EC481: Research Paper and Seminar

Spring 2023

PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS

This consists of two components: your presentation slides, and the following
presentation.

1. Slide Deck (10%)

Please prepare a slide show of what you have learned in your research so far.
The slide show should consist of fewer than 10 slides, i.e., enough to conduct a
10-12 minute presentation.

The presentation should cover the following:

1. A statement of your research question. The research question must clearly

state the relationship that you are researching. It should be specific enough to
make the research paper manageable.

2. An explanation of why this research question is interesting or important;

3. A discussion of what economic reasoning tells us about the question; for many
questions, this will involve a discussion of the economic theory on the subject.

4. A brief discussion of what other research on this question (or related issues) has
found

5. A discussion of data that you plan to use to answer your research question. This
should include a description of the data source, the variables you plan to use in
your analysis, and way you plan to analyze the data. Please provide as much
detail as you can.

The slides may be different from traditional presentation slides in that the reader
should be able to understand your slides without you being there. This means
that you might need to put a few more words on the slides than you normally
would.

Note: In this section, you will be evaluated on the content of the slides, not
on how appealing they are, or how well you present them.

© A. Essaji & R. Karim, 2023

 EC 481K Preliminary Analysis, Spring 2023 2

Please upload the slides to the MyLS Dropbox by June 19, 2023 at 11:59pm.

2. Presentation

The presentation will be a summary of your progress-to-date. You may use the
slide deck you created for (1), but you may want to reduce the content on the
slides, to make the presentation easier to follow. The presentation should be
10-12 minutes long. They will take place in the week of June 26.

As with the proposal I am required to assess your presentation skills. In this

component, I will address your speaking technique, use of communication aids
(i.e., the quality of your slides), your organization of the presentation and the
professionalism of your presentation. Please see the rubric on MyLS to see what
you will be assessed on.