable", it will arouse more readers' interest.

Writing a paper for the first time will make several common mistakes. First, the topic of the paper is not focused enough and the discussion is general. For example, some students tend to think in an abstract framework and write articles that are wide but not deep. Some students are good at quoting, but the details of their arguments are vague. The theme of academic papers should be specific and narrow, but the discussion should be in-depth and detailed.

Second, the paper is not clear enough, and it is difficult for the tutor to understand. The paper should be straightforward and express your new ideas after the first few paragraphs. If the tutor still doesn't understand after reading it for several weeks, he will ask: what is this?

this

Point? What are you talking about? If you still don't know what to say after reading the whole article, the professor will get an impression that (s) he.

do

no

Know what?

what

be

Doing (he doesn't know what he is doing). This is not only a simple language problem, but also a reflection of one's thinking and discussion on economic issues.

Thirdly, the thesis can't be properly positioned in the literature. This often makes readers unable to see clearly your new contribution and the connection between your work and existing literature. Because scientific research rewards "marginal contribution", the paper must distinguish its new contribution from the known results in the literature.