by ‘Nobel Prize’ winner Claudia Goldin helps you get your econ papers published We do not instruct our students well in the art of crafting papers, possibly because there are so many idiosyncratic elements. Editing or refereeing manuscripts teaches us what distinguishes a well-crafted paper from an ordinary one. We should take on these chores not only because they are public services but also because they are the only means of learning how to write. Reading your own papers or those that are published cannot teach you the craft of writing. Unless you have put your paper away for several weeks, possibly months, you will read it with too friendly an eye and ear, for the same reason that parents are never adequate critics of their own children. And the papers
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‘Nobel Prize’ winner Claudia Goldin helps you get your econ papers published
We do not instruct our students well in the art of crafting papers, possibly because there are so many idiosyncratic elements. Editing or refereeing manuscripts teaches us what distinguishes a well-crafted paper from an ordinary one. We should take on these chores not only because they are public services but also because they are the only means of learning how to write. Reading your own papers or those that are published cannot teach you the craft of writing. Unless you have put your paper away for several weeks, possibly months, you will read it with too friendly an eye and ear, for the same reason that parents are never adequate critics of their own children. And the papers that get published are a selected group that have been through countless revisions. Learn how to write from the errors of others. They provide a limitless supply:
(1) Most importantly, find a topic of substance about which you feel passionately.
(2) Then be the best detective you can be. Don’t just “round up the usual suspects”; don’t simply look under the existing lamppost. Locate new suspects. Turn on lights where they have never shone before. Follow Holmes’s dictum that “There is nothing like first-hand evidence,” as well as his admonition that “Any truth is better than indefinite doubt.”
(3) Go back and forth among theory, empirics, and stories until you iterate on the very best truth you can tell. Sherlock Holmes was known to remark that: “It is a capital mistake to theorize in advance of the facts.” And Joe Friday always sought: “the facts, Ma’m, just the facts.” They may have been great detectives, but they would have made lousy economists.
(4) And, because nothing of value is easy or simple, you must: plod, plod, plod; question, question, question; write, rewrite, and rewrite again. Be your own worst enemy, so that no one else is. Put the work away and read it with new eyes, not those of its creator.
(5) Find your own “voice.”
(6) And I hope that you will discover the importance of history and of long-term trends in the knowledge you create.